10 People We All Know In Lockdown.

As our first blog post, and due to the fact we created this blog in lockdown, we thought it would be apt to write about the 10 different types of people we all know in quarantine. You’re lying to yourself if you don’t identify with at least one of these characters.

1. The Neighbourhood Busy Body

No one’s sure why, but the neighbourhood Busy Body is somehow preconditioned to know everything about everyone in your local area. Since coronavirus, the national state of emergency has simply fuelled them in their quest for local royalty. Whilst the average household endures a jovial nod and awkward eye contact with John from next door, the busy body THRIVES on neighbourhood attention.

Typical characteristics include but are not limited to:

• A constant need to know where everyone is going at all times. E.g. Next door has been gone longer than their designated hour of exercise time. OUTRAGE in the household. The BB is on the case making frantic inquiries over the wall and pacing up and down the lawn so as to appear ‘casual’ when catching them in the act of their 100-mile bike ride.

• Observing and judging the gardening skills of others: this one’s self-explanatory but is also accompanied by a snide comment such as ‘Ooooh Karen’s mowed her lawn… doesn’t look as good as ours’ whilst later feigning a smug smile at the Thursday clap.

• A side fringe and dyed roots is also common but I’m don’t want to go too specific …

We all know them, we’ve all used them, we love to hate them.

2. The OAP

One step up from those in denial, The OAP has lived through it all – war, recessions, the lot. Did they go out once a day before lockdown? Absolutely not. But now? NO WAY are their last active years going to be spent in exile. We’ve all seen them strutting around the cul-de-sac during their designated hour, absolutely raging about their liberty being taken away from them.

The grandchildren ring them up and ask what they are most excited for post-lockdown – visions of promised holidays and strengthened grandparental bonds ensue. But they are disappointed:

all Granny wants is to be legally able to walk to Waitrose for a ready meal and the daily mail! Is that too much to ask for?

3. The Hypochondriac

Every family has one. They’re the person who walked up the stairs too quickly and got breathless. Instead of carrying on with their day, they Google every possible symptom and convince themselves they have 10000 different illnesses. They never sleep. Any cough, sneeze or twitch of the eye and you’ll find them locked in a room for the next two months. NO amount of social distancing is ever enough for them. This person is constantly on the edge and definitely has the NHS website bookmarked on their laptop favourites. Handsantisier is now their new fashion accessory, and WILL NOT leave the house without it.

4. The Introvert

What’s that? A pandemic you say? Not allowed to leave the house without socially distancing? Pft! The Introvert’s been planning for this their whole life!

Consistently mediating between mild anxiety and a need to avoid anyone since the scarring days of secondary school, The Introvert has been living a lavishly languorous lifestyle for years. In fact, this unprecedented life we now call ‘the new normal’ is simply their ‘normal’.

Need a good series to binge watch on Netflix? The Introvert’s got you sorted and has even written up in-depth reviews detailing pros and cons for each one. Apart from the occasional Thursday appearance on the doorstep for the NHS clap for heroes, The Introvert has no concept of ‘the jean’, having had time to perfect the comfiest self-imposed lockdown wardrobe – soft joggers and fluffy socks are mandatory.

Like a lion in the desert of lockdown, the introvert is thriving in its newly normalised natural habitat of the home. They were born for this- staying inside and saving lives since day 1.

5. The One In Denial

They go to bed each night reminiscing on the ‘good old times’. Back when you could walk into the smoker’s area and share a ciggy with anyone. The days where you breathed in someone’s sneeze on the Tube and thought nothing of if apart from wishing you could be rich enough to get Uber’s everywhere. This person is in denial about COVID and never tunes in to BBC News, instead you read your second cousin’s uncle’s friend’s posts on Facebook thinking it qualifies as a good news source. You will most likely catch this person posting Instagram pics in public areas with the caption #FakeNews. They probably own an old Ford Fiesta.

6. The Manic Baker

No matter how far into lockdown you are, there is no way that you or a member of your household hasn’t baked at least one thing; brownies or banana bread, cheesecake or cinnamon rolls, the manic baker produces baked goods at record speed.

It’s honestly baffling that they haven’t started cashing in on the small factory of baked goods that has become their kitchen.

But there’s a dilemma: who will eat it all? If the household has limited consumers, where do the cakes go? Simple. With the speed of a professional sprinter, the baker starts lobbing scones like frisbees at every friend, relative, and neighbour in the nearest vicinity. Slightly crushed by the impact of travel, the scone-receiver has nothing but gratitude for this culinary saviour, serving sugar supplies to get us through these weird and wacky times.

7. The ‘Mum’

From a dry cough to an aching back, a temperature to a broken ankle, don’t worry your resident homeopath has all the answers. Small bottles filled with all sorts of wacky ingredients including the likes of Roadkill, the south pole of a magnet and dinosaur bones (I’m not joking look it up). They have been accumulating remedies for years and a pandemic is the perfect place to test them all out! Remedies aren’t the only thing they have been collecting mind, as whenever anyone has the audacity to interrogate the effectiveness of their solutions they have multiple facts they can whip out on command:

‘The death rate for the Spanish flu could have been reduced by 76% if everyone used homeopathy’

‘Homeopathy has been scientifically found to be the most effective cure for constipation in England’

98.7% of people that try homeopathy have no symptoms within three days’

8. The Conspiracy Theorist

As the rates of infections rise so too does the rate of conspiracy theories. We all have that one friend who believes they have proved science wrong and found the real cause of corona virus, (last year they had found ‘heaps’ of evidence that Michael Jackson was living in a small town in the Isle of Wight, the year before that it was Ronald Reagan in Herefordshire). They all seem to have intel from people in high up places who have given them a small tit bit of information, my personal favourite being Corona Virus is a hoax created by Donald Trump so he has an excuse not to die his hair for a while.

9. The Hoarder

The nice lady down the road with small two children has now become the village’s resident hoarder who will shove you aside and threaten to tear your hair out if you take the last can of baked beans. They have a dishwasher full of toilet paper, a washing machine full of hair dye and most of their winter clothes have been moved from their spacious wardrobe and put in the attic to make way for the ‘essential’ items such as 37 fajita kits and 23 tins of butter beans that their children will refuse to eat anyway. Although they now have enough food in their house to last them 3 years they will still insist on going to Waitrose every Tuesday just to get out of the house!

10. The Alcoholic

Everyone knows one of these. This person began their lockdown with just a “cheeky glass of red wine” with every meal at supper time. This has now escalated to a whole bottle of vino, a couple of cans throughout the day and a naughty G&T to award themselves for coming last in their family pub quiz. They know they’re on the verge of hitting a brick wall and are genuinely praying for Boris to give them the green light, so they can carry on their incessant drinking activities with fellow buddies down at the local watering hole.