Lockdown.
I can feel the madness starting to set in. 24/7 indoors With less than an hour out in the exercise yard that is the back streets of Worcester jogging around zig zagging my way around other people to make sure I’m keeping my two metres. Let’s be honest though, as important as the government guidelines on social distancing are, I actually embrace staying the fuck away from people. The daily run is supposed to make me feel better but in fact going ‘out there’ is causing more stress than it’s worth. In terms of the daily exercise hierarchy joggers are pretty far down the list. Way below the top tier of one solo walker/dog walker/child walker, but sitting nicely above the tier of three adults and two adults on bikes or as it’s commonly called, the cunt tier. Even on a quick trip to the supermarket someone will forget the idea of being two metres apart and park their trolley horizontally across the aisle as they browse different artisan cheeses like the apocalypse isn’t actually upon us forcing me to stand there like some gurning wanker over by the yakults waiting for my opportunity for safe passage whilst other shoppers look at me, annoyed like I’m the fucking problem. It is taking everything that I have to stop me going over and socially distancing their head from their fucking neck.
Lockdown
So how do you cope? Nobody has the answer to this one. For the first week it seemed like a great idea to go through the full cooking repertoire. Breakfast orders taken from the whole family in the morning, freshly made lemon and ricotta tortellini for lunch with heritage tomato bruschetta and five hour lamb shoulder tagine for dinner. It’s my safe space, it’s what I like to do the most and when I I’m stressed and feel like the whole world is going to piss in a kettle then something I can rely on to make me feel like I’m not completely fucking useless, like my brain and hands can be put to a task so I have an excuse to detach from the world and focus on what’s really important in life. Lunch service.
Of course in the new world of Covid-19 this whole statement is complete fucking bollocks. Gastronomic denial is not a place I want to be. As happy as I might claim to be in my own little world listening to Joy Division making risotto Milanese and braising osso bucco cuts of veal ready for dinner, I’m not. I’m shitting myself. Because I know, out there, outside of my little culinary world is a fucking war zone filled with people on the front line working endlessly to keep people alive. I’ve been in an intensive care unit (one of the biggest in Europe) after my eldest son had a heart operation when he was two years old and I don’t mind telling you it’s the single scariest place I have ever been in my life and and I’ve been to Smethwick. The incredible people of the NHS are doing what they always do and stepping the fuck up, giving their own lives to save ours. Just like they did when they looked after my beautiful boy on that occasion so I get to spend this time with him now as he smacks cricket balls over the neighbour’s fence time and time again, a ball I will NEVER tire of retrieving.
As someone with twenty years in the hospitality industry without ever having a different job I often wondered what it would be like to take a break from it all. I’ve seen countless people leave and become ‘normal’ people with good jobs that don’t destroy them physically and mentally. I won’t lie to you I’m exhausted. I’m fifty years old in chef years and maybe the thought of getting out is occasionally quite appealing but to be honest I’m too far gone now, much like Brooks in ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ I’ve been institutionalised and if I ever got out I’m not sure I would cope on the outside. This current situation is probably as close as I’m ever going to get to crawling through the shit pipe out to the other side, I just wish it hadn’t taken a global catastrophe to get to this point. It took me a fortnight of going mental to come to my senses and realise how lucky I am. I won’t lie to you, I have friends working on the front line of the NHS and the things I’m hearing make my blood run cold. The guilt I feel for even considering having a mental breakdown from being stuck in the house makes me fucking ashamed. I will never get an opportunity to spend time with my family like this, to cherish every moment, to cook, to play cricket to slow down and reassess what is most important in life. Its like the proverbial dog who chases the car. What the fuck would it do if it actually caught up with it? We are all that dog, licking the boot of a Toyota Corolla thinking ‘This tastes better than my balls’ not knowing what the fuck happens now.
So if it’s alright with you I’m going to shut the fuck up and get back in the kitchen. I’ll keep cooking and when all of this is over I’ll still be stood here like a gurning wanker who once again, had his ass saved by the incredible people of the NHS.
Cliche Guevara 