When Grandma Came to Stay

It's Saturday 4 July 2020 and Ed and I are disinfecting. We're cleaning the door handles and the light switches. We're spraying the stairgates and the bathroom. We're wiping the phones and the remote controls and the bannister. B follows us with her special spray-bottle of water and her cloth and she sprays and wipes the gates and the chairs. We make up the bed in the spare room and B helps by throwing the dirty bedding down the stairs and jumping on the bed. We shake the duvet together and she laughs; it's her favourite bit.
Beau's grandma hasn’t been in our house since March. We used to see my mum a couple of times a week. With Ed and I both working, she was the third parent - before the lockdown. Then, for a long time, we couldn’t see her. Finally, we could meet one person outside of our household, so I went for a walk with Mum - and had to leave B at home with her daddy.
Our childcare fees are crippling us as she can go to nursery but not to family. That's the price we pay for following the official rules.
Then, finally, we could meet up to six people outdoors. We starting having picnics together once or twice a week, sitting on separate picnic blankets and bringing our own food. Today is the first day Beau's grandma can come inside.
My mum arrives and B says, "Grandma here." We wave and blow a kiss from the other side of the room.
If Dominic Cummings jumps off a bridge, should I do it? Just because some people are doing the wrong thing, should I put more people at risk?
We sit at opposite sides of the living room and B shows grandma all her toys and books. She wants to show her everything. We can’t stop a one-year-old from taking her teddies over to her grandma, but Mum doesn’t touch her. She reads her How the Elephant Got His Trunk and Jack and the Beanstalk while B stands beside her, not touching. It's as if she knows by now. B shows Grandma her little backpack where she keeps all the hand-made finger-puppets Grandma has been steadily sending through the post since lockdown began. We don’t turn on the news all day.
At dinner time, we sit at the breakfast bar and Grandma sits at the dining table. B spoons some cheesy sprinkles on to her bean stew and grandma asks her if she can find any magic beans hiding in her bowl. When it comes to pudding, B asks to share Grandma's crumble, but we remind her she can only share Mummy's and Daddy's at the moment, and nobody else's.

It's time to say goodnight and we wave and blow a kiss at Grandma from the stairs. No bedtime snuggles with Grandma tonight.
A month ago, I found myself crying over the outrageous death of a person I didn’t even know. Should I retaliate by effectively kneeling on the necks of more innocent people? If I act in a way that I know will make me responsible for people dying, wouldn't that make me as murderous as that disgusting police officer?
Ed goes to the reopening of the village pub with his friend and I tell him to keep safe.
With my little girl settled, I come back downstairs and clear the dishes. Mum offers to help and I tell her to relax on the sofa with her magazine as the kitchen is too small to keep a distance. She doesn’t flit around folding my washing or loading my dishwasher like she normally would.
When the jobs are done, Mum and I sit at opposite ends of the corner-sofa in our pyjamas with a glass of wine and try to watch The Girl on The Train but can't stop talking.
When we're ready for bed, Mum has brought her own sleeping bag and a towel to put across the pillow.

In twenty years, will I be able to tell the next generation that I was proud of the way I behaved during the Corona Virus? Will I be able to tell them I made sacrifices to save lives or that I contributed to the deaths?
I wake briefly just after midnight and Ed is asleep beside me.
In the morning, Ed tells us the landlady enforced that everyone in the pub had to sit at their own table. The toilets were one-out, one-in, with the staff cleaning them in-between. By the end of the evening, everyone was talking to each other across the room.
Grandma leaves after breakfast and we wave and blow kisses out of the window. We clean again. We don’t turn on the news. We clean the bathroom and spray the handles and the gates and light switches. B follows with her special spray.
Have we done everything we're supposed to? Have we missed anything?
I hear so many people say the right things, yet their actions show that they think they are the exception to the rule. It seems like a case of i before e; there are more exceptions than there are examples that follow the rule. I try not to be hurt when I think of everything we are foregoing. I try to remember I can’t control what other people are doing.
All I can do is try my hardest to follow the government guidelines. I will care for my daughter. I will try to remember to practise self-care; to clean and to exercise and to write. Most of all, I will try to remember everything I have to be grateful for.