Discover stories of family life, cooking, staying sane, keeping fit, DIY and everything else associated with being indoors all day in our Notes from Home series. Here, James Klonaris talks dancing, daydreams and dressing for lockdown.

James Klonaris: The occasional eye-rolls of others suggest that I can be prone to a touch of dramatization.

From time to time I may well have screamed at my house mates, “This is purgatory”. And by ‘house mates’ I mean my wife and daughter, but at the start of the current situation, I thought it important to set some emotional and spatial boundaries, for everyone’s benefit. Terminology is important.

‘Purgatory’ is a touch dramatic and I should stress now that the sense of isolation is outweighed by immense gratitude. Every day I consider how fortunate we are to have our current home.

‘Limbo’ is perhaps more fitting, although its etymology also harks back to a religious no-mans-land, and for some strange reason it’s been selfishly hijacked by happy people shimmying under horizontal bars. So that won’t do.

It’s just that ‘lockdown’ has the over-pitched and under-delivered ring of a (late) Schwarzenegger movie, the existence of which might have been strangely reassuring for many Americans had the Governor become President. I like to imagine the one-liners emanating from the loud speaker atop his electric Hummer as he cleared the streets of those shopping for non-essentials; “Quick, rrraannn, get outta here” or “I’m into survival, not politics” (which actually was a line from Running Man).

No. A ‘state of suspension’ seems fitting, our freedom stifled but not entirely withdrawn. I fear it may be a little late for a rebrand and I should probably stop wasting my limited daily bandwidth on the subject.

The lack of cars has been wonderful. Westminster has seen a massive decrease in nitrogen oxide emissions, from 58µg/m3 in 2019 to 30µg/m3 in 2020. Edinburgh’s improvement is even greater. I’m convinced I can see the stars more clearly at night, but that might just be the weather.

When I’m not daydreaming about alternative pandemic monikers, I think about ‘them’ sneaking in a city-wide ban of cars. What a civilised bunch we’d be, tootling about on old bikes as though it was something safe and normal to do. I think I’d start wearing a crinkled linen double-breasted suit to work like a fashionable old Italian man.

I shouldn’t flirt with new attire; my existing wardrobe must already feel neglected. I only have two outfits now – day and evening – and there isn’t a great deal of difference between them. My new style icon is Monty Don. He dresses with such casual aplomb for the garden, where I spend most of my time these days.

My days tends to revolve around my two-year old daughter and work, and us achieving a balance as a family that I have no doubt will be useful training for life after lockdown, or LAL as I imagine the kids, or someone, is calling it. Sometimes I go for a run, though not as often as I very nearly just wrote.

I have a quick lunch and then stare for a moment or two at the enormous pile of fencing material my wife procured in the vain hope that I would have more time on my hands. I don’t, and now the second half of my lunch break consists of cutting and drilling, followed by more of the same at six o’clock, when I imagine my less maritally-employed contemporaries are putting their feet up to some Charlie Parker and enjoying a cold one.

I do find it a nice pace of life though. Time moves differently when you’re not in a rush and the ever-longer evenings have been a saviour for our psyches, unless you find yourself on a never-ending video call, which I sometimes do, though less these days. One realisation I’ve had is that I don’t much appreciate waiting for somebody else to stop talking before I begin, particularly in a group situation.

We moved to our new house in September 2019 and are still settling in. Our neighbours are predominantly elderly and it has been a pleasure to get to know them, if even from a safe distance, and to help out where we can (word of my offer has got out now and I suspect some of them are beginning to take advantage by pretending to be less able than they actually are). 

Consequently, the evenings are quiet, except for somebody a few doors down practicing Brubeck’s ‘Take Five’ daily on the saxophone (and improving) and the house whose garden backs on to ours. Every now and then they play extremely loud Salsa and Cumbia (not to be confused with Cum-bay-yah, which would get tiresome) late into the night, singing at the top of their Columbian voices, and don’t reappear for days. I must introduce myself. During that recent spate of warm evenings my wife and I sometimes danced along, though we couldn’t see them, and they couldn’t see us.

Working from home certainly has its productive advantages; the absence of welcome distraction, one’s complete control over their working dominion, the lack of commute and all that. Though I really do miss my ‘work family’ and our colourful clients. Don’t get me wrong, my daughter has lots to say on the topics of dinosaurs and snacks (she doesn’t muse on their extinction or ponder taste receptors so much as just say the words loudly), but I am thirsty for the broad cultural osmosis life at The Modern House provides us all with.

I am making the most of it, I’ve enjoyed the best of it, but I sure-as-Limbo can’t wait to get back to it!