After Life – Well Eye Never

Hello again, hope you’re all keeping safe and well. We’ve now had nearly 3 months of lockdown, and this ‘new normal’ still feels surreal. It certainly puts everything in perspective, that a microscopic virus can temporarily shut down the entire planet in a matter of weeks. It’s a stark reminder of how powerful nature can be.

Everyone’s perception of time is rather weird at the moment too, with the weeks seeming to fly by, but that can be explained by science at least. Although, of course, it will be dragging much more slowly for those going through a particularly rough time at the moment, and you have my sympathies if that applies to you.

As I see it, the current small changes to our lockdown, as part of the government’s long term recovery plan, are basically urging people to use their common sense, as the virus is still circulating. We must continue to stay at home and work from home if at all possible, and obey the other safety rules. But provided we do so, we have a little bit more freedom now. So I hope people will continue to be careful and sensible, as we’re nowhere near out of the woods yet, but we’re getting there slowly. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. And obviously for disabled people things are more complicated, as Lucy Edwards has discussed with a couple of her fellow blind activists in a recent video.

As for me though, I’m still doing fine. I’ve been staying indoors to keep my elderly mother safe, but recently I went out for the first time in over 5 weeks, as a couple of essential items were missing from our online shopping delivery. So I was very pleased to find that there were hardly any people and very few cars about, and that I was able to use the priority hour for disabled people at the supermarket, which was fully stocked and had social distancing measures very well enforced. So my risk of exposure was hopefully minimal.

But otherwise I’m still staying at home, and I’ve continued to keep myself entertained in various ways. So here’s my latest recap of what I’ve been enjoying and discovering recently, along with videos summarising week 5, week 6, week 7 & week 8. As usual nothing is sponsored or gifted, and all opinions are my own. So I hope you enjoy!

Well, what a year this has turned out to be, huh? Perhaps we should just rename it 2019B or 2019.5 and start 2020 again next January. It’s like we’ve had a faulty software update in the calendar that needs serious debugging and virus-checking before it’s rolled out again.

Obviously I’m not dismissing the tragic side of things by saying that. My heart goes out to everybody who has lost loved ones or been severely affected in some other way, and I sincerely hope you all stay safe and well as best you can. Please follow the guidelines on hygiene, distancing, isolation, etc, because it really will save many lives. It will take a few weeks at least before we start seeing the impact of such measures, but they will help, and we will get through this. Huge thanks to all our incredible health and care staff, as well as the many other people providing essential products and services.

Beyond this introduction, I have no desire or intent to write posts about the situation, as it’s not nice and there’s enough about it online already. However, I have created a Covid Resources page, where you’ll find many links for information, advice and support, plus many ways to stay connected and entertained at home, which I hope you find useful.

Clearly this is going to change what I’m able to do and post about for a while. So in this post and video I want to wrap up my recent museum and theatre visits, as well as disability related updates and TV favourites, for both February and March. That way, I can move forward with a clean slate as I settle into a temporary new routine.

All of which means there’s a fair amount to cover here, making it a good distraction from everything that’s going on. I haven’t been sponsored or gifted by anyone to mention them, and all opinions are my own. So I hope you enjoy!