Exclusive: Bougie London Literary Woman's Lockdown Diary

VICE UK is pleased to publish this account of life during the coronavirus crisis over the course of one week, by Bougie London Literary Woman.

I should never have guessed, folded beneath the gnarled boughs of Auntie Lala’s orchard this time last year, that I might find myself here again under such changed circumstances. At the last moment, I determined to squirrel myself away to the Cotswolds, but I feel sure I shall wither fast without the concrete and cobbles of my dear city. To stay two metres from my fellow creatures is tolerable for a time, but whether I can bear to be 50 miles from the Thames for weeks on end remains to be seen.

But a glimmer of hope presents itself! I am reunited with my harp, which has been shrouded in dust sheets in the studio here for several hard months, longing for my returning touch as many a widow before her. And indeed, as I run my fingers along her sides I feel revived as if from death. Perhaps a little concert for the villagers would raise spirits? Or – no – harp music can be too gorgeous for the uninitiated, and emotions are already running perilously high.

Dear diary, I have it! I shall write each of my dear new neighbours – imagine my delight to be living in the company of country folk, I am a Hardy heroine at last! – a poem to contemplate, and slip it through their letterboxes. Having now delved extensively in the larder, I see that we are down to our last pot of ras-el-hanout, but thankfully I’ve not used loo roll in nigh on three years since all the family made the switch to bidet.

My most desperate fears confirmed. The haberdasher’s has been, for reasons I cannot fathom, deemed a non-essential service and the shutters are firmly shuttered. Alas, it seems that a need to one person is a trifle to another, so I shall have to make do with last year’s ribbon on my raffia hat. Still, sacrifices must be made by us all, and guidelines must be followed. Lady Macbeth herself would be agitated by my devotion to hand washing, and I’m thrilled to note that Aesop lathers infinitely better in the soft water here. So difficult to be without one’s usual routine, but I must admit I am accomplishing my reading at record speed without the distraction of quite so many social engagements. Performed a rather slapdash selection of arias for Poppy over Zoom last night, which felt restorative, even if it was cruelly capped at 40 minutes.

Lost most of the day asleep in the punt. Awoke to a nudge from a friendly goose, concerned that I make it back to the cottage in time to take the clafoutis out of the oven. I shall leave my feathered sous-chef a slice by the ha-ha.

Foul mood. Auntie Lala is missing the third volume of À la recherche du temps perdu, and I’ll be damned if I have to read it in translation. We are living in desperate times. Feeling very envious of Instagram missives from the city-bound. What would I give for the cosiness of a London flat now? All this space makes one feel a little adrift – the exquisite hell of choice about where to cloister oneself. And Lala so far away in the other part of the house. I have the sensation of being a ghost from a time unrecoverable. “Will my cockles ever be warmed again?” I find myself saying aloud, my question’s echo swallowed by the wood beams. Sick, too, with worry that this will scupper my midsummer solstice supper. The wine shan’t keep another year.

A new resolve visited itself upon me overnight, my own angel Gabriel. This time is a gift that I have been disgracefully ungrateful for, ’til now. Finally, what I have wished for so long: space, and time, outside of the demands of quotidian life, to write. Confined we may be, but, dear diary, I believe there is a new kind of freedom in it. The most restrictive manacles are, as Blake had it, only mind-forged. Did Ovid lay down the pen, in exile from his beloved city? Did Dante? Did Wilde? Set forth with a spring in my step to deliver the poems: a baker’s dozen of sestinas and a deliciously ribald villanelle, in the end. Burst into tears at the sight of a daffodil. What does a flower know of our troubles? Bloom on, wild heart.

A letter arrived from the lady in number five! Was thrilled at the prospect of a thank-you note with regards the poem, but in fact it was a plea to stop feeding the goose, who has been repeatedly sick on her lawn. My generosity has overstepped its bounds once again! But I am buoyed to be in written correspondence again, however unsophisticated.

@ImogenWK / @BougieLitWoman