Hannah Bushell – Legal Counsel (and mum of two)
I’m in my home office. I’ve got a coffee, I’ve made a few calls, I’m drafting a letter. Now what’s missing….
That’s it, MY CHILDREN ARE NOT IN THE HOUSE!!! The little angels (ahem) are at preschool and nursery. No one’s hair is being pulled, no one is eating play-doh and I’ve got a whole day of work to look forward to. Total. Bliss. Now, on what planet did a full day of work sound more appealing than a beachfront cocktail I hear you cry? I’ll tell you the answer: Planet Covid.
Lots of strange things have happened on Planet Covid, some good, some bad, some ugly.
The good: I’ve started running as an excuse to get out of the house. Anyone that has spent more than five minutes in my presence knows that exercise is not my friend. I’m more likely to be found in a beer garden than a gym, but seeing as neither is currently an option, having a (very brief) jog outside seems like a better idea than staring at the same four walls for the twelfth week in a row. Granted, my self-esteem may have hit an all time low when the four-year-old asked why I was wearing Daddy’s clothes pre-run this morning. Charming. I do own gym clothes; they’ve just been in a storage box since I got married in 2014. Don’t judge…
The bad: I miss the office environment. Working on your own just isn’t wall-to-wall fun for me! Although being able to put a wash on in between phone calls, and only having to get dressed from the waist up is a definite plus, there are lots of things I miss about going to work in the morning and chatting to colleagues over a coffee. The level of conversation from my two children isn’t up to much – their use of the English language is limited and if I have to pretend to be a sea witch or snowman one more time, I think I’m going to lose it.
The ugly: Where do I start… maybe with the Babybell wax mushed into my cream carpet? The hamster that my husband panic bought just before lockdown that keeps biting people through its cage? Or with my heinous roots which mean I look like a yellow streaked badger? Bad hair during this pandemic has proved to be my biggest challenge along with desperately trying to stop the embarrassing speeches from my kids across the fence. Today my daughter shouted “WHY IS THE LADY NEXT DOOR SO OLD?”. I did what any respecting parent would do: hid in the shed until it blew over (well, until Judith next door went inside). Fingers crossed the sound of my other child making pig noises drowned it out.
Hopefully with each nursery day, Planet Covid is losing its grip and we’re slowly drifting back to Earth. Who knows, in my next update I might have been into a cafe and maybe to the hairdresser? Dream big everyone! At least the football has started again so my husband has a smile on his face, and I can hide upstairs with the cliché lockdown banana bread I made yesterday. Damn it, Planet Covid may be hanging around a little longer yet…
Catch up with volume I and volume II of Hannah’s blog series.
