I’VE been doing a lot of thinking about the things I’m going to do when lockdown is over and done with. Staring wistfully out the window, imagining myself in the mundane situations and activities that I used to take for granted.

The first pint in a pub is probably the most obvious one. When we’re told it’s safe to do so, I’ll probably shamble down Duke St like a zombie, salivating at the mouth, letting my instincts guide me to the place with the cheapest possible pint. God love the poor person behind the bar handing that first mythical pint to me. I’ll be standing there, hands outstretched, gleefully accepting it the way a thirsty desert traveller would take their first drink of water after being rescued. Hopefully, considering it’s been so long, I won’t have forgotten how to drink a pint. I keep imagining all the poor wee empty pint glasses lined up behind bars everywhere, all huddled together, clinking as they shiver like wee abandoned dugs.

Imagining the first pint got me thinking about all the times I’ve turned down going for a drink with my pals. Never again will I say, “Naw, sorry mate. I’ve got too much oan”.

Total lies. I just couldn’t be bothered leaving the house. Now that I actually can’t leave the house, there’s nothing I’d rather do. It got to the point in the last few months or so that my pals stopped asking me to go for a drink with them as they, correctly, assumed that I’d say no.

After all this though, I’ll be replying to their texts with lightning fast speed and white-hot intensity. I wonder how long it’ll be before they get a bit freaked out by this new, and perhaps too social, Chris McQueer.

I’ve even been thinking about how much I’d give for the most

low-level pub experience. A Tuesday night with my mate in the South Side, a place I have zero pub knowledge of, a place where the auld guys who like to bam me up can smell the fact I’m an outsider from a mile off. I’d pay good money to hear some guy say to me, “Here, pal. See they denims yer wearing? I know how ye goat intae them”. I’d nod, waiting for him to deliver a perfect putdown that will have his pals in hysterics while I stand more awkwardly than ever before, smiling politely despite having died inside. He’d continue, “I bet ye hing fae the loft while yer maw hawds them open under ye then ye drap doon intae them!”

Their laughter will only be topped once after that and that’s when they find out my surname. I’d genuinely give cold hard cash to experience that for 10 minutes this evening while drinking the warmest, flattest pint possible.

I can’t wait to be able to take the dug to the beach for a big long walk. I can’t for the day when people don’t have to cross the road to avoid each other, jumping away like one or both of you is a leper. I’m sure the dug can’t wait for folk to stop and tell him how weird looking he is and give him a wee clap.

I can’t wait to be able to go to the pictures. Again, I’d give anything to even just recreate the experience. Maybe just sit in a dark room with a group of strangers while they slurp juice, loudly chew popcorn and rustle packets so much I start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, they’re trying to get to a bag of prawn crackers that’s been wrapped in innumerable layers of tin foil. In this recreation we’d be watching a pirate copy of the worst film ever on VHS on a 14-inch portable telly. And do you know what? I’d take that.

When I get allowed out to the pictures for the first time, I’ll treat myself to the most massive juice they have, a tub of popcorn bigger than my head and even a £14 packet of wine gums. I’ll bankrupt myself and it’ll all have been worth it. I’ll ease the blow by simply saying that I’m “kickstarting the economy”.

I can’t wait to be able to see my granny and granda again. Take the dug up with me, have a cup of tea and a piece and corned beef, have a blether and a moan, then go for a walk with them.

It’s easy to say that we can’t wait for the time when all this is over and things “go back to normal” – but let’s not let things go back to normal. Let’s make things better. Let’s go into this post-coronavirus world with a new attitude towards life and stop taking things for granted. See our pals more, spend more time with our families, make time to do the things we enjoy

the most.