Corona Diaries

Abigail

“For me, personally, the break from the stressful, sometimes relentless daily routine (e.g. getting everything ready the night before and rushing every morning) has been unbelievable”

Background Information

Female, Aged 35-44, Employed at a Higher Education Institution in Wales, White Welsh, Married with one child, Heterosexual. Husband John.

March - First Diary Entry

I’ve just completed my first Whatsapp group video call with my best friends from University. It was so uplifting and as with everyone else now socialising in this manner, we were wondering why we hadn’t done it before. I mean, we know why we hadn’t – we’re all so busy – we just wished we’d done it before.

This prompted confessions from us, which I think many other mothers (and fathers), particularly those who have careers and young children will be sharing right now (or thinking): there is an upside to lockdown. It sounds so, so awful to say it, or even think it, because I know that so many people are dying and suffering and that those in the NHS are literally fighting an invisible war everyday, but it has simply forced us to ‘pause’.

For me, personally, the break from the stressful, sometimes relentless daily routine (e.g. getting everything ready the night before and rushing every morning etc. etc.) has been unbelievable. To have all of this time back with my son and also my husband is so precious to me, especially after a testing six months. My son has just turned one and I was carrying a lot of guilt about going back to work when he wasn’t even six months old. This was followed by a new boss with a very different managerial style to the previous one, for the four months I was on a phased return from maternity. Thankfully, I already have another new manager and her style is more consistent and considered. She’s very supportive and I’m a lot happier.

To hear my friends share similar feelings is a relief. One is the Vice President of a Canadian company and has a live-in Nanny as she flies so much every week. Her life is significantly different now and she seemed so much lighter on the video call, despite the obvious concern for all that accompanies COVID-19.

It’s not exactly rosy, though. Two professionals juggling remote working and a one year old in a small house is no mean feat. My husband and I were also discussing the prospect of not seeing our families for potentially the good part of a year and how upsetting that thought is. They will miss so much. Our son took his first steps yesterday and I know how much they would love to see that, in person. We were on a lovely walk in the spring sun along the coast today and it struck my husband and I that there is a very real chance that our only remaining grandparents could pass away during the lock down/social distancing period and not have the send-off that they deserve or they could even die alone. Horrifying.

I have already been wondering when the being-at-home novelty will wear off too. I gardened for the first time in my life, last weekend and I hope to start baking again for the first time in years, next week. I’ve also

done more exercise than I have since before I had the baby and am really loving getting through my long wish-list of audiobooks (to accompany the housework!).

However, I have a serious house dust mite allergy and my patience is starting to wear thin with essentially being allergic to my own home! I also wonder how long it will be before I start to switch off the daily ministerial briefings that bring on sheer panic when you realise how many people are dying every 24 hours, how old they were and if they had any underlying health conditions. I can also see myself unplugging from certain social media platforms before long – there are only so many ‘we brought this on ourselves and now Mother Earth is taking her revenge’ type posts that I can handle.

A lot of friends have shared my concerns about our kids and the effect lockdown will have on their social skills. My son, although very young, is very clingy outside of the family and had recently had a lot of break- throughs in nursery – crying less going in, eating more, having fun – and now he will only think that myself and his father exists again.

On the other hand, it’s been quite comical to see how much money everyone is already saving as you can’t make your regular hair or nail appointments and we’re barely using our cars as well as missing out on meals or coffees outside of the house. We’re all buying home hair dying kits etc. and my husband has realised that he will soon have to shave his head! We’re all preying that we don’t come out of this morbidly obese too. There is a lot of boredom eating going on in our house! First-world problems, or what?!

I was sent a lovely gift by a member of my staff last week as she could see how tricky it was for my husband and I to begin to acclimatise to the ‘new normal’. She sent quotes on beautiful paper via a company called ‘Type by Alice’ which I took a lot of comfort from and which I am trying to hold to in the coming weeks if things get tough…‘There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind’ - C.S. Lewis and ‘When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.’ - Isaiah 43:2

April

A few weeks ago, I was really surprised to receive a letter from the Government (two weeks too late – I’d been food shopping, running and walking) to tell me that I am considered amongst the most vulnerable in society and that I should not leave the house for twelve weeks, that I need to stay a few metres away from my husband and son at all times, not sleep in the same bed as my husband etc. I was quite shocked and burst out crying which is unlike me.

