The world changes… quickly 

Saturday 14th March… Son Callum’s Birthday… We are all looking forward to a family wedding tomorrow 

Eldest son Josh calls… His wife Amy, who is a nurse at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, has a cough and a temperature, work have told he not to come in and to isolate with the family for 7 days.

it could be Covid -19 

This was the start of our world turning upside down. 

We are so disappointed that they can’t attend the wedding.

I have no idea that I am going to spend weeks…months (please God it won’t be years) unable to hug or even touch my grandchildren and children. 

The Wedding was lovely, Corona Virus hung around like the “elephant in the room” people discussed it, nervous jokes were made about hugging and shaking hands, no-one really knew.

The next morning we sat and had breakfast, Son Callum and his girlfriend Laura, Son Theo (back from University in Bath) well strictly speaking he didn’t do breakfast on account of his hangover! My niece and nephew and his wife joined us… we speculated where this was going…On the way home we stopped for Starbucks, and thought  Josh and Amy might like one, they were delighted, it had been a number of days since they had had one after all…

That evening Malcolm and I discussed the situation in Italy, in Spain, we thought that some kind of lockdown in the UK maybe on the cards. We were concerned about our Furnished Holiday Let in Wales. We had recently had major works done, and there were a few snags that needed attention. We decided that we would go to Plas Colwyn to make sure everything was OK, in case it should become impossible to go. So Tuesday afternoon we set off for the house (it’s 100miles)

Stopping in Starbucks (primarily to charge our electric car) was weird… there were gloves, we couldn’t use our own cups, the staff were cleaning and cleaning. Once the car was charged we took our paper cups and continued to Beddgelert .

We had taken food with us, we were already reluctant to eat in a restaurant. The Welsh were stressing about people “escaping” to their 2ndhomes. Over the next 2 days we painted, fitted door handles and sorted out the snags.

We walked on the beaches.

We went to Tesco in Porth Madog and didn’t like it, the shelves were weird, there were no toilet rolls, paracetamol,  no calpol, no dried pasta, and obviously no hand sanitizer (which I’m not sure most people knew existed prior to March 2020)

We listened to Boris as the daily updates started, we even recorded them so we didn’t miss them.

I have had a quadruple heart by-pass, we considered the risks, and Wednesday evening as we packed up to return home on Thursday we decided… we would look at socially isolating to reduce the risks.

I still didn’t have my head around the situation. On returning home I went to collect my heart meds from the Pharmacy, I had to wait outside, I had to stand away from the counter, I had to return in an hour, change had started.

I popped to my lovely local craft barn Black Sheep Wools, I meet friends there most Fridays for coffee, we all crochet and knit, I bought yarn(all done from 2 m away, contactless payment and hand sanitizer in action) in case I ran out when and if couldn’t go out. I announced I wouldn’t be there the following morning for coffee.

I had a hair appointment booked, my hairdresser said there would only be me and her, my family said NO WAY are you going, so I didn’t.

We walked from home and experienced a beautiful sunset… it felt significant…

Then on Monday 23rd March Boris made the announcement and our 2 person bubble began.

As I write on May 6th, Life is slower, life is different, and I am now desperate to hold my Grandchildren its been 57 days…