Written by Eve Colyer:
The way I see it, being stuck at home isn’t going to be the most fun – family can be difficult to be around 24/7, and after looking at a screen for too long, watching paint dry can seem like a fun and wholesome alternative. What I’m proposing to do with my time – except, you know, essays and whatever jobs I can get tutoring online – is threefold. Here’s my plan to avoid cabin fever with my mum:
1. Fashion show: My wardrobe is a bit weird at the moment, consisting of clothes I left at home so I could come home without a suitcase, which also happen to be all the clothes I don’t like enough to wear regularly, and all my favourite clothes I shoved in a suitcase two hours before getting on a train home, mildly terrified that there would be a London lockdown. My mum is a charity-shop queen and also a huge hoarder, meaning I literally have no space for my clothes in the wardrobe. We figured that we can solve both of these problems in one fell swoop. We’re planning on having a 27 Dresses style fashion show and Marie Kondo-ing the hell out of our wardrobes. It will make our flat and our wardrobes less cluttered, give us plenty to donate to charity shops, let us see what clothes each other has that we could borrow and it should be a lot of fun in the process, bringing out our best model poses. Writing an embarrassing article about the clothes for the local newspaper a la 27 Dresses is, of course, optional, but probably a bad idea.
2. As much as I love my trackies and leggings (and my massively outsized jumper thing that lets me retreat snail-like into my fabric shell), the prospect of wearing these the whole time is…not fun? However, I now have time at my disposal, so having familiarised myself with the clothes abandoned at the back of my drawer, the plan is to try on a new outfit everyday. I can be as bold as I like – there’s only my mum and the void to judge me. I find impractical outfits for going out, since I’ll mostly be lounging, breaking out all the most out-there, untouched colours in my eyeshadow palette – why not? Experimenting will be fun, as will finding some outfits that unexpectedly work and can now slot into my regular roster.
3. Food. My mum and I, in an attempt to avoid the fate of roasted broccoli overload (which I end up making most days for dinner…and lunch), are planning a round the world trip, even as travel restrictions are in place. We’re taking a country out of a hat everyday and trying to make some food from that country, as well as reading up about the place itself. Of course, the empty shelves at the supermarket may prove a barrier to doing this everyday, but when it does prove possible, we will have tried something new, and learnt some cool things, and – most importantly – we will have intervened with my obsession with roasted broccoli (although for those who haven’t tried it – do, with some paprika, chilli, garlic and oil, it’s really damn good).
We will see how many of these my mum and I get through during these months, and whether we will have murdered each other in the interim, but I hope these spark some inspiration for you, or encourage you to go back and watch 27 Dresses, which, while being mildly problematic, is still a fun romp!