In breaking Covid cat news, via Twitter (where else?), a pet owner has reported her vet is seeing an influx of felines made irritable having their humans home all day. We haven't got a cat to aggravate. Our last, a beloved if short-tempered ocicat, would certainly have resented any restrictions on the alone time she needed to destroy our upholstery in peace. Cats know no Level 4.
I can relate to lockdown irritability, any species. This time it feels personal: a degree or two of separation from a close contact, resilience harder to summon. I asked one of my children how they were doing. Answer: "I'm working on my laptop on a cardboard box." We know now it's a long game.
The daily level 4 walk lacks the Blitz spirit of the first, when everyone waved and there were teddies. Now we're too busy making Ministry of Health-informed calculations. We decide to take another route when the stairs to the park are blocked by a pacing man bellowing into his phone as his children play. By the conversation, he's a lawyer. He sounds … irritable.
There's a game of chicken with an approaching maskless couple. Should we cross the road? They blink first and cross. Should we carry on through their lingering aerosols? Like us, they are likely to be fully vaccinated. We march on.
There's still the sense of being in something historic together. Cynics may sneer – wake up, sheeple! - at a nation gathering around their screens daily as the Prime Minister and the director general of health tell them what to do. I watch the Covid Updates for reasons as old as humankind and, possibly, cats, scanning the horizon for new dangers to be avoided.