My toddler, Rafael, and I got up early on Monday morning and eagerly opened the front door to bring in our three-day-a-week delivery of milk and eggs.
Except there wasn’t any – just a note saying no eggs were available. So where was the milk?
Hell hath no fury like a toddler who can’t have his cereal in the morning.
I assumed it was just an admin error and thought I’d call the dairy to iron it out. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one to report items missing – they had received an influx of calls from residents whose milk was being swiped.
Even worse, they told me that cars were pulling over to the milk float and stealing entire crates. It made me feel sick to the stomach. I realise that there are bigger problems than crying over two pints of spilt milk but there is a bigger picture here.
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We had already been self-isolating for a week and pulled Rafael out of nursery a week before Boris Johnson closed the schools.
Our newborn baby, Beau, was born with multiple congenial heart issues and for him, a respiratory infection could be fatal. In nine months, our own resilience has a family has already been tested multiple times with three rounds of open-heart surgery – the most recent in mid-January at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
We have not stockpiled because we don’t want to take from others who need it. We only buy what we need when we need it. But the milk delivery was just one of those things we didn’t have to think or worry about.
Missing milk wouldn’t be so much of an issue if everyone was taking social distancing seriously.
On Sunday, I felt like I was running a gauntlet in my own neighbourhood with people coughing and not covering their mouths, standing close together in shops and huddles in the local market (that, bizarrely, was still on).
While we may be in enforced lockdown, I don’t see the overcrowding of supermarkets or panicked stockpiling any time soon.
It’s not even about me getting sick. I’m terrified that someone will pass it on to me and then Beau will get it. I’m still breastfeeding because I’m trying to keep up his immunity, which means we are in close proximity all the time.
We have been put at risk by an incredibly thoughtless person at a time when our limits have already been tested to the max
I really hope that whoever stole it was someone who is more desperate and in need than us. But part of me wants to shout out: ‘Don’t you think we have been through enough in the last year? How many more kicks are we expected to take and keep standing?’
Luckily for us, we have been given a six-month break from hospital treatment. This was supposed to be our time as a family to be able to relax and enjoy being together without weekly trips to hospital and to return to some kind of normality.
The current situation has put a stop to that and the opportunity for us to introduce Beau to our family and friends in France. I can handle that. I just can’t handle the thought of someone stealing from my own doorstep at the same time.
We have been put at risk by an incredibly thoughtless person at a time when our limits have already been tested to the max. I imagine that a lot of people who order milk also have children or are isolated elderly people.
However, I have been bolstered by my neighbours who live on the roads around us. They put out posters and set up WhatsApp groups to support the isolated and vulnerable.
We have been inundated with offers of people supporting us.
After a morning spent stewing in sadness, I’m now trying to refocus my energy into more positive ways that I too can also support others virtually.
I really hope that at the end of this period, we see an influx of community over crime.
Lucy is the author of Hype Yourself: A no-nonsense DIY PR toolkit for small businesses
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