Happy Monday!

Most of the world is at home right now, the people that aren’t are NHS workers, delivery drivers, train drivers, and anyone who can’t work from home or doesn’t work from home.

I’m at home and we’re planning for that being the case until mid June at the earliest. Ma has given up volunteer work, Ben and Laura are at home and looking after the boys who aren’t going to school.

We’re all ok and, as far as we can tell, virus free. Which is the first thing to be thankful for.

Life is very grim for a lot of people, there are lots of people in my life who can’t self isolate because they have to work and there are people that have to work or they don’t get paid and there are people at home who have no work or aren’t being paid or have lost their jobs. No-one in my immediate family is in trouble like that. Godchild two is in France, Jo is in Cote d’Ivoire with godchild six, CID just shut down flights, godchild one was just made redundant (probably), other friends have lost work or are worried about sick children or vulnerable parents. I’m not enjoying being at least two bus rides away from my mum. I know that things aren’t brilliant, I would not chose to be indoors all day for days on end, but I live alone and I’m an introvert, so in a sense I’ve been preparing for this all my life, which is the second thing I can be thankful for (although it would have been much easier if it had happened between October and February!).

Other things to be thankful for include not having to live on the street, a landlord who checked in to make sure I was ok and (because he lives across the road) said that if I needed anything and was isolating to let him know and he’d drop stuff off, all of the people that I’ve spoken to this week because they are checking in, a friend who let me raid her rhubarb, having the money to buy a set of reusable sanitary towels when all the shops this week were out of the ones I usually use (I tried 9 different shops!), food in the fridge and cupboards, the Friday night virtual drinks with my work team and the very bad jokes that various colleagues children told, the allotment and chatting from a couple of meters away, the comfort of my bed and having a place to socially isolate, good food and an instant pot to make yoghurt in, blossom on the trees, water in the taps, the manhattans project cocktail making videos on instagram.

I know its hard right now, I’m having problems reading anything that isn’t news or social media and I know that some of you out there are having much harder times but I say this as a person that learnt gratitude in the midst of a hard time, thankfulness helps.

If you can find one tiny thing a day, find it and hold on. If you can’t, I’m so sorry and please hang on, the world needs you in it.

That’s really all I’ve got. I hope you’re all ok, you’re in my prayers…