I have always had very well controlled asthma but after speaking to my GP she explained that because I am on a particular type of asthma pump, I was sent the same letter as someone who’d just finished chemotherapy, for example. It was just the one letter than went out to everyone considered most at risk. The GP and I chatted and I explained that I felt that my mental health would actually be the bigger risk if I had to isolate within my own home and never get any fresh air or exercise so I’m half self-isolating, I suppose you could say. No food shopping and my husband is only going in to shops when he absolutely has to, for example, not to pass anything onto me.

I must admit that receiving that letter was a very sobering affair. It instantly made me feel like I had a shorter life expectancy than most and that perhaps I’d been kidding myself that I was a ‘well person’ all

these years. Although, I did feel a lot better after speaking to the GP and I gave myself a good talking to when I reflected on what some people had been and still were going though, right now. Hell, essentially.

My doctor’s surgery also advised me that my one year-old son shouldn’t miss his next round of vaccinations, regardless of the current climate. So, I took him to my surgery where I had to touch all the door handles, where they had run out of antibacterial gel and where the Receptionist insisted on squeezing past us all the time, never mind the nurse doing admin, practically sitting on top of us with no PPE in addition to the two other nurses in the vaccination room. It was stressful to say the least and I was so shocked at the lack of risk management. It was so unlike the vaccination experiences my friends had described in their local surgeries, where it was nothing short of a military operation and face masks were provided. It’s been two weeks to the day since I went though, so I don’t think we contracted COVID-19 (that day, at least).

I popped the TV on one-night, last week, I think it was, and I saw Linda Lusardi (the former page 3 model) and her actor husband, Sam. They were speaking about how they had both contracted COVID-19 and how it had become so unbearable for them, just before they were taken into hospital, due to the sheer inability to breathe and the pain in their chests, that they had both hoped that they would not wake up the next day. It was such a frightening account; they were both so candid.

In fact, in the two and a half weeks since my last entry into this coronadiary, sadly, a lot has changed. Colleagues (that I didn’t know) have passed away from COVID-19 - they were very brave front-line workers – and also a family friend. I was so sad and angry that he had passed away like that. No one deserves to die alone and he was such a beautiful soul, it has really bothered me. His widow is obviously distraught. She is in her 80s and alone now with very little family - they tragically lost their son years ago, in his forties. Our friend had contracted pneumonia recently, on top of dementia, and his doctors did their very best to keep him out of hospital, but he eventually had to go in for treatment and I believe he contracted COVID-19 there.

A doctor friend of mine is also sat at home, now, waiting to see if he will develop symptoms after testing positive, from working in a hospital. He took the test to see if he was well enough to go to his own mother’s funeral, after she passed away from a different respiratory illness. I honestly can’t think of a sadder time. The only thing that comes close are the stories that my Grandparents told me about World War 2. I was scrolling through Facebook today (nothing new there!) and I saw one of my favourite Dylan Thomas verses which resonated so much that it made me shed another tear:

‘Though lovers be lost love shall not

And death shall have no dominion.’

There is a lot of light in the darkness, though. It’s so wonderful to spend so much time with my son (I’m leaving out the chaos that surrounds looking after him, due to increasing homeworking workloads – arse and elbow spring to mind!). I think the constant attention has really brought him on in terms of his development. He’s started singing, walking and dancing in particular, which is nothing short of joyous and he giggles all day long with his big double chin on display. He also hugs now and pats us on the back while

he does it, which is so lovely and comical at the same time. I’m dreading seeing his little face on his first day back at nursery. That feels like a very long way off, though.

My husband and I are slowly but surely starting to resemble creatures of the deep. My hair is enormous with the humidity and longer than half way down my back. I’m also sporting Kurt Cobain style dark roots. It’s hard to make out John’s face amongst the overgrown beard and mop on top of his head. We absolutely must stop scoffing Galaxy Truffles too. As every meal is obviously eaten at home and we’re both grazing our way through the day, out of boredom, the shopping bills have gone through the roof! I’ve also been on steroids recently as my house dust mite allergy got really out of control. The upside of this is that I can drink alcohol (I normally get an allergic reaction) so I have really been getting stuck into the whiskey. I categorically refuse to weigh! Hopefully, it’s not as bad as I think though as we do have a long walk every day to one of the beautiful local parks we’re fortunate enough to live by, as opposed to just sitting at our desks for seven hours straight.

On Sunday, this week, I have my first Zoom quiz! It seems to be the lock-down thing to do. A lot of families and groups of friends are doing them to keep the video-calling interesting and varied. My call is with one of my groups of friends from Cardiff. Each player has to pick a category and offer ten questions. Mine is musical theatre and one of my friends has picked flowers! The loser had to down shots. God help me!

