We're off for an illicit walk with friends tomorrow, a greater victory than it sounds. It's a day early to breach rule da six and be mutually unlocal, but given that they wouldn't meet until they really processed that the kids were about to return to school imminently at the end of August, it is actually some social victory.
It was so frustrating last summer when friends didn't have the time/ inclination to meet up when they could, and just mind crushingly lonely (yet totally under-relaxed by 24/7 family life). I do feel for you Acorn.
Life hasn't exactly been rock and roll in recent months but I have generally had someone willing to walk or run with weekly since the Nov lockdown, and while it's not much, it has spared the vestiges of my sanity.
I was headbanging into a chair with desperate lonliness back last June. Fuck knows how I've plodded on since then. At that point I hadn't had any quality face to face external social contact (other than bumping into aquaintences on bloody walks which had become rarer since May) in 3 months.
I really just have to keep focusing on the easing of restrictions. Over the winter, my mental focus was on making it through until now. I'm trying not to get drawn down rabbit holes of what's going on in the bigger picture. There is crap being buried away while we're distracted and it's such a fine line between blissful ignorance and self-preservation.