In February 2020 I was in Budapest, celebrating a friend's 40th birthday, I'd been nervous about going...typical Mum guilt and worry but boy was I glad I did!
At that time Coronavirus was something that was happening in China, then it was something that was happening in Italy. We'd been aware of it as we were preparing for the trip but assumed flights would be cancelled if there was a problem. I won't get political but it was clear that Hungary was feeling that close proximity to Italy. The airport in Budapest was very strict with sanitiser and when we returned 3 days later to fly home to England it was even stricter.
We arrived back in Stanstead to no sanitiser or reminders to 'wash our hands'. That we supposed was that. Another strange foreign virus that wouldn't trouble our shores.
Little did we know.
Less than a month on the 16th March in an unprecedented move, the UK went into lockdown. As a Mum of school age kids I started to home school my kids.
Now, if ever I had anticipated this unimaginable situation I'm sure I would have thought 'haha, more time to sew - no places to be, no school run!'....but it wasn't like that.
I felt so tense inside, I felt worried for the children. I would home school in the morning, make lunch, make sure the boys played outside and then cry once they'd gone to bed. I remember two non-consecutive days when it all seemed too scary to bear.
"Are you sewing?" "what are you making at the moment?" people would ask. 'Nothing' I'd reply, morosely. I had lost my sewjo.
Slowly though lockdown became the norm. I decided to make a wall hanging of HST made with sample squares suppliers send and a cream solid. There was a bare patch of wall at the bottom of the stairs going up to our attic bedroom...if I could create something positive and bright we would see it every morning when we walked downstairs to 'face' the day.
So it's a reminder that some positive things came from the COVID-19 lockdown, time spent at home with family and my sewjo returning!