As I type, I can hear my husband talking to himself, creating videos for his online teaching of primary school children, tomorrow. I’ve never seen him in ‘teacher mode’ before, really. I heard him telling them all off a bit today for having private online meetings, which is banned for safeguarding reasons. I’ve never really heard him like that before. He’ll be downstairs soon and we’ll no doubt have a drink and watch something intentionally mindless (what will we watch now we’ve finished the global phenomenon that is Tiger King?!) on Netflix to wash away the tensions of the day. We’ve not long done our ‘clap for carers’ on our doorstep. There were three other households clapping on our street, this week. It’s just been us up until this evening which was a very poor show!

It’s my non-working day tomorrow which means I’ll have more time to video chat with family. The separation is getting strange and hard now and my mum is crying a lot when she sees my son as she normally looks after him two days a week. Still, we live in hope. The number of deaths decreased again today. How strange is it though that something so tragic is also a sign of hope for the future?

May

I think we’re on Week 10 of ‘Lockdown’ now and things are starting to ease off a little – very little in Wales, however - which is probably for the best for me as I am supposed to be ‘shielding’. I took my first proper drive earlier to the supermarket, above 4 miles away, and the beach on route was rammed with people. It was a quite a shock. I was driving there to pick up two forms of antibiotic from the Pharmacy as I have a raging ear infection. I felt so sorry for my husband this afternoon, balancing online teaching plus our busy toddler, while I just laid in bed, totally useless!

Work is getting worse and I’m getting a bit angry about it. I feel like both of the organisations we work for talk an epic talk about ‘wellbeing’ but in reality, do absolutely nothing meaningful towards this for most

employees. What’s the point in laying on a lunch time yoga class if you make absolutely no adjustment to jobs in order that most people can attend things like this? In fact, my husband and I are working more hours than ever. It’s the job, plus ‘coronavirus devastation mitigation’ e.g. budget cut plans, plus everything taking twice as long via Zoom. It’s no wonder I have an ear infection, to be honest. I’ve never felt so knackered. I really need a blood test to check my thyroxine levels too as I’m feeling pretty rough. The test is about 11 weeks overdue since they upped my medication and I’ve been advised by my GP that I can go for a test in the next month, if the COVID-19 situation keeps improving. It was quite comical having my ears examined by the GP in a car park, today, next to a main road, with him in full PPE. He remained so professional, but it just made me giggle. It was one of those moments everyone is having, now and again, I guess, where you just think – how the hell did we get here?

In the evenings, I’ve been focussing on a vocational qualification that I started not knowing we were heading for a plague (as me and my friends seem to call it now) so even though I don’t really have the time for it, I figured I’d get as stuck in as I could and make lock-down *seem* productive, at least. I had brilliant feedback for my first Unit, albeit they explained that my level of research and supporting evidence probably took me about sixteen pages over the average submission! The qualification may be more necessary than ever, in truth, as all I’m hearing about in work, at the moment, is the significant savings we have to find. It feels inevitable that a lot of people will lose their jobs. I work in Higher Education which is going to take a considerable beating, even if it will not be as immediate as with other industries like travel and hospitality. All I can do is try to work hard and protect myself and my team by doing more with less. I just proposed handing back £90k of my non-pay budget to the University in the hope of saving jobs in my team. We will in no way be able to compete with our ‘rivals’ now but that mentality will have to wait for another day. It’s about delivering core business, really creatively, now.

My Dad has been an absolute angel. He’s been so bored whilst furloughed that he’s been doing out my sister’s garden, as well as ours. We were mortified/in hysterics to find that when we cut back about literally twenty years of vines that a care home situated behind our house had let overgrow, we found almost another half of our garden! There was sort of a recess that we couldn’t see! Then, we started digging and found the most beautiful vintage patio under a load of soil that the previous owners had just dumped on there, strangely. We’ve been loving the odd dinner and paddling pool session in the new-found garden!

