Shakespeare knew a thing or two about self-isolation

‘Now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears.’

Shakespeare got there first, as ever, and he probably knew a thing or two about being in quarantine. The plague lurked darkly, and people were as aware of its dangers as we are of Covid-19. The theatres definitely closed, so it is likely that he wrote while self-isolating. Which is exactly what I am doing, with laptop on the kitchen sofa, tea at my elbow, spring sunshine pouring in. Four long-tailed tits, two robins and a bustle of hedge sparrows are busy shoving one another off the bird table outside. Our resident barn owl skimmed by earlier.

Lucky that can I walk in the garden and meadow, or down our quiet lane of an evening, but otherwise, we are strictly quarantined. I am well, but 78. My partner is having treatment for breast cancer, so is immuno–compromised. Working from home is business as usual for a novelist and a screenwriter, but usually we get out, shop, have coffee, travel to London for meetings, see friends. Normal life. Not any more.

It was when I ran out of stuff to do, apart from work, that I realised things had changed. A self-isolating neighbour and I were walking our dogs down the lane at the recommended distance apart, and stopped to chat about what we were up to in between hand-washing.

She said she was turning out every drawer, cupboard, wardrobe and shelf, deep-cleaning them, sorting stuff into ‘keep’, ‘charity shop’ and ‘bin’, then she would be taking down all the curtains to wash and repair. I expected her to say next would come sides-to-middling the sheets. She is the kind of woman I am not.

Back indoors, I opened a few drawers and a wardrobe, shut them again quickly, and went up the attic stairs.