Bar or barber – where’s your first post-lockdown journey?

The first thing you’ll do when the lockdown finally ends will say an awful lot about you.

Will you go big – or just aim for another taste of one of life’s simple pleasures? Has lockdown left you longing for the holiday of a lifetime. . . or a haircut?

And of course, we know that not everything will be back in action at the same time; that this will be a slow roll-out that might take us a year to complete – but say if everything was back on the menu, what would be the first thing you’d do?

Would you go to the beach or go to the pub? Would you spend a day in a socially distancing queue for that haircut?

Which friend’s or relative’s door would you knock on first?

Would you break the world speed-record to get to your parents or grandparents, to see them face-to-face again rather than the current restriction to FaceTime?

Would you book a flight to somewhere far, far away, or a table at a restaurant on your own doorstep?

Pick out your very first destination – the pub, the cinema, the barber/hairdressers/beauty salon, the gym, the football pitch, the bookshop, the library; an Americano or Cappuccino in your favourite coffee shop, the church. . . just anywhere at all that’s at least 2.1km from your house?

Or would freedom from house arrest just be the chance to hug someone outside your immediate family; to shake hands, not wearing gloves or a face mask?

Of course, even when the restrictions are eased, we may face a long wait before we can even stand close to others, let alone hug them or shake hands.

And the pub, when we get it back, might be a very different place – even if the notion of having a pint with someone two metres away from you sounds like more hassle than it’s worth.

But this is just a fantasy – one based on a restoration of the world we took for granted as recently as February.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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