This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
There’s no getting away from the fact that everyday life with all its mundane, simple pleasures has been halted for now. Diaries are wiped out as everything gets cancelled and each successive week makes the last one seem like it was a fun filled extravaganza. Yes, even that unwelcome six monthly appointment with the dentist which had to be endured last month feels like it was a picnic in the park.
So how to get through this most unwanted period of time? It’s quite a puzzle since my usual tried and tested coping strategies of chatting it all over with friends, buying clothes I definitely don’t need, bingeing on chocolate and, in times of in real desperation, getting some fresh air and exercise, are apparently all totally useless in combating coronavirus.
In truth, have no more idea than the rest of us what to do for the best. Friends are all reacting differently.
Anna is self isolating but is using the time to learn a foreign language confident that some day soon she’ll be able to speak Spanish if not like a native then much better than she can now. She won’t have to rely on her family who live in Spain to speak all but the very simplest phrases for her. And she’s rather hoping to impress them with her new found fluency, too!
Sally is going to take up painting again. Painting was something she has enjoyed all her life and was actually quite good at. Watercolours of the local scenery were her speciality and she exhibited and sold her work at local art fairs even gaining the odd commission along the way. Painting was a passion which somehow got lost along the way but which she now looks forward to re-visiting. She’s already joined an on-line group of would be artists for increased moral support and incentive.
Lou enjoys quilting, knitting and embroidery. In fact anything which involves a needle and thread. Her husband is equally gifted when it comes to making and re-modelling so they’ll both be busy and happily creative at home. Lou’s husband has wanted to keep hens for ages now but has never quite managed to get round to it. Something tells me he will now.
Helen has joined her local genealogy society (again on-line) and hopes to spend some time researching her and her husband’s family history. Something she has always wanted to do but has never found the time in her busy schedule. Now is the perfect opportunity.
I’ve filled the fridge and the freezer and the storecupboards too (no, not with loo rolls!) and even the cat has enough food to withstand a siege. There are books waiting to be read, lots of TV recorded for the days when it will be too cold or too wet to go out into the garden. And the garden, usually a chore to be fitted in around everything else, will soon be looking uncharacteristically immaculate from all the attention it will be getting.
Now there are five words I never thought I’d say but here goes… I really, really miss Brexit. That familiar, cosy time in what suddenly seems like the dim and distant past when we could hate most of our politicians, argue ourselves to a Brexit induced standstill with our nearest and dearest and even exchange Brexit views with the nice bloke who came to valet the car. Doesn’t it feel like that was a comfortable and almost innocent time? We didn’t know how lucky we were back then, did we? I for one have very firmly resolved never take the way we were for granted ever again.
But we can still look at that amazingly blue sky and feel the hesitant warmth of the Spring sun. Hear the birds singing, watch the flowers and buds bursting energetically into life and appreciate all the things which normally we take so very much for granted. I know I do.