Until this facility was taken away, I’d never realised how often I looked things up on my phone. How cold is it going to be this evening? What time does that shop open? What has that actress been in before?
During one discussion, Jeremy asked me the origins of Bonfire Night – why, in this country, we still had this weird tradition of setting an effigy of Guy Fawkes alight and letting off fireworks. I only knew the basics, so my fingers raced to my screen and then stopped: in the end, I had to ring my dad on his landline and ask him to look the whole thing up in Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Forced into an analogue life, Jeremy and I made two trips to the cinema. We wandered over to our local pub, where we nodded to the faces that were fast-becoming familiar, eventually engaging them in conversation about the local farmers market and the best pub quiz (where we attended, coming second, feeling clever and winning a bottle of wine, which we drank with the corned beef hash).
Jeremy and I took twilight walks arm-in-arm around the neighbourhood. During this period, I finished two novels, which I took with me on the tube into central London appointments. I can’t remember the last time I had done this and it gave me an enormous amount of pleasure, taking me away from the noisy, relentless, online world.
The verdict
By the end of the fortnight, I am craving garlic, chili, olive oil, basil and coriander. I’m desperate to add some mangoes and blueberries to my dull, green fruit bowl, full of apples and pears. I never want to smell an open tin of spam again, for as long as I live.
On the other hand, I haven’t eaten any Love Bars bought on a whim from Pret or ordered any takeaways (apart from the fish and chips) – surely this has to be a good thing for my blood pressure and cholesterol.
When I stand on the scales, I see I have lost over two pounds – I have no doubt my weight-loss trajectory would have continued downwards if I’d continued living 1950s-style. My legs and arms absolutely feel stronger from all the carrying and the schlepping, the washing and the hanging out.
One thing I also notice is that I’m sleeping better: waking up at least once less during the night. This might be related to the loss of screens before bedtime, and the soporific effect of a good book.
Perhaps the nicest thing of all is that I’m appreciative of my surroundings – the local shopkeepers, the neighbours I smile at in passing, the locals in the pub.
It makes me realise how much time and life we waste, wandering around with our heads down, submerged in our phones all the time. Life may have been tougher in the Fifties, but at least our parents were present enough to enjoy it.
Read More: I lived a 1950s lifestyle and got fitter, slept better and even lost a few pounds
