The virtual life

So this week I’ve sung in a choir every day, sweated in two pilates classes and taught another, had afternoon tea with my cousin, chatted to all my nieces and nephews in Scotland and Yorkshire, had a game of bingo with friends, enjoyed a gin-and-tonic- fuelled girlie evening with another group of friends, and spent all day every day in the office doing my normal job – all without leaving the house.

Lockdown may be a strange and scary world of isolation and sacrifice, but I’m also finding it a really interesting time of innovation and challenge as we all think differently about how to stay active, occupied and sane.

Before I go any further I would like to say three things:  firstly that I’m in the hugely privileged position of having a job that I can easily do at home and where my company is still employing and paying all its staff as normal; secondly that my home has three floors, four bedrooms and a garden so if I want a change of scene I just walk to another part of the house; and thirdly that I understand completely the sense of devastation and loss felt by the family and friends of every one of the thousands of people who have died as a result of Covid-19. 

I’m therefore not cooped up in a flat with children and no garden, nor  worried about paying the mortgage, bills or for food.  So perhaps I am able to look at this situation through a different lens to others, and it’s a perspective that’s helping me to focus on the positives.

As a bereaved person, over the last six months I’ve expended a huge amount of emotional energy forcing myself off the sofa and out the door, back into the outside world rather than just moping around the house.  Now the Government says I HAVE to stay at home. Result!  In fact the moment lockdown started, I felt much more relaxed, and anxiety levels that I didn’t know I had, began to lower.

Life is more intense but also rich and vibrant. Instead of running for the train I’m strolling round empty streets looking at flowers and trees on my daily exercise, instead of traffic I hear bird song, instead of rushing around trying to fit everything in, I’m chatting over the fence to neighbours.

The safe space that home now represents has helped my concentration levels and I find myself powering through work in a way I haven’t been able to in a year.  Video meetings keep me in touch with friends and colleagues from work, and I’ve bonded with people I wouldn’t usually spend much time with because there’s a sense of us all pulling together to make things better.

My daughters are both now at home and taking the advice to Stay Home Save Lives very seriously, and I’m really enjoying having them around me. Enforced it may be, but I’m loving it!  

We bake, cook from scratch, and find inventive ways to use up all the food in the fridge because with shopping so much more difficult now, we don’t want to waste a scrap.

But what’s most amazing of all is that I’m still able to keep up with almost all of my usual hobbies.  Only tennis has fallen by the wayside, but even there my eldest daughter and I took part in Andy Murray’s #100VolleyChallenge over the Easter weekend – and we smashed it!

Being able to still sing in the choir AND see all my choir friends while doing so via computer has been quite amazing. Online pilates where the teacher can still see me and correct me is a revelation.  I’ve also been able to teach my own class this way, keeping us all moving, fit and in touch.

I don’t feel that my social life has suffered at all.  In fact, I speak to friends and family more than usual. So much so that it’s getting hard to find slots in my diary for new virtual events! What should be a difficult and lonely time has become one of invention and bonding and it’s been so much easier than I ever imagined to feel positive.

Of course, there are sadnesses – not having my husband beside me, putting on hold my Selfish At Sixty plans, cancelling exciting trips and holidays.  But as I look forward to next week taking part in a virtual treasure hunt (no idea how THAT’S going to work!), recording myself singing for a virtual choir, and having virtual dinner with a friend, the overwhelming feeling is that every day presents another opportunity to experience the good things of life, albeit virtually.

My lovely thing for April

In a month where there have actually been quite a few nice and unusual things, the highlight has to be reading my niece Shari Low’s new novel My One Month Marriage (Boldwood Books).  Not only because it’s a brilliant story (as all 20+ of her books have been!), but because she has dedicated this one to me, my girls and my late husband. I feel very touched and proud.