I woke up one morning to the realisation that for the first time in a long time I didn’t have to catch a plane or rush out of the house to a meeting or follow up an email, phone or txt message immediately. I actually had time to enjoy my first cup of tea for the day and sit quietly to work out how I was going to run my life working from home.

I woke up one morning to the realisation that for the first time in a long time I didn’t have to catch a plane or rush out of the house to a meeting or follow up an email, phone or txt message immediately. I actually had time to enjoy my first cup of tea for the day and sit quietly to work out how I was going to run my life working from home. To answer questions like: How did I fill my days before COVID 19? Was my frenetic lifestyle ever going to return or do I need to take the positives from this period of enforced social distancing and isolation and make sweeping changes for the future? 

Will this brave new world we live in allow me to relearn how to smell the roses, how to put my family first again and to enjoy those things I have given up over the years as work crept in to take over every waking minute?

As a great list maker, I duly wrote reams of lists, one for work, one for what I classed as sanity activities, even a housework list (my god can you imagine!!!) I can honestly say three weeks in now, that the work list is going well because as a RRR women I tend to work in isolation and use technology to achieve outcomes a lot anyway so that was an easy one. The housework list is collecting dust on the fridge with the necessities being done although I am cooking with more flair at the moment, mainly because it was a choice between cooking or starving, to be honest!

But the joy that my sanity list is bringing was a huge surprise.

I have time to telephone or face time my family and friends and check they are ok and catch up on their lives, I especially love the tours of my daughters’ ceilings when talking to my 2-year-old grandson who takes the phone to show me his cars or his puppy but actually just shows me the ceiling what a blessing. I have “gin-wags” with my girlfriends on a Friday night or a coffee during the day.

I am a keen amateur photographer who never leaves home without a camera so have massive amounts of digital images. I have absolutely lost myself in memories when putting these images into virtual albums, my life and experiences have been richer than I had realised.  I am finishing quilts I started a long time ago and my husband is smiling because his wardrobe has expanded now the mending has been done, as they say, happy spouse - happy house.

The opportunity to just sit and have time to either write a daily journal which I haven’t done for years or write what passes for poetry in my world is an extraordinary gift.

I am going to teach myself to paint, I can paint walls and doors and skirting boards however I would like to learn to paint something I would usually capture through the lens of my camera, I am not worried if they turn out like a Picasso with extra eyes or noses in the strangest places I will, be doing this for me not for anyone else how freeing it is to not care what anyone else thinks!

Do I want to live this life forever? No, but I am embracing the opportunity that this brave new world has thrown at me and fingers crossed I can tick off and add a lot of things to my sanity list in the meantime.

Take care everyone Leonie