Our Saturday nights are changing

Remembering how far we've come

Back in lockdown, I listened to the radio a lot. It felt like someone was keeping me company through the endless days of entertaining a one-year-old.

Little rituals sprang up: the special coffee at 3pm, so that I could pretend I was in a coffee shop. The daily walks past our special tree, taking a photo each time until we found it had been chopped down overnight. Switching the radio on in the morning and dancing in the kitchen.

On Saturday evenings, I would try to cook something special. Another fortification against the tide of monotony. I would listen to Liza Tarbuck on Radio 2 whilst I cooked. I can’t totally explain the alchemy that happens on her show, but it was evident that I was decidedly not the target audience.

The airwaves were filled with people texting in about cooking lasagne whilst their teenagers were off playing computer games; at-home bar nights planned; zoom quizzes. I latched onto one thing: the parents whose children were growing up. Still at home, but doing their own thing. Maybe they were having a family movie night; maybe board games were afoot. I drank it all in.

The idea that one day I might cook a meal whilst my child played by themselves felt so distant. Even the idea of him being upstairs without me felt absurd. I was cooking in a frenzy, constantly providing entertainment and sometimes nourishment. It was my idea of luxury if the babe sat still for a minute and I got to pump whilst cooking.

I clung to it all anyway. These people, just living their lives and sharing their fun Saturday nights, held up their torches for me.

I had assumed this was all many years away. We would be well into our forties with a teenager at home before any of this happened. Did we have to wait to be empty nesters to experience this Saturday night domestic bliss?

Then, last Saturday night, something happened. I was cooking a vegetarian chilli. No radio, just the quiet kitchen. My son and partner were playing a board game in the other room. The house hummed with our quiet happiness. It hit me. This was what I had longed for! Everyone in the house was content, the kitchen smelled amazing: we were having a lovely Saturday night. We did it!

It’s small, I know. Of course, there is far to go when you have a five-year-old. There are so many things that we still long for. For just a second, though, I can bask in this one thing. Our Saturday nights are going to change a lot, but for this moment in time, we made it somewhere.