The Lockdown Party

🐾 Featuring lockdown bubbles, dogs breaking the rules, one heroic barbecue rescue… and a party that gets completely out of control

This story is part of The Diary of an Orange Cat — now available as a book and as a complete 24-episode podcast series.

👉 Listen to the podcast:
The Diary of an Orange Cat

🎧 Watch / listen to a preview:

^{Weasley attempts to save the day during The Lockdown Party}

STORY OUTLINE

After several days living together in Serafina’s carefully managed Isolation Flat, tensions are beginning to rise. Arguments break out over dogs and lockdown rules, questions are raised about whether isolation is even necessary, and before long, the group’s carefully controlled bubble begins to unravel.

What starts as an innocent barbecue idea quickly spirals into complete chaos involving surprise visitors, catnip, gin, a barbecue fire, and an increasingly questionable interpretation of lockdown guidelines. Left alone during the disaster, Weasley unexpectedly finds himself stepping into the role of local hero.

BACKGROUND

The Lockdown Party began life as part of a much longer story called The Isolation Flat. During editing for The Woes of Weasley, I realised that the original chapter had become too large and was trying to do too many things at once. Splitting it into two separate stories allowed the ideas more room to breathe and gave The Lockdown Party a stronger identity of its own.

Like many of Weasley’s diary entries written during 2020, the story draws heavily on the strange atmosphere of the Covid-19 lockdown period — the endless discussions about rules, bubbles, what was allowed, what wasn’t allowed, and the occasional tendency for people to become enthusiastic enforcers of things they had only half understood themselves.

Serafina’s increasingly serious approach to managing the Isolation Flat also quietly plants the seeds for storylines that appear later in the series. Meanwhile, Weasley — despite his usual tendency toward anxiety and overthinking — unexpectedly discovers that under pressure he may have hidden talents as an emergency responder.

Or at least he thinks he does.

THE UNREAL CATS

Many of the cats and animals appearing throughout The Diary of an Orange Cat are inspired by real pets from Diamond Harbour and surrounding areas, although their personalities and adventures often take on a life of their own once they enter Weasley’s world. Since persuading real cats to cooperate in barbecue disasters, lockdown parties, and virtual reality experiments proved somewhat challenging, I called on AI for a little assistance.