2020 was my year, until it belonged to nobody but Covid. The weeks leading up to the lockdown were jam-packed. I was hosting a nationwide tour with my good pal and podcast co-host Emma Power for Junk Kouture.
I had lots of on-air work on 2FM doing the entertainment news and segments for various shows and I had exciting opportunities coming up, so much so that I was turning down work. Which, for anyone who has ever freelanced, is kind of a huge deal!
I'll never forget getting sent home from the RTÉ 2FM office the week before the lockdown was announced. While I was bothered and understood the circumstances were serious, I naively thought it would all be over in a couple of weeks. I actually went and got my nails done because the thoughts of leaving them for three weeks was my biggest concern at the time. Little did I know!
At the start of lockdown, like many people, my emotions went through swings and roundabouts. Some days, I honestly thought it was the best thing in the world, and other days I felt so suffocated, I didn’t know if I could get out of bed.
So, I took up running. I always joke that if I’m running, you better run too because either something's burning or we’re in serious trouble. But, it really helped with my head space. But then, I also think I was in so much pain in my body I couldn’t think of how anxious my head was!
All this work I had lined up suddenly vanished and it was a terrifying time because the normal 'hustle’ - I hate that word - wasn’t happening and I felt at such a loss.
My only job now, along with the rest of the country was to sit tight and stay home so I decided to give myself two weeks to just chill out, be a slob, have the odd pity party and just binge TV and not feel guilty about it.
I got absolutely bet into Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and I’m so happy that it finally came to Netflix because I needed to be able to talk to people about it! I caught up on every single episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Very Cavalleri, Sex and the City (movies AND TV show), The Bold Type (think Gossip Girl meets Sex And The City in a New York magazine), Dynasty, and Cheers.
We got lost in the beauty of Normal People, watched every True Crime documentary and OBVIOUSLY swallowed up Tiger King. Now, at least three times a day, I break into the Carol Baskin song to the theme of Megan Thee Stallion’s Savage from TikTok - something else I got utterly lost and unashamedly involved in (foxylaura10 if you want to check out my two-hit wonders).
As well as my debut on TikTok, and when Instalives weren’t a complete head wreck, I caught up with some of the people whose content I love and pretty much made them come and do Instagram lives with me.
Myself and Orla O’Flaherty, a naturopath and herbalist who has helped me greatly over the years, talked all things health, hormones and periods, I spoke with Dr. Ruaa from Therapie Clinic, and also to Paula from The Urban Pup, Galway because if you weren’t baking banana bread in lockdown you were getting a puppy! Admittedly, we did both!
I live with my sister in-law and she rescued a beautiful French bulldog puppy, who we named Baby Thor. Although he’s not my doggo, I have taken on the role of au pair. He has gotten me away from Reality TV and back into reality!
We do a home workout every morning and then head off for a walk (more so a sit and a look) and come back and do some puppy training. I hate being away from him and the few mornings I’m back in the studio, I’m so lucky that he’s such a charmer because it means that he can come with me to work. I love the little bugger so much and he’s brought so much joy and a little routine back into my life.
He also features on one of my latest work projects - hosting a series of Insta-lives on Junk Kouture’s page every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as part of the Junk Kouture Summer Series, a series that I am so excited to be working on! I’ve chatted to students involved - past and present, judges, performers, mindfulness coaches. You name it, we’ve covered it.
Along with getting a little routine back with the new pup and working on projects from home, I went and bought a heap of books. I’m looking at them right now gathering dust at the end of my bed and I’m okay with that.
In March of this year, the better half of me, Brian, was supposed to be moving to the United States for work for the year. We had ourselves set up for long distance, we had our holidays planned, and our trips back and over in sight. It was both terrifying and exciting at the same time.
Having said that, I’ll never be as thankful for anything in my life as the fact that the travel ban came in the week he was supposed to leave. Instead of him being out in the midst of mayhem in the USA and me worried sick at home, we celebrated our five-year anniversary last week with a little staycation in our hometown of Galway and then to the hills of Donegal.
After six years together and the last six months being side by side (literally), we’re still getting on like a house on fire, so it was a good test really and I am so grateful for the quality time we had at home together.
While I had Brian by my side, I didn’t have the rest of my family around me for lockdown, including my Granny- Nono (This is not a cute way of me mispronouncing her name when I was young BTW, her name is Nora Fox and she insisted when I came along that I refer to her as everyone else did because she said she wasn’t old enough to be a granny). Thankfully, we celebrated Nono’s 80th birthday three weeks before the lockdown happened.
I have a huge family so getting everyone together is a bit of a pain, but I’m so happy we had a big bash before all this hit. It kind of meant we were sick of each other by the time it happened so lockdown was a welcomed break! I joke, of course, but it would have been a whole lot harder going through lockdown in Dublin.
I’m the eldest of 26 grandchildren and my little cousins are changing and growing each and every day. Thank god for WhatsApp and FaceTime. But NOT Zoom calls. So over, Zoom calls. Me and the gals went hell for leather on the Zoom quiz-booze nights at the beginning that we had to call time on them.
Even our FaceTimes became so frequent that one friend used the line "well, this has come to a natural end" and hung up! We’re ride or dies so there was no offence. If anything, it made us stronger as a group. In many ways, lockdown has been an eye-opener. A realisation that the rat race isn’t the be all and end all. Working smarter not harder. But most importantly, we missed people, not things.
