Every time I talk with friends, the conversation always finds its way to the same question: what do you miss most about pre-lockdown life?

It comes up often enough that I wish I had a proper dinner party-ready answer. Something that makes me sound clever and cultured. Usually I cop out: I tell people that I miss the pub. 

I do, of course. I’m hardly alone there. I miss sliding into a booth at my favourite bar and knowing, if I stay there long enough, that LCD Soundsystem song I like will come on over the PA eventually. I miss drunken conversations, urgent and excitable, that feel important in the moment - but, the morning after reveals, were actually total mince. 

What I really miss are my family and friends. Conversations that don’t freeze and stall because someone’s signal has dropped out. Being able to buy a cheap plane or train ticket to go and visit friends who live considerably further than the 10km radius I am currently confined to. I even miss frantically tidying my flat because my mother is in Glasgow for work and she wants to crash in my spare room and make a weekend of it.

Whatever urgency there was to resume normal life has been quietly quashed. Everything that was possible at the start of the year – a bimonthly commute to London, several months working abroad and my very first Glastonbury – seems utterly fantastical now. 

But, after I cleared away the rubbings from the mass erasing of my 2020 diary, I was surprised by just how little I huffed over the loss of those big ticket items and by how trivial so much of my post-lockdown daydreaming seemed. Because what I am most looking forward to reclaiming are the fairly pedestrian aspects of my everyday life. 

I am looking forward to catching a film at the GFT and browsing bookshops again. I am overjoyed at the prospect of having my hair cut and eyebrows waxed by someone who knows what they are doing. I am excited to bump into a friend I haven’t seen in who-knows-how-long on the street. I had my first cappuccino for six weeks at the weekend and it was the best coffee of my entire life. 

Of course, there is a lesson in appreciating what we have. There is also the important reminder that we are all in this journey for the long haul and it is ticking off these wee milestones that will see us through; whether it is as momentous as getting to see previously isolated family members or as daft as your first cafe-bought coffee. The big things aren’t coming back for a while, but there is still plenty to cherish in the weeks and months ahead.