I'm getting bored. I quite liked the lockdown when it first started because it didn't actually make a huge difference to my life.
My writing is done from home anyway (usually with toddler Indy contributing the occasional handful of porridge or yogurt as he tries to let me know he needs either the television programme or his nappy changed); and most of the political commentary interviews I do are for radio and down the line. And that process didn't really change all that much when the prime minister decreed that I should remain at home until he had thought of something that looked like a credible alternative.
At the start I had lots of things to do. Indeed, I was turning into Mr Pooter from The Diary of a Nobody: 'There is always something to be done. A tin-tack here, a Venetian blind to put straight, a fan to nail up, or part of a carpet to nail down - all of which I can do with my pipe in my mouth (or glass of Pimm's in my hand, in my case).'
We went through every room in the house making a note of all the somethings to be done. At the end we had a notebook stuffed with jottings and a costs estimate which would have required our mortgage company to give us a lockdown 'payments holiday' stretching to about 2022.
The following day Indy, turning three in July, discovered the sheer joy which follows the introduction of a biro to a wall. His squiggles were everywhere, including places we have no idea how he reached. I googled 'methods to remove biro from walls' and tried vinegar, hairspray, coffee, alcohol rub and vodka. The walls now look much worse than when he started and the paint has begun to peel off in enormous chunks. We sat down with what was left with the vodka (and no, I don't mean Indy) and decided that there was no point doing anything in the house until he had 'grown out' of this latest destructive phase, or we had purchased some sort of cage for him online. Thank goodness we haven't been allowed visitors.
We decided to have a go at the garden instead. Within a few hours we had realised why we never ever had a go at the garden in pre-lockdown days. It is utterly pointless and far too dangerous. Worse, Indy loves being outside and sees every rake, fork, spade, trowel and watering-can as something to be lifted and either thrown at my head or placed behind me when I'm working on something else. According to Kerri, my partner, watching Indy and me in the garden was a bit like watching Laurel and Hardy in a garden - with me as Ollie (albeit not in size).
There is a rule - and has been since the cat got stuck in the apple tree - that I am not allowed to climb ladders or trees in the garden. I have no natural sense of balance. I have been known to fall over when getting up from a sofa or climbing out of the car. And when the cat got stuck I ended up crashing to the ground while he watched, licked his bits and then slid gracefully on top of me and gave me a 'thanks for trying' lick. This, by the way, was the same cat who watched us pull a decking apart because Kerri was convinced he was injured and trapped underneath. We couldn't find him and kept on calling his name. It was Lilah who said, "Look, he's curled up in the curtains at the French doors." I've never got round to repairing the decking.
My favourite place in lockdown land is the hammock, even though I have fallen out of it at least twice a week since it was first hung. The world is different in a hammock. Things look better and feel better. Some of my best tweets have been composed in the hammock: so much so that I had thought of writing a bestseller, Thoughts Of A Swinger - although Kerri tells me some people might buy it for entirely the wrong reasons. To be honest, if there's money rolling into the bank I'm not going to be worried if my readers are disappointed by the contents.
But, as I say, I'm now bored with lockdown. The good news - although not for me - is that a gardener, painter and handyman will earn a fortune when this is over. Every cloud...
