Surviving C19 Lockdown

So, I have just sat down in our freshly painted, lovely looking conservatory, in my pjs after a nice bath, and settled down to write a blog with a glass of red. Table just got knocked (due to crazy kitten running round the room) and red wine went all over the lovely light grey rug. But it's fine. It will stain but there are more pressing things to think about. I started this blog at the very beginning of lockdown, for a few different reasons. - I panicked and didn't know what to do with myself! - I have always wanted to write - I had time to write - It helped me get my head around the unbelievable and scary situation - I felt the need to get my thoughts and feelings out somehow and the only way I have ever been able to do this is by writing it down. (or drinking too much and making a tit of myself....) For me, lockdown has (unfortunately for many reasons) ended. I am getting jobs coming in now for property photography and I think from next week onwards I will become i...

A lovely afternoon spent socially distancing with the neighbours, enjoying celebrating VE Day whilst catching up over cake and gin. I felt privileged they allowed me to move my chair in to the road a bit closer to their grass. Today is the first “proper” catch up in person I have had with anyone outside my own house, other than dropping shopping off and chatting briefly from the gate. Today was as close to “proper” as it gets in these times. We even had chairs and a table, imagine..... So VE Day has been lovely. For many reasons. A catch up with friends (who are also the neighbours), sitting outside in the sun somewhere other than my own garden, a reason to make more scones, and a perfect excuse to drink gin even earlier than usual at 3pm.  But actually it’s emotional. I’ve seen loads of photos on social media about the war, and the bombings, and the loss of life, and the hardships faced. And I remember my amazing grandpa and all he, and many others, did for their country to giv...

As you know if you have read my previous blogs, I love making lists. Tonight, I have already started tomorrow’s list with the word “gin”.  I’d never been a gin drinker until my mother in law (your fault if you are reading this Kate!) gave me a glass at their house a couple of years ago. And it was delicious. And ever since I have tried to have a bottle in the house for special occasions. Pre lockdown a gin and tonic was my Saturday “treat” before I opened a bottle of Prosecco. (Don’t judge, it was once a week) I felt naughty if I had a G and T around 6pm as it seemed far too early. (Note to readers, I haven’t always been a prude, in fact in the day’s before kids, any time after 12.01pm was more than acceptable to open a bottle of White Lightning, which was consumed all afternoon and in to the evening without thought or regret. Until the next day. However! I became a mum and I got old. And really dull. So these days a drink pre 6pm is unheard of. And a drink on any night other...

I’ve heard from people, and seen on Zoom and social media, many are struggling with working in lockdown with young children. I will admit I don’t envy these guys, although at the start of lockdown I did. When it first happened I wished that Mia was younger, so I could have that time with her without having to work. Just the 3 of us with total family time, and I would happily have gone back to the days of playing schools and trains and Lego and crafts and story’s. We did all these things when Mia was little and I know I am lucky to have spent so much time just me and her over the years. So when this all started I was envious of those with young kids who were not allowed to work, and even those that have to. It’s perfect, I naively thought, they can spend all this lovely family time together... I was a fool! I’ve heard from many how hard it is looking after little ones in lockdown, and most of these people have to work as well! And from what I’ve heard it is very difficult indeed. And, ...

This is a shit storm and we are all in it but sailing different boats... Some are great big armoured submarines battling through regardless, a few are luxury yachts enjoying relaxing times in the sun with no financial worries at all, some are hardworking fishing boats desperately hoping for a good catch to get them through, and there are those more like flimsy rafts, through no fault of their own, finding it difficult to stay afloat.  I have been on Zoom calls talking to business owners who feel guilty about working. They say that they feel bad about securing work in these horrible times. But the outcome of these calls (thanks to others more knowledgable than me!) is don’t! Do not feel guilty if you are working. This county and other businesses need you to keep us all going. Key workers are obviously needed, but there are many others, “almost key workers” whom are needed to help those unable to work. Keep going you people! Keep motivating your furloughed staff, keep the busine...

