After last years heart shenanigans George is now classed as vulnerable for the duration of the pandemic crisis. He is safely working from home and will not leave the house until the summer solstice in June at the earliest. Robert has been working from home for the last three weeks already. Now one of those people (Robert) requires peace and quiet to work and one of those people is a bit more, ummmm, well... SHOUTY in his work. Also making my jewellery can be pretty noisy with lots of hammering and sawing. All of which poses something of a problem in our teeny tiny terrace house with it’s paper thin walls. Robert is stationed in the living room, George is in the kitchen and I’m hiding in the shed (that sounds like the title of my memoirs). It seems to be working well for the most part but it’s definitely going to be tricky to navigate for the next few months.

Meanwhile, Mum is 83, lives 300 miles away and has not grasped the situation at all, or if she has, she is choosing to ignore it despite my valiant efforts to get her to stay put. To say I am worried about her is an understatement of the highest order. The only thing I can do is to take every opportunity to nag her to stay indoors and spend hours refreshing the Sainsbury’s website trying to order her some food, you can imagine how that’s going… I am really grateful that my cousin Barry is nearby and is helping her, we would both be in a much worse position without him

That aside, I am stupendously fortunate, I live in a place with a dynamic and thriving community with home delivery options popping up for all kinds of things, bread, fruit and veg, meat, even coffee and pastries. People are mostly considerate, observing proper precautions, social distancing and helping others where they can.

I also have tons of things I want to fill my time with. I make my own soap and have lots of ingredients on hand, I have already made a fresh batch of divine smelling lemongrass soap and a batch of hand sanitisers. I am struck by the irony of making hand sanitisers now I won’t be leaving the house but at least they have a long shelf life and you never know what’s round the corner. I used the WHO recipe and found this useful video for a scaled down version, you can watch it here on YouTube

I am keen to start growing my own vegetables this year and even before this all kicked off I had already started preparing the ground and ordering seeds and plug plants. Because I am new to growing I decided to order a container garden vegetable patch from Rocket Gardens, I can’t wait for it to arrive. I also have seed potatoes, onion and garlic sets, tomatoes, butternut squash, strawberries, sweet peas and poppies. My garden may be tiny but I.m going to fill it full of vegetables and flowers. The slugs and snails in my garden are be in for treat.

I have a pile of clothes which I want to mend. Sewing has never really been my forte but I think it’s one of those things where I actually know more than I think I do. If I have a go and it looks a mess it really doesn’t matter at least i’ll have things to wear to do the gardening!

At this point I am SO grateful to have been brought up by parents (and grandparents) who gifted me with not only the knowledge and enthusiasm to bake, garden and sew but also the ability to improvise when it all goes to hell in a handcart as it surely will.

I know things are going to look completely different when we emerge from this unbelievably difficult time. Personally, despite fighting all the fears, I feel like I have been catapulted back 50+ years and given another go around. I am excited to spend my time learning new things, taking care of myself and my family and of course making lots of new beads.

Stay safe and be well