This was not a good week in the grand scheme of my life. But here we are at the end and the sun is shining.
This week I was:
Working from home. My company has closed its doors as part of the effort to stop the spread of the virus so we are all working from home. I miss my colleagues. I miss office chat. I miss the subsidised cafeteria. I also miss having full access to systems – we had two days of working effectively ‘offline’ as our remote working arrangements struggled to cope with 3000 people logging on all at once. This was the first week of four (although we strongly suspect it will be at least six, if not eight weeks by the time we go back). We did water all the office plants before we left and we left them in an outside office so they will get light. Some of them may not do so well. I guess by the time we get back there will be other things to worry about than dead office plants.
This week I was feeling
Anxious. I am not usually a worrier. In fact one of the things people regularly comment on is my calm demeanour. But this week, when we were notified that our online grocery delivery (booked a week ago) was only delivering 1/3 of what we ordered I started to feel worried. (I will point out here we were not stockpiling, we were ordering the usual quantities we order for the online delivery we get every 2-3 months to supplement our regular shopping.) Don’t get me wrong, our cupboards are not bare. And we don’t live on rice or pasta so the stocks we do have of that will last us a while. But just to see that so many random things were not available – crackers, peanut butter, tinned fruit, frozen berries. What? The cat did well, he got three boxes of food, although as we ticked to allow substitutions, our 17 year old cat will be eating kitten food for the next little while.
Later in the week, I started to:
Calm the f*** down. We went out to shop for bits and pieces down our high street on Saturday and it was surprisingly calm. We saw several of the smaller stores were well stocked toilet paper and people were being very sensible about it, taking one pack each. Our favourite local Turkish shop still had plenty of hummus and their in-store bakery had plenty of bread. I want to say big up for Sam’s 99p Store which had the best staff hygiene in place – all their cashiers were wearing face masks and rubber gloves.
This week I was enjoying:
My last drink in a pub. Friday night after work, we went for a walk to find one of the local microbreweries that has sprung up in our local area, Exale Brewing. It wasn’t very busy and we were able to sit some distance away from other people. While we were in there, we heard the news that the Prime Minister had finally officially called on all pubs to shut. Knowing this could be our last drink out for a while, we got second pints, as well as a few beers to take home. But their beer was delicious, and they are staying open for retail sales, so we may stop off for supplies over the next few weeks.
This week I decided to:
Embrace the whole working from home / not commuting thing. I’ve signed up for a month of online yoga with the local yoga studio, which has had to close for regular classes. I always wanted to get to their morning classes but was never sure if I could get up and get there in time. Guess what? No more worries about that now! I’m going to take a proper lunch break every day. No eating at my desk while I’m at home! And if it’s a sunny day, I might take a walk around the garden and do a spot of weeding. No evening commute! This does mean I am missing out on reading time, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take half an hour to sit and read at the end of the day. Or before bed. It also doesn’t mean I can’t take a walk at the end of the way to let my brain switch off from work before we start dinner. And there is always kitchen disco…
To my readers, wherever you are and however you are, I hope you stay safe and stay well and stay positive.
Tales from Tobhamhor 