30 Ways to Turn Lockdown into a Holiday Experience

There is nothing funny about coronavirus. It has claimed thousands of lives, it has drastically altered the daily habits of millions of people and it is playing havoc with economies across the globe. Many of us are confined to our homes and only allowed out for exercise or to get essential food supplies or pharmacy goods. People are scared, they are struggling for money and they are keen for it all to be over so that they can resume business as usual.

However, in amongst all the scare mongering, the self-appointed neighbourhood policing and the outlandish conspiracy theories online, there is an undercurrent of humour. We humans seem to default to laughter to get us through a crisis and, with this in mind, we have come up with 30 ridiculous ways in which you can make your lockdown experience feel like a holiday. Maybe not the best holiday you have ever had, but one familiar to many a stereotypical Brit abroad!

1.     Sit in the car and have a geography-related argument with a member of your family to remind you of in-car holiday navigation nightmares of the past!

2.     Have a lie in - what do you have to get up for anyway?

3.     Have a few drinks and then rearrange your kitchen cupboards. When you get up in the morning and go to find things, you will re-create the feeling of your first day in a self-catering rental property.

4.     Re-live a flavour sensation of a past holiday by rediscovering the dodgy liqueur that you brought back with you and then immediately consigned to the back of the booze cupboard because you realised that it really did not taste as good without sunshine or a charismatic waiter bringing tiny shots of it to you for free at the end of a meal.

5.     Give yourself a holiday hangover by mixing cocktails out of the aforementioned foreign liqueur and whatever other bottles you can find in the alcohol cupboard of doom. 

6.     Eat some olives out of a tiny bowl with a cocktail stick

7.     Run downstairs in the morning and save your favourite spot in the living room by putting a towel on it.

8.     Get a member of your family to change the wi-fi password and then pretend not to understand you when you ask them what it is. 

9.     Re-create the experience of being on a long haul flight by moving a large item of furniture into the bathroom, so that you have to squeeze past it to use the toilet, then sleep fitfully in a slightly uncomfortable chair for 12 hours. 

10. Pretend the other members of your family are staff in a holiday resort. Speak to them slowly and loudly in English whilst making elaborate hand gestures to illustrate what you are saying.

11. Get all the breakfast options out of the cupboards and display them on the kitchen counter, then have a little bit of everything.

12. Print out pictures of strangers and stick them on the wall, to recreate the experience of staying in an Airbnb.

13. Stop treating your dog for fleas and then, when the inevitable infestation occurs, pretend the bites on your legs are from exotic insects.

14. Turn the heating up to 30 degrees and then complain constantly about the heat. 

15. Take the cushions off the sofa and arrange them on the floor, then strip down to your underwear and lie on the cushions to read a trashy novel. 

16. Get drunk every night for a week.

17. Buy souvenirs for all your friends and family from local businesses. Joking aside, you could do this online and support small businesses that may be struggling at this time. It would also remind your friends and family how much they mean to you, given that you can’t even give them a hug if they don’t live under the same roof as you.

18. Write postcards to your friends and family telling them what the weather is like in great detail (even though they probably know already, given that weather watching is one of the few acceptable activities during lockdown).

19. Watch a foreign film and feel exhausted from having to pay attention and read the subtitles.

20. Ask a member of your family to pretend to be a waiter, place your meal order with them in English - nice and loudly, so they don't misunderstand you - and then rage for quite sometime when they get it wrong (on purpose, because you were probably being a bit obnoxious). 

21. Look at pictures of international cuisine for a few hours and then chose reassuringly British bangers and mash for your dinner (every night).

22. Assume that, in any given situation, other members of your household will not modify their behaviour or do anything to rectify something that has annoyed you. Instead of speaking to them about it, go on their Facebook page and publicly give them a 1 star review. Make sure you mention how reasonable you are and how many innocent children and rescue dogs have also been affected (and possibly permanently emotionally damaged) by their actions.

23. Recreated that ‘just stepped off the aeroplane hot-air-to-the-face’ experience by sitting in front of your panting dog.

24. Vow to wear flip-flops at all times, until your feet are more plaster than foot.

25. Cut out oval outlines in cardboard and stick them on your window. Now every view is an aeroplane view!

26. Recreate the inevitable post-holiday peel by covering yourself in PVA and gradually allowing it to shed around the house.

27. Pretend your fridge and cupboards are an all-inclusive buffet and eat six times more than you usually would in order to get your money’s worth (Disclaimer - This is not advised by any government in current conditions, as it will lead to unnecessary contact with others, given that you will regularly have to leave your home to sustain your gluttonous level of food consumption. Please have a laugh and then definitely DO NOT do it!)

28. Order t-shirts for every member of your household with the name of your town and the year printed on them, to remind you at regular intervals of the hilarious shenanigans of your Holiday at Home 2020.

29. Run outside in your shortest shorts and take a sausage leg selfie in the garden, no matter how cold it is or how many neighbours may be questioning your sanity.

30. Pretend that the reason you are staying in all the time is because the scheduled daily excursions are rubbish and over priced (and you are only there for the relaxation and the booze anyway). This will give you the opportunity to feel more like a smug spend thrift and less like a prisoner under house arrest.

We hope that these have made you smile and if you can think of any that we have missed, do get I touch and let us know. We could use a laugh about now!