So anyway, there’s always something valuable to learn form every situation, big or small, from how much coffee is acceptable to drink through out the day, to dealing with the grief of not working. Read on Macduff (see what I did there?)

Week 1

I started officially having a sick feeling, and a sense of foreboding 2 weeks before the lockdown in Scotland started. I also noticed that trains hardly had the same amount of commuters on going to the city centre, Central station in Glasgow felt more like a Sunday, and the school run round my bit was markedly quieter.

When we were eventually given the official word to close, it was almost a relief as we all knew were we stood in our business. I was ok with it, until I went in to pack up my skincare stuff because there was NO way I was leaving it there doing nothing! I packed up my bag and then I couldn’t stop crying. I just felt so sad not knowing when I’d be back.

Week 1 was all about shock, quite a bit of ugly crying, and a lot of fear coming into it as well. Knowing that I couldn’t go home to see my parents was just gut wrenching but I am so lucky that my big sister lives in Aberdeen and is dropping off soup and all sorts on a regular basis to them.

It took a few days to get used to getting up and going nowhere fast! Thats what it felt like anyway!

It was this week as well, that my boyfriend got a bit of shock not hearing me being so positive, and I was very anxious and worried about everything, and I mean EVERYTHING ,and if I could underscore that bad boy I would as well.

Week 1 also brought the surprise that I wasn’t really doing my lockdown alone. Imagine the surprise when, one night watching TV, I saw something quite large moving out the corner of my eye, I look over, and HELLO MOUSE!!! The blighter ran into my kitchen and never to be seen again, that night anyway. The next day was a trip to the hardware store to buy humane mouse traps. I put them down and later the next night, I heard one of the lids go down and a lot of scratching begin. Did I deal with it myself? Hell no! I put a message up on Facebook to see if anyone was still awake, and no word of a lie, a friend of mine Cat was still up, drove over, picked up the mouse and rehomed it to Bellahouston Park. So that was week 1. Ugly crying and a mouse covered in peanut butter. Turns out I put more than was required in as bait. If only Janey Godley could voice over that one.

Week 2

Week 2 was mostly about trying to get myself into a routine and failing really badly. I had some missions to accomplish (year end accounts), but spent a lot of time staring at my computer not remembering how to use the online system. This week was also spent out doing quite a bit of running, and realising that, now matter how cold it is, get out of the flat for an hour, I worked out that I felt worse on the days that I didn’t leave the flat. I don’t know about you, but I was quite scared even to go to the supermarket, how awful to be scared of people coming near you. Next level fear.

Week 3

Week 3 I decided to have the great idea of putting myself on a healthy eating plan. This is all because a few weeks before, I watched Jennifer Lopez in Hustlers, and thought, right, whatever she’s doing, i’m going to do, so I went down a rabbit hole and found out who her nutritionist was. I followed the plan, then very quickly realised that it was a version of carb cycling which, one the days I didn’t eat carbs, made me totally want to Elvis it up and fry a whole loaf of bread in peanut butter. Nope. Not for me. Any eating plan that puts limits on food groups for me is not a good idea, it’s a new kind of mental torture. It’s the Father Ted equivalent of telling Father Dougal not to press the Big Red Button.

I’ll cover what the solution is for me in week 4.

I put my big girl pants on and asked my accountant for help to get my year end accounts done so that I could hand it all over to him. My accountant is called Simon, he is the kindest of best of people, and has the patience of a saint with technically challenged people like me. How amazing to have that support, and also, how amazing to just sit down and get it all done. It took me 6 days in total but its all done now and big learning curve.

Another thing helped too. I wanted to get a head start on my accounts over Christmas when I was last off, but couldn’t work it out, I got in touch with a book keeper called Michelle, who sent me message saying ‘9/10 Liz, there’s a solution for everything’. I decided not to have a meltdown over the holidays because of her. If you are reading this, you are a superstar. Its very easy to put myself on a shame spiral when I can’t work something out. I get frustrated, its only recently that I’ve got into the habit of having a grown up conversation called ‘I need help’ instead of ugly crying and presenting myself that way. Its ok to ugly cry and totally allowed, but when overcoming a problem, you have to put the same commitment into fixing it, that you do to worrying about it.

This was also the week that I spent on average about 4 hours a day on a phone, and realising that this was not good. I was trying to get things done and couldn’t get the bit between my teeth. I now have even more sympathy and understanding for people who work in an office, and realise why they take work home with them to work in an evening, being a slave to a telephone, endless meetings, and about 120 emails a day. (office workers, not me, i’m nae that popular).

Also, by this time I had unfortunately got into the habit of getting up, going back to bed with my coffee and ‘doom scrolling through my phone’. Also not a good idea. Constant information online and realising that a lot of people have done weekend crash courses in epidemiology, and public health. Not healthy. Big wake up call to limit the amount of news I am watching, and watch out for ‘loudspeakers’.

Week 4

So here we are in week 4. I feel like I have settled into a rythm. I’m feeling a lot more positive and have cunning plans for taking my business online in the form of workshops and online appointments where I take clients through a personal prescription of stretching and mobility should anyone need it. After 4 weeks of either working at home, or upping the ante on their Strava, there’s definitely a need for this!

Its a bit handy having a leadership guru as a good friend so a huge thank you to Kirsty Mac. Something else I adore Kirsty for, is that she took it upon herself to curate a series of amazing podcasts with a colleague Jim.

This is who keeps me company on my evening walks. There’s some valuable learning to be had here. Conversations to clear away the cobwebs. It’s been pretty enlightening for me.

Look for Kirsty and Jim - A bit of Blether on Spotify and Apple store.

As soon as I publish this, that’s what I’m off to do. Oot for a walk and listen to another episode.

Personally, I can’t believe we’ve got to the end of week 4 already. I’m writing this on Thursday, and it genuinely feels like someone ate Monday to Wednesday.

I only took 2 weeks holiday last year, it just feels like I’m taking them all in one go this year. There might be something in it you know. What if we just all decided to take April off every year? What if companies decided that they are actually still able to turn out a decent level of work with employees at home, albeit for some of the week, imagine having a whole 2 hours extra in your day thats not swallowed up by commuting.

This is an equally anxious, and exciting time. I know I’m really going to be needed when I get back to work, but yes there is an underlying anxiety. This virus isn’t going to go away, we’ve just slowed it down. I’m not letting my parents out to play until next year. Its a different mindset when you’ve lived through World War 2, a polio outbreak, and a typhoid outbreak as well (in Aberdeen anyway), but I just want to keep them safe, as well all do when it comes to our families.

I hope this blogpost finds you as well as you can be under the circumstances. Please reach out to friends and family if you are finding ANYTHING tough to cope with.

No one is ever a burden and you’ll be very surprised at who steps up to the plate when you reach out.

Human. Kind. Be both. (Can’t remember who to credit for this)

By the way I’m getting an 90% success rate on hellos and waving when I’m out running.

Marvellous.