KEEPING POSITIVE IN A PANDEMIC

I try to join the travel link up when I have time or something positive to share. The theme this month is obviously not travel, but positivity. And so I thought I would join as whilst I don’t really have the time (see next sentence) there’s an awful lot to worry right now and so I needed to write down any positive the current situation gives us. If you put to one side worries about health, working a 40 hour week alongside a 77 hour toddler waking week, where we might get food from, when we can next see our family, hug our friends, or have a play date and when our extension might be completed then there is positive stuff too. I don’t write this to belittle the situation (friends have had the symptoms, others have lost family) in any way, but to remind myself that in amongst the bad there’s some good to reflect on.

My little blog is more of a diary so after 14 days of isolation I have written down my positive thoughts… We started a little earlier than many, because the little one had a tummy bug on the 18th March and so we had to pull him out of nursery.

So here are my positive moments and thoughts to counter the anxiety:

• We are getting more exercise than normal with our daily walks. After tea we go for a yomp and we are all enjoying it. And because it is spring there’s baby animals, ploughing and flowers blooming.
• I’m so grateful we live remotely and can take a walk without seeing hardly a soul, it makes me smile that everyone is so friendly now we can’t hang out! I sense this will be good for community in the long run
• I saw one of the first bluebells flower in a little copse ten days ago
• We get to spend more time together as a family and as a couple. It is hard with no ‘time out’ but it is nice to not have to plan a week around business travel and commuting (although planning two work diaries around a toddler is having its fraught moments and is almost worse)
• I’m grateful we are able to work from home and hence continue to be paid

• We are learning new phrases as part of everyday conversation: self isolation, social distancing, continuous cough, quarantine, coronavirus, pandemic, lockdown… I find it totally surreal children will learn about this time in history lessons for years to come
• We haven’t resorted to the television as a childcare option yet, and we are reducing the amount of news we watch as quite frankly if you watch the news then you aren’t going to sleep well
• Little B shuts the doors behind him, and it’s very helpful as when we go out to the garden he closes the side door after us. He has also tried to assist with the hoovering! He also shuts the stair gates, in fact he climbed down unbeknown to me one morning and shut it at the bottom for good measure
• Working a 2 hour on 2 hour off childcare shift pattern is exhausting for us but the little one is thriving from getting our undivided attention when we are ‘on shift’, as we are truly ignoring our phones and being totally present with him
• I love video calls – in fact we see more of our parents now because of video calling. The most interesting calls so far have been the ones with work. I feel like I know all my colleagues better already, and who doesn’t like nosing around the backgrounds of other peoples homes!

• Our local wine merchant is delivering ‘stay at home’ boxes…
• The NHS is amazing, under pressure, and still amazing
• We are expert hand-washers, even Little B. In fact he is obsessed with it, particularly now that we have his tractor stool by the basin so he can reach! I said yesterday, time to wash our hands and he said ‘why’… It has begun…
• We’ve discovered that our baby is now more boy than toddler. Spending real time (I.e. we miss nothing!) with him it is obvious how fast he is growing up
• He seems to understand everything we say and responds to questions with answers and part sentences. I’m not sure if we just hadn’t noticed, or its come from a change in environment for him?
• I have a sun tan and some wind burn, the daily outdoor exercise has me glowing. The rain finally stopped falling after 4 months, hallelujah

• So many new words – telephone, bicycle, panda, owl, boat, bed, water, trees, horse, shoes, trousers, balloons, fish, cat, cheese… The list goes on. His favourite is no, and he has only said that since we’ve all been stuck at home, so I am going to assume he has learnt it from us. It’s incredible to be able to listen and understand him and it comes from real time together
• I am pretty good at building Duplo houses, they get better and more elaborate by the day. I do wish the Duplo figures secured better onto the bricks!
• The purchase of a slow cooker – my oh my why didn’t we get one years ago, this is my type of cooking!
• The joy of plugging in the new oven in the boarded up extension, and getting a new gas canister for the camping stove can’t be underestimated when you have been trying to eat healthily for a week with only a microwave, kettle and slow cooker
• I am going to be a pro camper after so much time of having a partial kitchen squatting in the lounge and washing up in the bath… We aren’t going to forget the year we tried to extend our house in a hurry… I hate camping

• We are saving money at the moment as we have less outgoings – no train fares, no petrol, reduced nursery fees, no extravagances and no going out
• An early wake up at 5.15 scored me and my parents a Tesco delivery as I was online working the early shift
• Old toys are awesome – I’ve brought a lot of my old Fisher Price figures, cars and houses down from the loft as well as all my puzzles and we are all enamoured with them
• Plastic is amazing. Not the single use kind, but all the plastic toys that now litter our garden. The little one loves them and it means that we can almost do a conference call out there while he happily plays…

• Stopping the extension isn’t the end of the world, clearly. I expected to be upset when the decision was taken to halt the build, especially because the main windows aren’t in and so it has been boarded up. But I wasn’t because it is healthier for everyone and the risk of germs for us has reduced
• Toddler messy play and painting can be really fun when you time it right
• We don’t have to home school. Yes we have to toddler entertain and he has a development plan from nursery, but thankfully we aren’t at an age where we have to give actual lessons
• The medical developments and engineering that Formula 1 and other engineering firms can do when asked are quite astounding, they should carry on with that
• I read something about the fact that it is a privilege to be able to social distance and isolate, something else to be grateful for
• We have a bottle of wine from the vineyard we stayed on during our honeymoon in South Africa ten years ago ready to enjoy on the 3rd April for our 10th anniversary

So for now, in amongst the stress and pain of trying to make it all work and being perpetually anxious about what might happen to us, or family or friends, I am going to keep cherishing these trivial things as right now they are the big things. As hard, exhausting and overwhelming as the last two weeks have been, for reasons outside our control we have been given this time as a family and it won’t come again (I really hope). So I hope to goodness we can stay fit and healthy and employed and make the best of any positive outcomes from a very bad situation.

This post is linked up to the positivity travel link up hosted by Adventures of a London Kiwi, SilverSpoon London, Binnys Food and Travel Diaries, The Curious Pixie and Follow Your Sunshine.

And to finish, here’s a photo of the little monster bashing his feet agains the study door whilst one of us tries to work on the other side…