Pandemic

Hello You!

How are you doing? I am asking because around me a lot of people are not doing so well. Including myself for a while.

So I have questions. I always do.

Have you been

• Sleeping really weirdly, either waking up several times in the night or not being able to go back to sleep or both
• Been having nightmares of feeling trapped and not being able to find a way out
• Suffering from more brain fog than usual
• Ruminating about past events
• Felt unable to look forward to stuff
• or to laugh…

Dear Reader,

Have you been listening to the news, lately?

We should call them The Bad News because, lets face it, it all about whatever is wrong on this world and frankly, there is so much of it I want to hide under my bed most mornings!

In the olden days, at the end of the BBC News, there was always some silly item of Good News to somehow leave you with a bit of a smile. Some giraffe had given birth or someone had done something nice.

All gone now.

So, what to do?

I mean, what to do if th…

Dear Reader

Between 1968 and 1974, every March, when the rumbling started, my Dad would go down to the supermarket and return with boxes of tinned food.

As the news got grimmer and grimmer with potential war threats in Palestine, the East, or insurrection in France itself, my dad would unpack the boxes. There were special shelves in the garage. To this day, I cannot abide tinned ravioli...

We also had petrol stockpiled in the garage, so we could get away to my grandparents in the country if n…

I don't know about you but I am finding it difficult to focus these days and to not get into a state of panic when the tiniest thing goes wrong

or not to randomly lose my temper at the slightest opportunity.

No, I do not think I am going mad, it is just that two years of endless stress have taken their toll.

I keep thinking that I should be feeling fine now that the Restrictions are over in Ireland

ONLY

they might be over, but people are still getting sick and there are still masks everyw…

Why a photo of camels, I hear you cry!

Well, because I thought it was funny.

What was not so funny, as in funny ha ha, was seeing my first client in my rooms since March 2020.

In Person, we call it now, or Live.

As if somehow in the past two years we had died or depersonalised.

And maybe we did, just a little bit.

Still, I do not like thinking somehow that all my online work with my wonderful clients was somehow dead!

So

I started pondering what to call this return to a physical enco…

Once upon a time, I was free like a bird, I did not know that, but I was, I could fly wherever I wanted to, hug and kiss random friends and even total strangers with impunity and wear red lipstick at all times.

I could smile with the whole of my face and everyone could hear what I was saying.

Then, the Restrictions started. I cannot recall now what they were called then, I think it was just Lock Down.

Anyway, the Restrictions are being entirely lifted in the UK next week. The Prime Minister …

I am entirely overwhelmed, right now, by the amount of times the word is used throughout my day.

Everything, everyone is overwhelmed, apart from my dog and the chickens who could not care less and are loving the rare January sunshine.

The hospitals are overwhelmed, the governments are overwhelmed, the schools are... you guessed it... overwhelmed

and this morning

as I sat at my desk to write the next blogpost, I suddenly thought, O no, I am overwhelmed.

Took a deep breath and started tapping…

Carrying on with the rebuilding theme. I got to wonder about corner stones.

I am well aware the image is of foundations but there are corner stones in there too.

I got to wonder about all this rebuilding somewhere else stuff and, being me, started researching the how.

How does one build a house, cabin in the woods, sky scraper, whatever safe place you might want to create?

Dig the foundations for sure but first, find your corner stones.

Definition: A cornerstone is.a stone that forms the ba…

What is the opposite of isolated? Populated?

What is the opposite of overwhelmed? Managing ok?

During a ceremony as the New Year, women shared their sense of isolation. Many stated that they could not bear having plans and dreams crushed again and again.

Then someone said, "I guess the trouble is that I keep making plans to take me back to 2019".

I understood her immediately and was amazed. Because I was doing it too. Do you know what I mean?

For example, I dream of going to Paris in April …