Sweating the Small Stuff

It’s been a big week for BoJo, who celebrated his first full year in office with a Kuenssberg grilling and the end to all holidaymakers’ revelry on the Costa del Sol. It must have been a bit of a low point for Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, whose premature aeroplane departure from Spain was marked with just a touch of the ironic. BoJo has our hopes up with talk of a return to normality by Christmas, but I can’t be the only one who’d now pay good money to witness a routine festive shindig at No. 10; a socially-distanced affair against a backdrop of a second-wave global pandemic isn’t what I personally tend to envisage for our ‘normal’ Christmas Day meal.

Princess Beatrice’s wedding to Signor Studmuffin, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, lifted the nation with some much-needed good cheer, although I can’t help thinking that Coronavirus restrictions provided Prince Andrew with a curiously convenient excuse to lie low. We can only assume from his absence from photographs that the Queen’s son was off sweating the small stuff, sampling the delicacies at Pizza Express, Woking, in an admirable attempt to support the local economy through the Coronavirus slump. Fergie, on the other hand, was most likely scraping the barrel for further ideas to stave off bankruptcy during lockdown; if you haven’t yet stumbled across the rising star during your ventures down the YouTube rabbit hole, her pandemic project and newly established storytime channel provides a wealth of must-see entertainment, despite being the stuff of nightmares for the Duchess’ intended audience.

BoJo has made sure not to disappoint us with an end to mixed messaging this week, as his crackdown on obesity adds a thrilling new curveball to his Eat Out to Help Out campaign. The jury’s still out on whether it was prompted by the end to Joe Wicks’ fitness videos or by sudden pressure to get my father beach-body-ready, but recent days have seen a marked increase in family fun runs and a stark decrease in the number of puddings. Someone in the family evidently feels aggrieved by the entire rationing ordeal; desperate times call for desperate measures, and 17 rock-solid brownies have mysteriously disappeared from the depths of our chest freezer in the last 24 hours. I fear we have on our hands a repeat offender, as an entire batch of my sister’s ginger “biscuits” has also vanished this week, and it’s hard to believe that more than one member of the Way household has set their standards so low.

Mid-July marked a milestone for my university friend, who, having graced our other friend’s family with his early morning singing renditions in the shower for the last three months, finally moved to his new digs down in Bath. The aspiring chorister has since gone to great lengths to make Oliver Dowden proud, organising a series of socially-distanced dates in a laudable effort to get a taste of the local culture. Speed dating clearly takes on a whole new meaning for England’s South West, as the Casanova’s most recent rendezvous lasted a grand total of five minutes – a social encounter he himself savagely cut short when his companion, in the flesh, fell frustratingly short of his expectations. Speaking of romance, my own prospects remain unfortunately as dry as the weather about to hit heatwave-craving Britain this weekend, and I have resorted to picking up FIFA icebreakers from my brother in the hope of actually being able to maintain a conversation with the male sex when I return to university for an MA in October. Don Juans of Durham had better watch out.

I should perhaps be taking tips from my eldest brother, whose entrepreneurial enterprise has seen him become the definitive schmoozer, with clients now rewarding him in the progressively enviable currency of brand new shoes, tennis doubles partnerships, and 24/7 swimming pool access. I had worried for the release of his qualifications this August, but his latest transition into bricklaying, plumbing, and JCB digger driving suggests I should instead give him the benefit of the doubt. The fact that my 18-year-old brother has never sat in the driver’s seat of a car bears no relation, I am assured, to his ability to exercise the last of his three newfound vocational skills. It’s the hard knock life for the handyman next week, however, as Monday marks the start of a particularly brutal programme of vaccinations for a gap yah which may well never go ahead.

Whilst on the subject of travel, we must settle at present for experiencing the big wide world vicariously through our cousins, who have taken the liberty to jet off to their Provençal villa, leaving us with the joyous responsibility of keeping guard of their seven pet fish and carnivorous shrimp. My father was quick to enquire after their life expectancy, which, for those interested, turns out to be disappointingly long. My aunty has been inspired by the French air to start painting: a decision which has touched the competitive nerve of my mother, who now can be found at 5 o’clock in the morning brandishing a paintbrush because her younger sister cannot possibly beat her to her lifelong dream of becoming a world-renowned artiste. This new avocation conveniently takes over from my mother’s recently concluded dining room project: an interior design masterpiece, whose cherry on the cake is, undoubtedly, the French-rustique chandelier, which has been hanging from our ceiling for what is now a suspiciously long ‘free trial period’.

I must be off to ogle the jaw-droppingly gorgeous landscaper my mother has unexpectedly just led down our garden path. I’ll be back soon, but, in the meantime, stay safe.

Charlotte x