A Party for Two: Finding Fun in Lockdown

By Roisin Thompson

After a semester of seemingly endless lockdowns, completing a year of the same, my experiences at Durham University are certainly nothing like I imagined they might be. Coming from Canada and my typically modern undergraduate campus, my ideas about University in England were filled with visions of cold drafty hallways, dinners in strange robes, and formals for holidays I had never celebrated. In reality, the continuing Covid-19 pandemic has irreversibly changed the university experience I was expecting, yet, in a weird topsy-turvy way all of these imaginings have come to pass.

Hallways have certainly been drafty and cold as windows are left open to increase the airflow and maintain a safer space for face-to-face teaching when possible. Meanwhile endless lockdown cycles have meant that some nights melt into days and further into evenings and I end up eating dinner in my pyjamas… Certainly strange robes for dinnertime! Most miraculously, I have even experienced a formal for a holiday I have never celebrated.

As the days of lockdown begin to meld together it can be harder and harder to find ‘fun’ as everything takes on a monotonous tone, rattling around the same four walls day after day. The semester trickled by with events cancelled or moved online and socializing remained a distant dream. Yet, as we entered November the GCR at Ustinov got creative. The Bonfire Night Formal was necessarily cancelled as an in-person event, but instead of giving up on yet another chance for fun, the GCR managed to bring the formal straight into Ustinovians’ houses!

Between online classes, zoom meetings, and digital socialization it can be easy to become ‘zoom fatigued’ and turn down invitations to events. More than once this semester I have been excited about an online activity, to get to the day of and have felt unable to turn the computer on. Yet, I find the longer - and more stringent - the lockdowns have become, the more important it is to decide to create fun no matter the circumstances. So, as the GCR set up their alternate formal plans, I decided that we would have fun with no holds barred and we signed up for the event. Instead of creating a typical purely online event, the Bonfire Night ‘Formal’ package promised a home delivery of not only the catered meal, but also a bag of decorations to make each home feel like a formal venue.

As evening on February 6th crept across the sky, the night of the ‘Formal’, my partner and I shook out our fancy wear (slightly wrinkled from their long vacation in the back of our closets) and got dressed as if we were really going out. I put on make-up for the first time in months and heels on for the first time in memory! We brought our little kitchen table out into our main room and poured a glass of wine while we waited for our ‘formal’ to arrive. Soon after 6:30 we got a knock on our door and opened it to a package on our front step and a waving GCR member outside our gate. With a cheerful thanks we went to set up our formal venue.

We opened our package to discover not only balloons, but a golden tablecloth, atmospheric battery candles, table decorations, a kazoo, and a confetti popper! More than enough to turn our living room festive.

With balloons up, table set, wine opened, music playing, and food warmed we proceeded to have a carefree and fun night! Although the GCR did set up an online aspect to this night, I must admit that we got carried away, dancing and having fun and we did not tune in. Despite the pandemic, I managed to experience my very first Bonfire Night in England, party and all!