Marian Keyes' life in lockdown: The postman and DHL driver are my closest friends

Author Marian Keyes writes about her day-to-day experience in lockdown, from doomscrolling on Twitter to writing a novel in between bouts of distraction (and snacking)

Marian Keyes: 'I ring my mother to check that she didn’t die in the night, then it’s time to start work'

I wake at about 4.20am and lie in the dark worrying that people I love are going to catch Covid and die. Now that it has my attention my subconscious offers up a couple of the more embarrassing episodes of my life and I burn with shame. Eventually I tire of this and when I start hearing the first buses, go back to sleep.

I wake again at around 8am and drink the coffee Himself made for me about two and a half hours earlier when he got up to go for a long run in the cold and the dark. (We are very different people, Himself and I.) We live in the Dublin coastal town of Dun Laoghaire. Calling it a ‘coastal town’ makes it sound nicer than it actually is.

As part of my morning ritual, there are a couple of books of inspirational quotes in the drawer beside my pillow. 

I completely ignore them and instead go on Twitter and doomscroll for some time. Handily this reminds me to take my daily antidepressant.

My breakfast is porridge and pretend-Greek yoghurt - it’s hard to get genuine Greek yoghurt in our ‘coastal town’. All of my breakfast details get input into the app which helps my eating ‘stay accountable.’ It’s something I started in the long-ago days of Lockdown One when 'Anxiety Eating' intersected with 'Boredom Eating' and things got very dark, very quickly.

This is also vitamin time, I own several medicinal-looking, brown-glass jars of them. However the smell is so noxious that usually I can’t go through with it. But that’s okay, everyone knows the most effective part of vitamins is buying them.

Next I ring my mother to check that she didn’t die in the night, then it’s time to start work. I repair to The Room of Pain (the spare bedroom), switch on the computer, light a candle and ‘begin’. And by ‘begin’, I mean, stare at the screen and marvel at my hubris. How did I ever think I could write a book. A whole book! The wisdom of my friend Posh Kate, comes to mind: ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!’ All this talk of eating and biting reminds me of food so I go downstairs and eat a protein bar, which is chocolate-flavoured fakery repackaged as something virtuous. Nevertheless, I enjoy it. I neglect to input it into my app.

Back to work. Words appear, in fits and starts. Most of them get deleted. Then! The doorbell! It’s either Steve the DHL man or Johnny my lovely postman! I’m an enthusiastic online shopper at the best of the times, but things turbo’d up fast when lockdown kicked in. I stand on the doorstep and yell socially-distanced pleasantries with whichever man it is. They are my closest friends.

'Everyone knows the most effective part of vitamins is buying them'

I return to work, pausing now and again for some light despair, then the news comes on in the kitchen, which means it’s 1pm sharp. (Himself is very much a creature of habit. I adore this about him.) Lunch is more porridge. I cannot stress how much I love porridge. Of all the foods, it’s the most uncelebrated. It deserves better, a lot better.

The porridge gets input into my app, more doom-scrolling follows, then it’s back to work.

The afternoon is for Any Other Business – writing articles, catching up on research, that sort of thing. Instead, I do a few sudokus, read several 'Am I The Asshole?' stories and WhatsApp my brother Tadhg, pleading for photos of his children (they’re six, three and one). Then I ring my mother, who assures me that, “I’m still not dead.” I praise her for this. (Positive affirmation is so important.) 

Around 5pm, I crave ‘something nice’. Himself keeps stashes of sweets hidden around the house. He gives me three Percy Pigs. I eat them and input them into my app. I ask him for three more. I eat them. These ones I do not input into the app.

Finally, it’s 6pm, my favourite part of the day because I can stop pretending to work and can legitimately focus on food. The one good thing that’s come from The Current Unpleasantness is that Himself and I have started making exciting dinners, consulting cookbooks by Nigella, Nigel Slater and even – yes! – Ottolenghi!

After our thrilling dinner, it’s time for Murder In The Snow. We are devoted to telly-shows about killings committed in cold countries. 

Recently we’ve had The Valhalla Murders, The Arctic Murders and Nordic Murders. Sometimes we mix things up and watch murders in warmer countries, such as France or Senegal. Around 9.30pm, I consult my app and make the delightful discovery that I’ve got a couple of hundred calories ‘spare’, so Himself produces chocolate from one of his hidden stashes, then I go to bed, planning to read an improving book.

But first, Zara!

After a lengthy browse, I ring my mother. We discuss what we had for our respective dinners, she promises me that she won’t die in the night, then I take my melatonin. The recommended dose is two. I usually take four. Or six on a bad night.

Then I close my eyes and launch straight into an anxiety dream where I’m packing in a terrible hurry to escape from some unnamed danger.

This was first published in Marian's newsletter, which is emailed to subscribers every month. You can sign up to her mailing list here. Her latest novel, Grown Ups, is available now.