Karen Koren makes the best of a lockdown birthday party

They say that this lock down is worse than March 2020, though every time I am out in the park or the supermarket, it’s busy with lots of people. No one seems to be staying home. Most people are just fed up with it all now and would like things to open up again.

We have to accept that nothing is going to open up again until we have control of this virus and we are all vaccinated and that deaths and new cases go down. This means we have to make the best of it.

Last year at this time I had a very special birthday and a wonderful party. Friends came from Norway, Los Angeles and Melbourne. My oldest school friends came as well as family, showbiz friends and staff. It was a joy to dance, drink, laugh and literally have a great time. So many have said to me that it was the last time they‘d been to a party since and how lucky we were to make it happen.

It was therefore, lovely to be incredibly spoilt for this year’s Birthday, over the weekend, by Katy, my daughter, and her boyfriend, being in their bubble. Katy had organised a full day of activities from a 10 am zoom with friends from India, New Zealand and Australia, they had written a quiz specially for me – which was fun, especially since the friends in New Zealand were in party mode being midnight there, so it was pretty raucous.

After that we went for a walk in the park and bumped into my son walking his dog – accidentally on purpose. That was such a lovely surprise as I haven’t been able to see the family since Christmas Day and that was in their garden. Once home we had another zoom from friends in London and we played a giant crossword they had made.

We had a sumptuous dinner with a homemade cake and a bottle of pink champagne. It just shows that we can still have a good time until we open up the world again and we are allowed to go to pubs, restaurants and travel.

Can’t wait!