I cleaned my last oven (apart from my own) on 16th March, which was a week before the official lockdown. I'd had a message from the customer that evening telling me her husband had to self-isolate as he'd presented the symptoms of the Coronavirus which advised quarantine. I have to admit I was a bit concerned and decided that to be on the safe side I'd postpone all my appointments for that week.
About a week later I lost my sense of taste and smell and felt like I had a bit of a cold, nothing more serious than that. But it took a good couple of weeks to feel more normal again.
Now, I've no idea if my symptoms are related to Covid19 and the chances of me ever finding out are about the same as finding a bag of flour in the shops at the moment. If you see one let me know!
Thankfully none of my family have experienced any such symptoms or worse and we are now trying to get on with life as we currently know it under the Government's guidelines and restrictions.
I've stopped a number of times over the last month and absorbed the gravity of the day, having this amount of spare time allows these moments of clear thinking. I find it completely surreal. We are all living in a Hollywood movie. I can only imagine that there are screenwriters all over the world scribbling like mad to be the first to get their blockbusting version out to the big film producers.
Even before the pandemic first hit the UK we looked outwards to see what was happening on the continent, particularly the north of Italy and we were horrified by what we saw. We thought it couldn't happen like that in the UK.
Now I don't want to go into a rant about what the policy makers got wrong in the lead up to this because quite simply I don't know. All you hope is that the people we elected are doing their utmost to ensure the best possible outcome. But you just know this will be a political football for weeks, months perhaps even years to come. I will say this though, and political allegiances aside, I feel more comforted listening to the Scottish briefings than I do the Westminster ones.
The stark truth is though all aspects of our lives have been flipped upside down, back to front and inside out to something unrecognisable as normal.
Some of it is very very difficult. All of us have family and friends that we cannot be close to never mind hug or comfort. Some may have family in a care home or hospital and aside from not being able to be near them there's the added stress of the increased risk of contracting the virus. And most of you will know someone who is a key worker, whether it's frontline NHS treating the worst cases in ICU or perhaps even worse, shopworkers exposed to thousands of people on a daily basis and the potential to get sick without knowing and without a PPE barrier to protect them.
Who would have considered a month or so ago that stacking shelves, or working on a checkout in a supermarket would become one of the most important roles in daily life. Or, there'd be millionaire celebrities and billionaire businessmen asking the Governement for financial help! Pause for thought there.
I've been guilty of lamenting that it can be like Groundhog day sometimes but when I consider all the positive aspects of this lockdown, and there are lots, I see that I have a great deal to be thankful for and I hope you can as well.
Spending more time with the kids, in particular taking the lead role in my youngest's learning (my oldest is 15 and as you may know, you can't teach them anything). I think we've become closer as a family and importantly more tolerant of each other. Ok, it's probably a Stockholm syndrome thing! But it's a positive, right?
We've been exercising together most days walking the dog round the local woods without rushing to be back for this or that. There's been time to think, to do jobs around the house and garden, to relax, to indulge hobbies and to eat dinner together and every other meal for that matter every day.
And of course, we are all going to be applying to get on The Chase next year such is our honed general knowledge from weekly video quizzes, that's if we're not in rehab from over indulgence.
If our house is anything to go by and the amount of homecooking that's being done I've a feeling after lockdown oven cleaners might be the new key workers, I just hope there's some PPE left!
But while we are all desperate to get back to socialising and moving around more freely I hope some elements of this time are held true. We carry on being kind and considerate, we take a bit more time out for the really important people and things in our lives and we can still take time to stop, look around and appreciate what we've got. A life more ordinary if you will.
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