Iso life with the Huelly Family .

When I arrived to Gre and Joannes home I was nervous. It was the first session I had done with a family I didn't know since lockdown. I had the best time with them. Their children were delightful. They gave me cupcakes which was amazing! Here is their story.

1. How did you feel when they started to close things down and create restrictions?

The restrictions didn't bother me, but I was freaked out about my family getting sick. My 5 year old son is asthmatic and I was nervous about his health. We were happy to stay home to prioritise his health and for us to stay healthy, but also to protect the health of others. We felt like this was one small thing we could do to make a difference, and so we approached it with an open mind, and embraced it. 

2. What things did you start to do once your iso life began that was different to your normal life.

Very little changed for us, other than my husband working from home. This was great for me, since I had more help with the children than ever before. I'm a stay at home mum, and we have no family near us to help out, ever, so it was nice to have my husband finish work around 4pm and play with the kids and I could have a peaceful cup of tea and then start making dinner. 

The biggest change was the social interaction with friends - a coffee catch up, chatting to other parents at drop off and pick up, and for my son to not see his friends and have that social connection. 

We alos psne time completing a puzzle we started 3 years ago and had only done the border of. :-)

3. What was your favourite thing about iso life.

Being together as a family, and having extra help. I loved having days with no schedule, no rush, no place to be at any set time. I loved the pace of it. I also loved having the time in the mornings to go for a walk with the family, be 'in the nature' as my son says, and just soak it all in. We do a lot of time outside normally, but mostly reserved to weekends because we find school drop off and pick up leaves little time for other things during the week. 

4. What was your least favourite thing about iso life

Probably not having an escape from the noise. No place and time to go inside my head. I missed going to to the gym, although we did start doing home workouts. 

5. What do you hope changes for the better when we go back to semi normal life.

Having companies realise that working from home is a possibility for a better work life balance for many families. Also, hoping that we all use less, consume less, need less, to save our planet. 

6. Who did you miss hugging the most. Sadly, we have no family nearby, so I guess for us in some ways it was easier than for many other people with families close by. I got to hug my beloved ones on the daily. :-) In terms of dynamics of daily life, iso life did have it's challenges, but overall, we enjoyed just being together. I had some time to do some things I'd been wanting to do for ages - sew some clothes, tidy up, sort through cupboards etc. We were obviously stressed about what was happening, but it was almost as though once we took our son out of school and bunkered down together, we didn't need anything else,. We stopped listening to the news or checking the stats, stopped worrying about it all, and just got on as best we could. 

Thanks again, so much, for giving your time and talent to people. It was a wonderful gesture. xxxxx