I normally don’t like speaking about my private life but this is Mental Health Awareness Week and although there is a little easing of lockdown, for most of us, it doesn’t look very different. We aren’t remote working or even home working, but working at home and that is very different.

Last weekend, as the slight easing of the lockdown came about, I drove up to my parent’s house, around an hour away. It was the first time I had seen them in almost 8 weeks. 12 years ago, my Mum had had cancer and just before lockdown my Dad was in the process of a dementia diagnosis that has now been put on hold. Both are in their late 70’s and although not quite on the list of vulnerable, in my family’s eyes, they need to be very careful. My sister lives approx 5 miles away so has been helping out with shopping; dropping it off under social distancing. We have also set them up with FaceTime, so we can communicate most days. This week, My mum decided that she needed to go to the Post Office to draw money out and, as I had some face masks and surgical gloves, I went up to drop some off for them.

As I drove up, it was really eerie. For almost 8 weeks the furthest I had gone was 2 trips to Tescos 7 miles away (we live in a village) and a few trips to the next village’s shop which is bigger than ours. I felt almost agoraphobic as I went onto the dual carriageway and I missed the turning for my parent’s town as I was so deep in thought.

One of the greatest challenges under lockdown has been switching off. My new desk for working is in the main part of our dining room, which is open plan in our house. I work from early in the morning until late at night as I find I difficult to separate workspace from home space. I have got used to (and they have) my 2 dogs contributing to my video conferences, especially if the postman is arriving. My older dog Jazzie is the matriarch and leads the way with my puppy Pumpkin who isn’t quite sure what she is barking at, but is very happy to join in anyway! But I’ve got used to it and love having them around!

My husband works part-time from home, and the nature of his business has meant he isn’t working the hours he was and my youngest daughter Liv is in lower 6th at school so she has been studying hard most of the time. It’s surreal and challenging and I don’t sleep well most of the time. My work hasn’t decreased but increased.

Driving up to my Mum and Dad’s I reminisced back to 2008, a little before the last economic crisis. My Mum had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and 6 months later we were told to expect the worst — she had 3 months to live. I had been driving every other day to visit her in Nottingham City Hospital while working full time, a 4 hour round trip with the visiting time and now it was 8 weeks since I had seen her. Mum is not easily phased, she is bloodyminded and had me sitting taking notes about what she wanted for her funeral. No one else would do this or even entertain discussing it, but I understood the need to be organised and have it all properly in place. I would be exactly the same. 12 months later, after palliative care, Mum didn’t deteriorate. A stem cell transplant was proposed and in October 2009 she was given the all-clear. 12 years on, she is now determined to get her bedding plants into the garden, withdraw her pension and extremely frustrated she can’t go out but is getting really good at videoconferencing with her grandchildren.

Lockdown is challenging in many ways, but it has also taught us many new things. We have been having weekly family quizzes, taking it in turn to set the questions, all by Zoom. We have been paying attention to each other but from our own homes. Years ago, in fact around the time my Mum was ill, my best friend emigrated to Australia. I thought I was going to lose two really important people in my life very close together. 12 years on, we chat by Messenger and FaceTime and are as close as we have ever been.

We are reinventing ourselves, the big things are being transformed and the little things becoming more important. 9,000 miles and 50 miles are almost the same distance now when communicating. Videoconferencing brings us closer – although we cannot hug each other, we are still chatting and love still holds us all together, no matter the distance.

Gratitude is more important than ever, saying thank you and appreciating what people do for us, what we do for them, clapping for the NHS or just helping a neighbour out with their shopping. We speak to the neighbours more than we have ever done as we go out for our weekly NHS clap!

I’ve realised more than ever that the little things are often the most important – we’ve started painting by numbers in our house, playing cards together and taking it in turns to cook.

In our quizzes, we have a ‘personal’ round. Last week was my time and I introduced ‘who wants to be a millionaire’. I would text a 50:50, or ‘phone a friend’ was my mum who would happily disclose on FaceTime to our Zoom group who was my childhood teddy or the phrase I couldn’t pronounce as a toddler.

Everyone got my favourite author - Brene Brown.

I learned this a long time ago but I feel it is important to share – in our roles, work or personal, we are all doing the best we can. We are strong for those around us but that doesn’t mean we don’t experience the struggles or feel the pain. We go through different emotions from day to day, sometimes positive and able to challenge the world and other times in the middle of the night, when we are unsure when and how this will all end. You know something, that is ok, we are all human and it is ok to feel scared sometimes. It would be weird not to…

Thank you for reading and I hope as we go into the Bank Holiday weekend we can all find those ‘little things’ to help stay positive.

Be thankful for who we are and what we have and stay safe!