By nature, journalists are outsiders. I was cutting my teeth as a financial journalist at the height of the subprime crisis, and I stood among the sandbags in Bahrain while the 2011 uprising boiled over in front of me. However, none of that actually happened to me – I was a bystander with a notepad and a deadline.
Coronavirus has closed that gap. It doesn’t care about rank, as demonstrated by Prince Charles, or power, as Boris Johnson will attest. For the first time, everyone around the globe, including me, is part of the story.
When the news broke about a mysterious virus in China, I couldn’t have imagined how such a thing could rewrite my cosy little world in a matter of weeks. Writing about hearth and home, I have always considered how people live in a philosophical way. I muse about how the home is evolving, while sticking rigidly to my own ways. That changed when my bachelorette pad suddenly had to serve as an escape pod.
My partner and I, having always maintained separate abodes, are now working cheek by jowl in my small one-bed flat, which we decided was less horrifying than the alternative of spending three months apart.
No sooner had I recovered from the trauma of sharing my kitchen, than we had to figure out how to divvy up the 550 precious square feet of space when one of us developed ominous symptoms. Our attempt at separation proved fruitless as the other quickly echoed the tell-tale cough.
I passed a feverish weekend rereading one of my favourite books, A Handmaid’s Tale. “Ordinary,” said Aunt Lydia, “is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will.” How true. Checking work emails while queuing to get into a supermarket with four separate shopping lists for isolating households, while being eyed suspiciously by men in uniform, quickly became ordinary.
However, Aunt Lydia’s chilling advice became oddly comforting as things that were unimaginable a fortnight ago also became the norm. The homeless shelter I volunteer at closed its doors as every resident had been housed – something we were always told simply wasn’t possible. Postcards offering to help anyone who was isolating started appearing through letterboxes in my block of flats.
I have long worried that community has become a blunt marketing slogan, but perhaps they are made rather than born. People I’ve always shuffled past awkwardly in the communal hall now have my mobile number, often making use of it just for a chat. Global affairs diminished in comparison with what was happening on my doorstep, with a 93-year-old lady living opposite me and a cancer patient above.
My social life has mutated into Skype drinks with friends, online pub quizzes and streaming Broadway shows. I watch my church’s services online, tucked up in bed with a cup of tea. I preen my hair and slip on heels to take the rubbish out, determined to make any outing count.
I have always loved my work and know how privileged I am to be able to continue it. My living room has served as my office for many years, and yet I’m being challenged to find new ways of reaching our readers from it. I’ve never been much of a nine to fiver, but my hours have become ever more pliable as I fit in food drops, shouting at my elderly parents across their front garden and keeping an eye on alerts from the NHS Volunteer Responders service, which tells me when someone in my neighbourhood needs a bit of help.
Viruses can’t mutate without an evolutionary advantage, and I believe the same is true of us. Some of these survival tactics will become new ways of being.
I feel the housebuilding industry is learning the same. “There is an other-worldly quality to the February transactions figures,” lamented Neil Knight, business development director for Spicerhaart Part-Exchange & Assisted Move. “It’s like a rear-view mirror to how life was before COVID-19 struck.”
Indeed, the government stats show that the property market was heading for a spring bounce before the economy was put on ice. Housing transactions were up 4.5% from January, and 6% on this time last year.
The property market was in better health than it’s been for three years, with house prices hitting a fresh peak in February. In the fourth quarter of 2019, housebuilders completed more homes than any quarter since 1989. Some argue that these figures are now irrelevant – I disagree. If nothing else, they show the resilience of the property market, and the adaptability of the housebuilding industry.
Galliard Homes expects to receive requests for 120 virtual tours of its properties per month. The housebuilding industry is well-versed in showcasing virtual homes, and developers of all sizes have been upping the ante to get keen buyers across the digital threshold. Galliard says it has continued to have 20 sales per week across its London portfolio, double that of last year during the Brexit stagnation.
And yet, people still ask when we are going back to normal. Personally, I feel normal has been forever altered. Changes prompted by crisis often become permanent. Some have been welcome, such as the welfare state, others not so welcome, such as income tax – a temporary measure introduced to fund the Napoleonic Wars.
Journalists write the first drafts of history, and I believe 2020 will be cited as a time of great change. Some of this will become ordinary; my cat, deliriously happy from all the extra attention, certainly hopes so.
You can read this and many other articles when the April edition of Show House magazine goes live online on Friday 24 April.
The cover of Show House April 2020
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