Been feeling a bit down these last couple of days. No particular reason (except there is a world wide pandemic, I’m worried, I have no income, I miss family and friends, and no one knows if life will ever get back to how it was) I need to pull myself together.... No actually I don’t. I realise there are so many people out there who are worse off then me. NHS and all key workers, ill people (CV or any illness), people who have lost their job, people who can’t claim anything, those who can’t see loved ones even for a few minutes with shopping, those in abusive relationships, and I think worst of all, those who have lost someone close to them in these times. And I’ve just had a couple of days where the enormity of it all has kind of hit me. Watching the whole world suffer is unbearable. When all this started I was in survival mode for my business. Keeping busy trying to sort out financial issues and do all I could to make sure my business can come back from this. The initial fear of losin...

Two and a half weeks in to lockdown and already this life is feeling almost normal. There is a new routine (or lack of) for everything and the pace of life is so slow and uneventful compared to how it was. I popped round to my lovely grandma's earlier with some shopping essentials and we chatted from a safe distance (how often do we now use this once obsolete phrase?) in the garden. She is amazing. 98 and totally unfazed by all this. She just says her life hasn’t actually changed that much, which I guess it hasn’t, apart from that she is seeing less of people and can’t go to church. Normally I would stay longer and have a coffee with her, and probably some biscuits with a best before date of Jan 1982, but these days I take my own bottle of water and have a good excuse to pass on the biccies. We talked about the usual things, Corona, both world wars, politics, immigration, Corona, Spanish Flu, and how weird I will look when my hair is the same colour as hers in a few weeks... I ...

The last few days have been spent doing what most people seem to have been doing.... Zoom calls,  gardening, painting, tidying the house, cooking new meals, a colder than planned bbq on Sunday, daily walks, more Zoom calls.... And I’ve been busy! Hence no blog for a few days. Then I felt guilty! I had it on my list of stuff to do that I would write a new blog every 1 - 2 days during lockdown! How could I fail so early on in the process? Then I realised my list also stipulates that I will write “a letter a day to people I love to keep in touch with” and I haven’t written one today because we have been painting Mia's room for most of the day. But I wrote 2 letters yesterday.... And I realised it doesn't actually matter if things are not done exactly as planned. And my lists, as much as I love them, can be amended day to day. During a normal working day I have tight deadlines and jobs I must attend at certain times and images that have to be sent off by the end of each day. When I...

So, it is officially “Easter Holidays”, school should have broken up yesterday and we should have been looking forward to two weeks of time off. Well, time off for Mia, with me trying to fit work in around childcare... But with no routine of getting up and out of the house for school, which I love. But that hasn’t happened for two weeks already so the new way of living now feels like the norm, and days and weeks blur in to each other and it’s difficult to differentiate between them. Has it only been two weeks...? As much as it’s hard when I work during school holidays, I have always loved them and made the most of them. As all working mums do. Thanks to help from my mum and play dates (can’t really call them that now Mia is 11 years old...) I have always managed to fit my usual amount of jobs in, over less but longer days, freeing up some of the holiday for days out and mini breaks. I am so lucky to be self employed and, as much as I can, I manage my own time. Obviously it’s totally di...

I was determined to use this time we have found ourselves with as the opportunity to have lots of lovely extra family time. When lockdown was first announced I had visions of a daily walk together, all 3 of us linking arms and chatting and laughing together as the wind rippled through our hair and the fresh air made our cheeks (already aching from laughter) red and tingly. My mind pictured me helping Mia with her school work, sitting down together from 9am until 3pm, and working through it happily, learning together and enjoying each other's company. I assumed this could be fitted in around my own work, telephone calls and Zoom meetings, with an hour's break for a home cooked healthy lunch eaten in the garden together, perhaps followed by a ball game, before returning to our desks. The house and garden would naturally be spotless, as with all this extra time, how could they be anything else? Once the day's work had been completed, the 3 of us would sit down for a tasty meal...