There was a time when the one birthday that I really wanted was to be alone in New York; nice hotel, great meals, Broadway, shopping. Now, I can’t even think about travelling without worrying about sickness and death. It feels that we’ve been plunged back into the middle-ages when voyages put you at the mercy of everything from pirates, sea-monsters, scurvy to storms.

In hindsight, perhaps all I ever wanted was to be not remembered- baffling why I’d like something like that- but today, under these circumstances, I seem to mind it less. When the lockdown started, I added work-colleagues to my work-only Facebook account and greetings dutifully came through the whole day; services and products sent their automated greetings and marketing enticements.

I worked, only because continuity for some comms was necessary (and frankly, I was the only one who could do it capably) and I cooked, did chores and by day’s end, I was exhausted. Not the birthday I would have wanted, but a lot of things recently seem out of our control- like last night at the supermarket, I was looking for cream-cheese to make a cheesecake and the space in the refrigerated aisle where it usually was located, was empty. I was thinking maybe I’ll do Sara Lee, got two vegan coconut cakes but returned them when saw an Edmonds cheesecake premixed box; at least it wouldn’t literally come out of the box I thought.

I also got emails that two items I had bought as birthday gifts to myself had been dispatched- wouldn’t be nice to receive fresh new Nikes and a fresh pair of Nudie jeans on my birthday even if it would be stupid to wear them to the supermarket which is the only place I go to these days anyway? But they didn't arrive so that was a bummer.

And then I thought, well, when I wake up tomorrow, it will be a new day, but no different really from yesterday, or today…and that’s that.