How much longer before I see my family again? | Matt Mohan-Hickson

Or at least I try to go big and attempt to sound clever. Unfortunately we do not have the capacity to step outside our perspective and actually see how we come across.

But this week I am really struggling to write this.

No, this isn’t some fake humility, I genuinely mean it. As I sit here in my little bedroom, I have no idea how I am going to fill the word count for the column.

I have had a bad week, which is to be expected given 2020, but this has been an extra dose of misery.

It has been February since I last saw my family – and god knows how long since I saw my best friends.

Was it Christmas? Time has a funny way of slipping away from me in lockdown.

I have obviously been missing them badly throughout the pandemic so far but during the past seven days it has become more profound.

It is not like I can pop down the road and see my parents at a safe social distance, or swing by for a cuppa with my brother and his girlfriend, or drop into the local to enjoy a pint of Taddys with the lads, because they are all hundreds of miles away.

I am not sure I can accurately describe the feeling, but it is like a distilled version of loss. They are not gone and yet they are not here.

I have been carrying around this aching like an albatross hanging from my neck for months and now it is weighing heavier on me.

See, there were two incidents, which on the surface were good news in of themselves, but I was badly in need of advice, to chat over them while sipping away at a drink or sitting on that familiar sofa from my childhood.

Instead it was missed calls or text messages and a deep sense of misery at being so far away from those I love.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Singalongamask – behind the covering I’m bellowing away

I adore listening to music. If I find a new song that I love, I could literally sit and jam to it all day long. Twenty-four hours straight. OK, that’s a slight exaggeration, but you get the picture.

I love badly bellowing out lyrics when I can remember them or sounds that are similar to the words when I can’t. So I have long found it hard not to mouth along to songs when I am out.

But wearing masks in shops and other indoor spaces means no-one can see your mouth.

So as well the obvious health benefits of wearing masks in a global pandemic, there is the added bonus of being able to silently sing along to my favourite tunes in public without looking crazy.

How can man who caused so much misery keep his job?

I don’t like talking about politics – in writing or just in general life. I have no idea what I would identify as, maybe a centrist? Straight down the middle, little bit of everything.

I have dim views of politicians, probably a side effect of growing up in the north-east, a place that has long been taken for granted or ignored by our leaders. I vote but not with any enthusiasm and I can’t imagine joining a political party.

Even with my low opinion of politicians, it boggles my mind that education secretary Gavin Williamson could remain in post after such a shambolic disaster as the exam results. I would not be able to live with the shame if I had caused such pain to so many.

A message from the editor, Mark Waldron

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