SITTING at the traffic lights in my car, I'm hanging back a bit so as to not line up with the passenger in the adjacent car.
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I don't want to be too far back, however.
Then I'd only lock eyes with the second cab off the rank, so-to-speak.
It's not that I don't want to make eye contact with everyone; I'm desperate for eye contact with anyone.
But today I'm wearing a shower cap and plastic sleeve on my collar as I sit in the driver's seat, having just had my hair coloured at the hairdressers for the first time in nearly 10 weeks.
As COVID-19 restrictions ease, some businesses are dipping their toe in the water as they find their new-normal trading environment.
Having initially closed in late March in response to the unfolding pandemic, my hairdresser is offering hour-long appointments only during May.
As it takes 45 minutes to apply a colour treatment, clients are being asked to take it off at home themselves.
Having resisted supermarket hair dyes and any other hair treatment for 10 weeks, I'm up for the challenge of washing out my own colour!
I get a car park directly out the front of my hairdressers at 8.55am on a Saturday. Praise be!
Just inside the door, I wash my hands in warm water with fragrant product before I'm seated; the only person in the salon aside from one other at the basin. (I assume they go to another area for their treatment because I remain the only client in my zone during my 45-minute service.)
There is tea, but no magazines or chat when my hairdresser is applying the colour ie. within the 1.5-metre social distancing limits.
Instead of feeling miffed, I am grateful about the lengths my hairdresser has gone to, to keep us all safe as we come to grips with our strange new world.
When I pay by card and do the short dash to my car, I ask how far anyone has had to walk to their car in a shower cap.
Two blocks, I'm told. Again, I feel smug!
MORE MATERIAL GIRL:
While the first bag of freezer/fridge items comes together well enough, the rest of the exercise is a shemozzle. Once I pay and see the next customer is already being served, I shove the remaining items into bags like I'm stuffing stockings, tipsy on Christmas Eve! All haste and impaired care!!
As some businesses start to reopen - albeit slowly and steadily - after the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, there are still plenty of examples of how we'll be doing things differently for the greater good for the foreseeable future.
- Each week I believe my ability to pack groceries can only improve. I have no idea how the checkout operator managed to scan the items, pack the bags and make small talk, pre-coronavirus! By the time I load my weekly groceries on the counter in some sort of order, they're already piling up down the other end. Just as I pack the first of usually three or four bags, it's time to pay for them. While the first bag of freezer/fridge items comes together well enough, the rest of the exercise is a shemozzle. Once I pay and see the next customer is already being served, I shove the remaining items into bags like I'm stuffing stockings, tipsy on Christmas Eve! All haste and impaired care!!
- I quite like standing on the "X" mark in a queue now. Having done one show with the Finley Amateur Drama Society (FADS) in my 20s, I feel like I've momentarily returned to the stage. You too!? Be honest!
- With exercise classes having moved online in recent weeks, I've adapted reasonably well to doing my barre class at the kitchen bench. I like that YouTube has a pause function. If the pasta is boiling over, the oven top is only a plie away. It's the kind of multi-tasking that appeals to me!
Waiting at the traffic lights at the wheel in a shower cap at the weekend - for what seemed like an eternity, I was grateful when they finally changed to green.
Thinking back on it now, however, being patient and cautious are the things that will see us through the coming weeks and months.
We simply can't afford to run red lights, anyway.
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