To say that I haven’t been getting out much is a bit of an understatement. I feel as though I’ve been locked in my office for months, though it’s really only a matter of weeks if I count it up properly. Still, I’ve been doing the intense sort of work that means you miss lunch, dinner and bedtime and suddenly look up from the computer screen to find that it’s nearly morning again. I’ve been forgetting to go to the toilet and I’ve been losing all feeling in my legs from sitting in one position for so long.
So I’ve not really left the confines of the top floor other than to watch the odd episode of The Good Fight on Amazon Prime with Mr AMR (I love it, it’s better than The Good Wife I think) and pop to Sainsbury’s to stock up on healthy things that I then completely forget to eat. (Fridge is probably full of slimy salad leaves and fish that’s past its best and aubergines that have turned into purple, leathery sacks of mush.) Wearing makeup hasn’t been at all necessary. Although: I should point out that I did scare the absolute bejeezus out of a man at the petrol station. I think he thought I was some kind of demon that had crawled up from the underworld. My hair was long and tangled, the circles beneath my eyes were almost jet black, as though I’d drawn them on with kohl and smudged them out with a cotton bud. My skin had the pallid waxiness of a nineteenth century invalid, my lips looked cracked...