A little saucepan, which is my tea saucepan.

And if it was raining heavily and it’s the heat outside. 

The soil there was like red.

This is just fresh mint, from my garden.

And when we used to sit on our swings outside in the backyard.

I know, people find it strange, that – ‘oh, what a way to make tea’. But it’s just the best tea.

The smell with the sun, the heat and the rain in that red soil. It was, it was just a nice smell and having the Chai.

This is how every Indian household would have tea. This is a proper Chai.

It goes down your throat and you can feel a nice, a heat in your neck. 

This is loose tea, and then you just let it boil.

In that rain, it was just a completely different atmosphere.

It’s got a nice, golden, reddish strong colour.

And we used to have popcorn with it sometimes, my mum used to make proper popcorn. 

It’s got like a minty, steamy, sort of aroma. 

And I still remember the smell of popcorn and that I used to put the popcorn in my tea. 

If I don’t have this tea in the morning, I have a very grumpy start of the day. 

I still have popcorn in my tea.

My name is Avi and I was born in Lusaka, Zambia, in Africa. And I came over here to study and it was the best time of my life getting used to the country. And missing the sun actually. 

News: There now follows a ministerial broadcast from the Prime Minister. 

So when the lockdown was started –

News: Good evening, the Coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades. 

It was scary, very, very scary. It was really worrying because I’m on my own. And I didn’t know what was going on. I was panicking. 

News: From this evening, I must give the British people a very simple instruction: you must stay at home. 

And then I heard that, yes, I have to isolate for 12 weeks. I thought: how am I going to spend my whole day indoors? And I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to do it, but I told myself, everybody has to do it. And I tried my best. And it was worrying because I have grandkids, I have daughters, and I was worried about them as well. And the fact that I couldn’t see them, hug them. They used to video call me every day. And that was the best part of my time – at least I could see them.

When I get up in the morning and look out of the window, and it’s completely quiet, there’s no one walking around. No cars. In fact, no noise. And all I could hear through my window open, was the birds. And I think that was just so beautiful: that you can actually hear the birds singing, you know. And going for walks, it was just so peaceful. And I used to make a habit of going quite early so there was no one and I could walk in the middle of the road. 

Avi: Hello, my angel.

Katie: Morning!

I’ve got a lovely lady living next door to me. 

Avi: Have you got a busy morning today? 

Katie: Very, as usual. 

And I call her my angel. She’s called Katie

Katie: And we could hear each other doing our dance classes, through the wall.

Avi: Aerobics. 

Katie: Yeah.

Avi: Bollywood aerobics. 

And here she was working very hard, so I thought I needed to feed her, you know, so I used to just make stuff and give her my lovely Chai in the afternoon, with a piece of cake or whatever I’ve made for lunch.

Avi: One cup and two cups makes no difference to me. It doesn’t matter. You could have it. 

Katie: Oh you’re amazing. 

My idea was always when I’m out walking. Because that’s my time, I’m thinking at that time. And when I come down towards my house, I used to think: now what am I going to have for lunch? Oh, I think I fancy fresh spinach and potato pakoras. So I used to just come home, wash my hands, collect all the ingredients, make it all up and then I used to message her to say please don’t have your lunch now – I’m making lunch. And while it was hot, very hot. I used to just go in, put my gloves on, put it on her car bonnet, ring the doorbell and come back in. So it was like a sneaky little neighbourly running in and out. 

Katie: Avi’s always been an amazing neighbour anyway. Lovely. And she’s just looked after me all the way through. 

And to me, she’s like a daughter. So I just treated her like my daughter. But this lockdown has brought us much closer.

But the 12 weeks seemed very, very long. And even now today, I feel it – was it all a dream that it actually happened? But I think now looking back, I think maybe it’s for the best because people will now think differently and they will… their perspective of life will probably change. 

I’ve become very confident and I would just throw myself into doing anything. I don’t have any negative thoughts anymore. So I just take each day as it comes. I embrace it and I hug it and I just carry on.