I’m not planning to blog more than this once about the current Coronavirus situation. I figure everyone is exhausted just living through it — you don’t need to read a bunch about it, too. It’s also therapeutic to go through older photos of trips and hikes, to remember and blog about those experiences. I’ll try to keep that up.
I had a work trip to the US at the very beginning of March, and I had the joy of seeing an old friend in person (after 5 years not seeing each other!) and then seeing a lot of my teammates. By the time I got home, though, news about the virus’ spread was ramping up.
I voluntarily started self-isolating after I got home. Since I work from home normally, and have a lot of hobbies at home, it wasn’t a real hardship. Soon afterwards, my husband decided to work mostly from home — and then fully when the lockdown started in the UK and his university closed. But we’re keeping busy with things like:
- Work! (No breaks for me!)
- Yoga with Adriene
- Jumping rope (turns out this is great cardio exercise you can do on the garden patio — and we’re out of shape!)
- Gardening (only somewhat hampered by not having garden waste collections at the moment)
- Cooking and baking (including bread, soft pretzels, beer cheese soup, beef bourguignon, and Persian macaroni — my husband did that last one without a recipe using what vegetables we had on hand, but this recipe is an example of what it’s like)
- Lots of video calls with friends and family (normal for our expat life but more calls than usual!)
I miss seeing local friends in person and doing things like our local pub quiz. As the weather warms up here I really miss hiking, especially in Snowdonia. My husband is also frustrated to have a lot of his research put on hold as he doesn’t have access to his lab or cleanroom. But we’re managing and finding ways to enjoy ourselves.
Hopefully we’ll be able to return to some of those activities in a matter of weeks rather than months. I wonder when we’ll be able to resume trips back and forth to see family, but I’m trying not to worry about that right now; one thing at a time. Stay safe!
Expat Linguist 