Life

Nuala McCann: A week full of firsts as our topsy-turvy life rights itself

We walked into town. All the familiar street sounds are music... the swirl and buzz of a cappuccino machine; the little street cleaner lorry whizzing past. The busker is back in his Cornmarket. He’s as good as ever

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann is an Irish News columnist and writes a weekly radio review.

Belfast city centre is reawakening after months of pandemic-enforced slumber. Picture by Hugh Russell
Belfast city centre is reawakening after months of pandemic-enforced slumber. Picture by Hugh Russell Belfast city centre is reawakening after months of pandemic-enforced slumber. Picture by Hugh Russell

SLOWLY, like dipping a toe into icy water on the bank of a river, we are finding our way into the world.

This topsy-turvy life is righting itself.

You find it in the whispers of city life. The streets are no longer eerily empty. You'd be hard pressed to find a parking space on the Dublin Road and there's a strange comfort in the familiar frustration.

High up above City Hall, the seagulls wheel and screech, swooping down to snatch the crumbs of someone's lunch from under a bench in the grounds.

We, too, are coming down to earth - but very slowly, we're taking no chances.

This week was full of firsts - first in the city; first inside a coffee shop; first back in the office since March 2020.

It feels like I'm 10 years older than the woman who walked up the Ormeau Road that day we closed down, swinging her bag.

Just a few weeks, she thought, no big deal.

And the spring turned to summer and she wore crop circles walking around the garden and she was investing heavily in Age Perfect Golden Blonde and it all seemed like a dream, but not a terrible one if you ignored the daily press conferences and set your sights on the far perimeter of the garden gate and the cake and cheese and fresh ground coffee left on the front step as gifts.

But it did drag on. And going back is taking time. I'm never one for diving in.

That's me in the navy school swimsuit lined up with my classmates, ducks in a row, waiting to get into the pool for the weekly lesson.

Some girls took a running jump in; some raised two hands elegantly above their heads and dived in with grace, some - like me - sat on the edge, shook as the cold water hit them then lowered themselves gingerly into the chlorine bath.

On Saturday, our son and I took a recce into town.

In the run-up to a return to the office, it was important to see that my work pass still worked, that I had a place in the car park and what the inside of the building was like.

Meet Anal Me.

It was, as it turned out, reassuringly familiar. Plus ca change.

We walked into town. It was 9.30am so the shops were quite empty.

The French woman in the clothes shop greeted me like an old friend.

The woman in the supermarket who's from Kenya and has the most beautiful long wavy black curls, chatted about our sunshine.

Funny how she grew up with intense heat and spent hours as a child playing in it, but now, when the sun shines in Northern Ireland, she can't stand it, she said.

There's the familiar man with long hair and a beard who pushes his shopping trolley piled high with food bargains.

Once, I offered to buy him a coffee and he looked at me like I was buying him a cup of arsenic and showed me a well-thumbed health book that I ought to read.

All the familiar street sounds are music... the swirl and buzz of a cappuccino machine; the little street cleaner lorry whizzing past.

The busker is back in his Cornmarket.

He's as good as ever. I reach in my purse and the coins feel like foreign currency - French Francs or Polish Zlotys.

Yes, the café has its windows flung open, the coffee and the chocolate caramels are the same, just remember to follow the arrows and use the sanitiser.

And the office has a temperature machine and a one-way system, there is one route in and one way out, everyone has a mask. You go in the front and out the back gate.

We are all adept at rolling swabs round our tonsils and up our noses.

But most of all, the office has friends to lift you. There's a whiff of freedom in the corridors - the house had begun to feel like prison.

How have we changed?

Grief lurks on corners and jumps out to scare you when least expected and masks can hide so much.

But there's joy in the air... the prospect of a meeting with old friends, time to argue over who pays the bill, to laugh and joke and slag each other off, to compare the effectiveness of hearing aids.

And honestly, I can't wait.