The Lockdown Silver Lining

Week two of lockdown.

I’ll admit I had a really bad day last week. The realisation of what’s going on finally sunk in. I went to the supermarket to buy food for my 92 year old mother-in-law, for ourselves and I also needed to buy food for our pet rabbit.

Three visits to three different shops one after another in one day was not a good idea, but I just wanted to get it done and over with. It was stressful. I felt anxious and it took me so much longer that it usually would have. Now that it’s done though I can reduce the food shopping visit to just one shop when needed.

Sometimes it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Like many people I find myself continually wondering when life will get back to normal. When I can take my children to the park or the library, the cinema or the beach again.

I must say our girls are coping incredibly well in what it such a bizarre time. With no school, being unable to see their friends and not even being able to go out as usual must be so very strange for 8 years old to take in. I do worry about the long term effect this will have on them, my husband and myself, but I try not to spend too much time dwelling on that.

This week I’m looking to the silver lining in all of this. The good things that have come out of lockdown so I thought I’d share them with you.

Being able to spend more time with my children and husband has definitely brought us all closer together. Last week we all gathered in the kitchen to make lockdown keepsake of our handprints. As much as I’d like to take all the credit for this super cool idea, I can’t take any! My sister shared it with me from Facebook. If you’d like to give it a go yourself, click here for the full instructions. It was messy, it took five attempts to fit all of our hands on, but we love the end result.

Spending more time outdoors. At a time when you’re unable to go to the park, cinema or pretty much anywhere, it’s super important that we can get outdoors. I’m so thankful that we’ve had some great weather during the lockdown, and of course that we have a garden.

We coloured in our wall using chalk.

We played a Christmas board game on our trampoline.

We planted some seeds to grow some herbs, flowers and vegetables.

We ate ice lollies in the garden.

We enjoyed lazy days, lie ins in bed and cuddles.

I got five minutes peace to read my book!

I’m now on week 8 of Couch to 5k and starting to love running again. After my stress fracture I had doubts and worries about whether I’d be able to enjoy running again and I’m so glad that my love for running is coming back. Also, running in lockdown means the only sound I can hear are the birds singing which is a great way to start the day!

It’s hard to see the positives in tough situations, but I think we all need to look forward and find the joy in the small things in life. What are your lockdown silver linings? Let me know in the comments below.

I’m tagging the following five bloggers to take part by letting me know what their ‘lockdown silver linings’ are. Just link back to this blog post so others know where the idea for this came from and if you want to, you can also tag five other bloggers in your blog post to take part. Thanks!

1. Katie from Mummy’s Diary
2. Nigel from DIY Daddy Blog
3. Laura from Loopy Lou Laura
4. Laura from The Mamma Fairy
5. Jo from A Rose Tinted World
6. Mel from Diary of a Jewellery Lover