Turns out I can manage without Costa flat white after all | Verity Lush

Costa, for example, is one such thing. A Costa flat white is my favourite coffee.

I hang my head in shame that this is not a beverage from an independent coffee shop but when it comes to legally addictive stimulants, addicts can’t be choosers.

If you’d told me last year that Costa would be shut and I’d be locked indoors, then I’d have assumed I would be devastated.

But I am not. It transpires, life continues without Costa.

A coffee is a little treat, whether paying for it or whether making it in your own home and taking the time to sit and really enjoy it.

The latter is my current option, and that’s just fine.

Aside from the fact that I obviously recognise there are plenty of things in life more important than coffee (before anyone starts shouting that I am writing about coffee when people are dying), it is a reminder that our lives in the 21st century are so very full.

Our lives are so very far from basic.

The only thing I am really missing – and I do mean properly missing, because everything else I’m getting along just fine without – are my family and friends.

I miss my mum, I miss my mates, and I miss the routines we all had.

But, again, it is short-term – if we stick to social distancing and lockdown.

If we do not, or if it is lifted too early, then of course we run the risk of being locked down again and losing more precious months of our lives.

Or indeed paying the ultimate price, as so many have done already.

When I see people crying to end the lockdown now, or making comments about how ‘people die anyway’, I am staggered.

Go tell that to the children of those who have died.

Tell it to the siblings and the parents.

I do not envy the government at the best of times for the load they carry.

I certainly do not envy them at the worst.

Keep your distance – it’s better to be safe than sorry

My much-awaited treadmill has arrived. I finally got my money back from Sports Direct and purchased one from a company who actually had both stock and the intention to deliver it.

The service from Very was excellent.

The stress of trying to stay two metres away from people when running, and faffing about trying to use routes where the paths are big enough to enable this, has driven me indoors.

I am more than happy to run around people but it does surprise me that pedestrians don’t sprint away when faced with sweaty runners.

Studies have proven runners and cyclists pant the virus out far further than pedestrians.

Keep your distance.

Online insight in our city’s past is a very welcome relief

If you are on Facebook and you have not yet discovered the group, Memories of Bygone Portsmouth, check it out.

The photographs and memories are simply wonderful and you can upload yours, too.

My family are Lush, Arnett and Carter, so a rich Pompey mix of local business, harking back to market stalls, fish shops and Charlotte Street, and it’s been fascinating to hear different people’s knowledge of times passed in Portsmouth.

The variety of photographs and the joyful nature of the group is a welcome change to the ranting, raging, fear and fury of the public in other online domains at the moment.