Six Month Blues

I have been feeling unusually down and anxious this week. It is unusual for me, and I put down to a combination of the prospect of a winter with rising Covid cases and tighter restrictions, worrying (probably unnecessarily) about the workload and exam stress H has taken on, the darker evenings and an unusually busy work week. Oh, and starting the week feeling under the weather (much better now, I'm glad to say). However, a friend reposted on Facebook a series of tweets from a doctor experienced in working in crisis areas. She has learned to expect that six months into a long crisis will be a difficult time and is the point at which it is natural to hit a wall. Her recommendation is to take care and be gentle with ourselves, look after our physical and mental health, accept that just managing the things that need to be done is an achievement, and ride out the slump, which in her experience normally lasts a few weeks but then resolves itself. Her advice is not to fight the wall and just trust that it will pass. I found this incredibly reassuring, as it seems to explain how I am feeling. I'm just going to try to sit back and ride it out. 

On the positive side, TG has got over her cold and is feeling pretty much back to normal. I'm also feeling much better and had more energy today. M and I went for a two mile walk after lunch, which was the only time we could fit it in. I had to get back for a work Teams meeting so we didn't have time for our usual three miles. H is still slogging away, but has learned a phenomenal amount about how to compile accounts in just four days. This evening R and her partner came over to visit for a while. They are going to Turkey tomorrow night for a week's holiday - they had originally booked to go to Lanzarote, but switched as it would have meant two weeks of quarantine after they got home. She was her usual cheerful, upbeat self. I have finished work for the week, and now have a three day weekend to look forward to. I'm determined that we will manage one day a week when neither M nor myself are working - that will be tomorrow, then he will be working over the weekend but I won't. It has meant a bit of a struggle to get everything I needed to do finished in four days, but it was manageable and tomorrow will be payback. 

I woke up early (for me) this morning as I had to take TG to school early for a French class., and I am now too sleepy to look for a photograph to add to this post.