Lockdown is slowly phasing out, well, it is rapidly changing in England anyway. You can now feel such a difference on your evening walk, from the way people no longer move aside as much to the amount of cars that are now on the road. There have definitely been down moments for me, like missing my family and having been pregnant during this period of time to not being able to have Liam in my baby appointments with me. Although, there is so so so much more that I have really loved which I thought I would share with you. Before I get started, I think I must say I am not the most social character and love being at home so much, so it has probably been easier for me than most.

1.CYCLING

I’ve always loved being out on my bike for a cycle. I am definitely a fair weather cyclist though. I like to ride my pretty bicycle, with my long haired chihuahua in the basket for a ride along the riverside, preferably with an ice cream or cocktail half way along the journey.

During lockdown my baby belly has been getting increasingly bigger and I have had to stop running so cycling has become my activity of choice to do some sort of exercise. I have absolutely loved cycling with the huge decrease in cars on the road. Near me, Kingston bridge has even turned a full lane into a bike lane for the increase in cyclists. Being 38 weeks pregnant I have decided to stop cycling for a while but I have loved every second of lockdown on my bike that I did have.

2.HOME DEVELOPMENTS

We moved into our new home last August and since then we have had Christmas where we were away for a few weeks at my parents and I endured about 20+ weeks of debilitating morning sickness. With all of this time we weren’t able to do much in the way of home renovation. We definitely aren’t rolling in money so everything has been diy and on a budget. This extended time at home has given us so much time to stop and stare (ooo, have a read of my blog post about this poem) and work out what we can do to spruce up our home before the baby arrives. With the glorious weather we have been having in the UK we decided to work on the garden. I thought it would be a small-ish task. We began a little work back in February…it is now June and we still haven’t finished haha 😆, yet, oh boy does it look wildly different now and is definitely somewhere I am looking forward to spending my summer months. Check out my Instagram ‘garden’ highlight if you’d like to see the transformation.

3.GORGEOUS WEATHER

As I was saying in the above point, the weather in the UK has been absolutely glorious. We have had holiday style heat and I am like a lizard 🦎, I love to be hot. I swear, lockdown would have been so much harder for people to endure if the weather had been super crappy. Although, this time last year we were in our flat which was super warm on a normal day and I am not sure I would have been coping so well then.

4.DEVELOPING BUSINESS

My work has 99% dried up but hubby’s fitness business has thrived. From the get go of lockdown we sat down and discussed what we could do to help keep his business afloat and his clients happy. We spend a day learning how to use Zoom, HDMI cables into the TV, fitness schedules and what furniture needed to go where to make a good feature wall etc. Then we emailed out to his Bootcamp database (this is a prime example of where an email database is key for a successful business) a schedule and bank details if they want to donate for classes. His clients were over the moon that they could continue to workout with him. The donations are often generous and he has even managed to gain a ton of new clients not just from our small town which has been incredible. I love seeing how people have adapted their businesses and possibly changed their lives for the better post-lockdown.

5.NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH

The NHS Thursday night clap has been a wonderful way to keep in touch with neighbours and get to know neighbours that we hadn’t spoken to before. For a few weeks Liam and I went for our dog walk around the 8pm clap time so that we could see others in their streets as well and it was so lovely to see how people were celebrating. We witnessed saxophonists, people playing harmonicas and music through loud speaker and even one lady doing a full on operatic performance. We also had a weekly dinosaur that would parade around making everyone smile. The gorgeous weather has also helped everyone in our street get closer. The support for each other has been lovely as well with offers of shopping for each other, recommendations of where to buy toilet roll when you run out and eggs to do your lockdown baking.

6.WORK FOMO NO MORE

When I first became pregnant, well, when I first told people, my work dried up. I was in this awkward in between stage of being a bit puffy and bloated looking but not looking very pregnant. I therefore couldn’t go to auditions and only had a little bit of lecturing work. Seeing friends booking jobs I know I would normally be up for was hard for the jealous factor but also for the purse strings. As soon as lockdown happened everyone was in the same boat and the amount of work I am missing out on is so minimal. The only thing I am really sad about is that I am never going to have had the opportunity to book work with my bump. Liam and I did however do a little at-home photo shoot for the memories yesterday which I will share soon.

7.TECHNOLOGY THANKFULNESS

I have never been as thankful for technology as I have been over lockdown…and a lot of my work is in social media! It has been TEN WEEKS since I have seen my parents and that has been the hardest thing. Even since they moved to Wales last year, we have never been apart for more than three weeks. Thank goodness for FaceTime though, because we are on that a minimum of two times a day catching up.

8.NATURE & PEACEFULNESS

Lockdown has been incredible for noise pollution around us. We live close to the A3 (a rather busy road in the UK) and although you can’t hear it in our house, you can normally hear it in our garden. Until lockdown eased we couldn’t hear it at all and it was dreamy. The birds were insanely loud though haha. As I mentioned earlier, I have really loved not having as many cars on the road for my cycling trips and I hope more and more people will choose their bikes over their cars for short trips.

9.FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD

I have never been as grateful for food as I have been over lockdown. As I am pregnant, I haven’t been to the shops but Liam has and it is a whole stressful day out of him trying to successfully socially distance and then the whole palaver once he’s home of us having to wash everything for a good hour! We have got creative with our meals, we have baked more and made use of every single scrap of food we own. We have also shopped locally a lot more. A few corporate food companies have allowed the average shopper to buy from them which I have adored. We have ordered fresh food boxes, bulk bought eggs for baking and bought big loaves of bread. I really hope these companies continue to do this so that we can keep shopping from them and just go to the big supermarkets for tinned goods and cleaning products.

10.LONG OVERDUE CATCH UPS

I have had the longest phone calls with friends that I have ever had. We have video called, Zoom’d, House Partied, phoned etc way more than we would normally see each other. I have reached out to friends that I possibly wouldn’t have even normally met up with in the last ten weeks and that has been amazing. I think there is a sense of non-commitment or need or even possibility for everyone to try to get a date in the diary to meet up so you just chat because that’s the best thing you can do and it’s so lovely to know everything everyone is up to and support each other in the best way you can.

How have you found lockdown? Have you enjoyed or hated it? What was your favourite part of it?