We’ve been investing in a few material things aimed at enriching ‘the new normal’, actually. I hate that term as it feels like we’ll never get back to the way things were, that I clearly took for granted and loved so much, but everyone kind of knows what you mean when you say it. With the money we would have spent on nursery fees we’ve just bought our son a trike and a carrier so he can sit on our shoulders, when we go out for walks. He was getting so bored with the same walks in the same pram, during lock-down. We couldn’t work out why he was so restless at first and then realised that he was just simply bored stiff, bless him! The trike arrived today and I’m looking forward to seeing his little face tomorrow when we take him out on it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how it could be so easy to let myself slip into a depression about how things may never be the same again and how some things seem to be spiralling out of control too. America being a case in point with the tragic murder of George Floyd. But, I’m also not one for incessant false positivity either. In my team, in work, we’ve been talking a lot about striving for ‘realistic’ instead as sometimes false

positivity, or imposing that on others, just feels like gaslighting people! Whenever I write my Coronadiary, quotes or poems seem to pop into my mind and this one just popped into my mind now, by Maya Angelou, ‘If you don’t like something change it, if you can’t change it, change your attitude.’ I can’t change the fact that things won’t go back to how they were but that doesn’t mean that I can’t be excited about the future, as different as that could be.

September

It’s been around two and a half months since I last wrote a ‘Coronadiary’. So long, in fact, that I had to read my last entry to think about what’s new to share and I was shocked that I’d already forgotten about a lot that I had written, in June; which just goes to show how important documenting this ‘unprecedented time’ really is. It’s comical how much everyone seems to hate that phrase now!

I must admit that as I sit here, having just discussed the re-tightening of COVID-19 restrictions - only six people permitted indoors, in Wales, from tomorrow[Monday 14th September], and everyone wearing masks in shops - potentially leading us back into another nationwide lockdown - it has hit me that perhaps I have stopped thinking about a time where we won’t be working our way around Coronavirus? I think early- Coronavirus me would be appalled but I think I’m in some kind of ‘acceptance phase’ and can’t be bothered to let it feel like it is always ruling my life, even though it probably is. It is such an innate human desire to want some control of your own life, I guess.

This will be my last Coronadiary entry, as the project wraps up this month, I believe, and I must admit, as I did in my first entry, that it simply isn’t all bad, this bizarre pandemic experience. The experience of working from home was so awful in most senses until the past month or two that it did lead me to a long-overdue epiphany. I had been putting work above everything for the past 7.5 years and it had to finally ‘break me’ a bit for me to realise how far down the list of priorities work should really sit, for me. And, I am eternally grateful for that. It saddens me that it took something this extreme, and so long, for me to realise that a work-life balance is something I also deserve and that I can put my foot down in the face of being taken advantage of and accept the consequences too – they can let me go if my best is not good enough – I don’t care anymore. I feel released knowing that each working day isn’t going to end at 8/9pm and I’m not going to feel like a bad mother at the end of it too. I should add…It’s not like I’m being sent down the mines, I do realise my privilege, and I do know I did a lot of this to myself too!

Ironically, I think work has improved since my ‘epiphany’ as more rest seems to equal more creativity for me and I enjoyed work, last week! I’ve loved spending more time in the evenings with my son, reading him ‘stoowies’ (stories) and now I just have to get off the antibiotics and steroids from a chest infection the inevitable over-working gifted me! I should be furious with myself that in my last entry I was also on antibiotics from allowing myself to be run down!

My husband is back in work, physically, as opposed to remotely teaching now and it brings with it the anxiety of him bringing COVID-19 into our home. As someone who did receive a shielding letter, this is constantly at the back of my mind, same with my son going to nursery, but I know that it is for the best, in the long-run. A good friend tested positive for COVID-19 last week and it was shocking in the sense that she has been so incredibly careful throughout the pandemic and can only think that she picked it up on one

her few visits to the supermarket. She passed out yesterday whilst feeding her child and I can’t stop thinking about it.

I feel like this entry has been really bleak and it could be something to do with writing it after a long day, at 1am, due to steroid-induced insomnia, or it could be a good indication of how most people are generally feeling at the moment! Especially my poor 90 year-old Nan, stuck in hospital with a head injury from falling and not allowed any visitors, bless her.

Still, I endeavour to press on with the positive thoughts and am looking forward to my birthday and Christmas, whatever that looks like, this year. It may end up being my first attempt at making Christmas dinner (God help us all!). As I seem to have ended on a quote of some kind for each of these entries, I feel like I should definitely have one in my last entry…Pompous me thinks I should write, "Reality is created by the mind, we can change our reality by changing our mind." Plato!

Actual me likes this cheesy one, best of all, however, by Rocky Balboa…’Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!’

I would like to end this last Coronadiary entry by saying a huge thank you to Dr Mike Ward for allowing me to be a part of this extremely important project. I can see the hard work, ingenuity and determination that he has ploughed into this and I know it will help many people, in many ways. It’s certainly helped me already as I’m reminded how cathartic writing a journal can be.