One year ago today, Boris Johnson announced that the UK would be plunging into lockdown. Fear, uncertainty and murmurs of what might happen had been rippling through the country for weeks, and I remember sitting cross-legged on the sofa, holding our breath as we watched the announcement and then springing into action once it was official; I had to get Archer, and I had to get to my mum’s house. Fast. (For those of you who may be unfamiliar, Archer is my cat. A large, vocal, ginger creature whom I adore more than any living thing on God’s green earth. One year ago today, my brother and I packed some…
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The Lockdown Diaries: “Chapter One of Twelve”
In my twenty-five-plus (plus how many doesn’t need to be clarified exactly) years of living, I will confess that I have developed an unbreakable habit of speaking to myself. In my head, out loud, it is an ever-reliable constant. There are many phrases that have become personal mantras that I will inevitably fall back on to repeat when times are tough. One of my personal favourites; “The sun will rise again tomorrow.” It is a certainty that has anchored me through the choppiest of waters. No matter how the winds howl, or how deeply the dark swallows the skies, or how dangerously close I come to mentally capsizing in an…
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The Lockdown Diaries: There Will Be Joy
As I write this, it is the 12th of January, 2021. We have been battling this new way of life, this strange, alternate ‘pandemic reality’, since the 23rd of March, 2020. That was when the first lockdown was announced – 295 long, long days ago. At the time, we couldn’t possibly have imagined that that very same announcement would be made nearly a year later. That was unthinkable, that those words could be echoed to us via our television screens in the year Twenty-Twenty-One. Not again? Stay at home, save lives. It sounds easy enough, noble even, that we could be saving lives by simply… staying inside. That us mere…
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The Lockdown Diaries: If Nobody Has Told You…
When I started writing this series, we were in the midst of our first lockdown. Now, we’re teetering precariously on the edge of a second one, the threat of ‘further measures’ repeatedly blustered by our Prime Minister in occasional televised briefings. My point – we’re not currently in a lockdown. But I didn’t want to rename these writings as ‘The Pandemic Diaries’, and so, here we are. I hadn’t intended on not writing from July until September, but numerous shifts in circumstance over the last couple of months have left me feeling somewhat overwhelmed. Certainly so much so that typing a stream of consciousness and sharing it with the world…
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The Lockdown Diaries: What I’ve Learnt During Lockdown
I feel as though I should preface this by admitting that I don’t really know how we’re currently defining this strange stretch of time we’ve found ourselves living through. It almost feels like the annual wintry limbo between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, except warmer and considerably less festive. ‘Lockdown’ as it was is over (?) but the pandemic is still very much present, and with a sporadic and ever-changing tangle of difficult-to-decipher rules and regulations handed to us every now and then, it’s hard to keep up. It’s not quarantine as such, it’s not isolation, but it’s something. There’s still an air of fear, uncertainty, the ‘not quite normal’.…
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The Lockdown Diaries: Are You Going To Let You Talk To You Like That?
I once wrote about how difficult it is to say nice things about yourself. How if you were to be asked to describe a loved one, a close friend or family member, a partner, even a beloved work colleague, you’d have no trouble at all. Praise would come easy, come naturally. But to speak that highly of yourself? It’s virtually unheard of. At least, not without some sort of disclaimer first so as not to sound big-headed or boastful. And in a lockdown? Forget about it. If negative self-talk was rampant beforehand, it’s become a daily occurence now, no more out of place than washing up or eating breakfast. AND…
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The Lockdown Diaries: Looking Back To Look Forward
At the start of this year, I truly felt that 2020 would be a turning point. My year, the year that I could leave behind all the trials and tribulations of the decade prior. Let’s all laugh together, shall we? The sunshine has ceased and the rainy days I usually yearn for have become suffocating, enveloping the house in a constant downpour and putting a swift stop to the l a z y, sunny afternoons stretched out on the grass. Gone is the pretence that this is all an impromptu holiday. The empty hours and blurred future have suddenly become increasingly daunting and I’ve been dragged back to reality kicking…
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The Lockdown Diaries: A Love Letter To The Little Things
I believe this is my fifth week in quarantine. I say that without any real certainty because at this point, time is somewhat meaningless. The days stretch on, new hours to fill, new self-made schedules to mimic any kind of routine or normalcy. That’s all we really crave, now; normality. There have been many a silver lining to this ‘new normal’. New hobbies or skills or ‘time to ourselves’, many examples of ‘bright sides’ that we’ve plucked from our lives and painted positively. Baking bread, afternoons in the garden, finally watching that show you’ve been meaning to get to for months. It’s understandable, of course. If nothing else, looking on…
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The Lockdown Diaries: If You Want To Cry, Cry
An important question to start with: how are you? Genuinely. I know it’s all too tempting to be entirely British and stiff-upper-lippy, brush it off with a ‘I’m fine thank you, and you?’ – but honestly… how are you? To be perfectly honest, I’m not really quite certain of my answer myself. I read recently that the strangest thing about living through a pandemic is the feeling of over and underreacting simultaneously. It’s absolutely true – I’ve found myself living with a perpetual case of doublethink. A wreck one minute, rolling with laughter the next. Again, there’s something inherently British about ‘not making a fuss’, dulling potential hysteria with false…
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The Lockdown Diaries: Practicing Gratitude in a Pandemic
Now, if there’s one thing I’m particularly proficient in, it’s catastrophising. It’s like the story of Chicken Little – once an acorn falls, I will become absolutely convinced that the sky is falling. Normally, this is difficult enough to manoeuvre. Over the years, I’ve been trying to fight the fear, cornered in my mind with thoughts roaring and clawing at my subconscious while I mentally take the stance of a lion-tamer, armed with chair, whip and constant rebuttals to keep the ‘What Ifs’ back. Over the last month, those roars have become screams, an unrelenting banshee, wailing of worst-case scenarios. The trouble is, in a pandemic, worst-case scenarios suddenly become…
