I haven’t written in nearly 6 weeks which is a record for me. Why is this? Well the last 6 weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind haven’t they?

• I have been adjusting to working from home full time
• In a house with 3 small loud playful kids and 1 amazing wife
• My kids are now experts at video conferencing
• We are restricted to movement within a 2km radius of home
• No social gatherings
• Physical distancing from everybody
• Food shopping has become very strange
• I am never washing my hands again after all of this 🙂

It’s been a very strange adjustment and time has seemed to slow down an awful lot. It seems far longer than just 6 weeks since all of this really started here in Ireland. The schools closed on March 12th and I started working remotely full time on March 16th, and we have been here ever since.

The pace of life has been dramatically reduced and I believe this is the gift in the pause of life that Covid has given us. Before Covid, life was a relentless sequence of time commitments and pressure to be somewhere doing something with someone. Now that is all gone and I for one am liking this new pace of life far better.

To me it feels more deliberate, more conscious and less mindless. The small things have become the big things again like:

• playing frisbee with my kids on the green
• going out on the bikes instead of driving big cars
• walking to the shops
• enjoying local parks instead of always focussing on further afield,
• no work commute
• better work-life integration
• more home cooked meals eaten together

One of the big downsides of this is the lack of any real private time for the parents, I mean come on people! If I could just bring back a babysitter for one night, that would be amazing.

There is a gift in the pause here if we so choose to see it. I do not long for the previous life and I hope that I can retain this more conscious and intentional approach to life whenever “normal” service is resumed in the world.

Stay well, stay safe and stay home…for now.

Yours in health and happiness,

JP