If you asked me last year if I could imagine ever cutting my husband's hair or shopping online for face-masks, I’d have given you short shrift, and yet here we are, says RTÉ News Reporter Laura Fletcher
I, like everyone else, have found myself adapting to norms I could scarcely have imagined twelve months ago.
In work, I’m back to doing all of my interviews for news stories outdoors or on zoom or facetime or skype. I think nothing anymore of zoomed news conferences, keeping at least two meters away from camera crews and interviewees when filming, and connecting remotely with video editors who craft my raw material into the reports that make air.
At home, the earliest stages of the pandemic were certainly the most challenging. Our children are one-and-a-half and four, and my husband and I found ourselves, like so many parents, balancing work and childcare when the crèches closed.
Our daughter had only started crèche in January, and so she took its closure in her stride, as she does with most things. However our sociable son really missed his friends. His father and I were poor substitutes, but we tried our best to fill the gap with as much craic and poorly constructed crafts as we could muster.
I remember at the time having little to share in conversations around binge-watched boxed sets and sourdough successes. Full disclosure: I still haven’t managed to watch Normal People.
My stories were instead of toilet roll inserts transformed into pirate hooks and how my children always sought me out when I was on an important phone call in the only part of the house that has mobile reception.
But I found there were plenty of kindred spirits amongst my friends and colleagues, souls struggling to balance work and looking after their little ones.
We moved house in January and we were so grateful to be in a bigger space for lockdown. Our garden was still a bit of a building site for those first few months, and addressing that was on the top of our to-do list when restrictions eased.
In the meantime, the surrounding tree-lined streets and green spaces made it all manageable. I’d get out as often as I could, pushing my daughter’s buggy with my son whooshing along beside me on his scooter. Picnics and blowing bubbles in the park became our "go-to" activities on my days off. Thankfully with the autumnal sunshine we’re enjoying, they still are.
During the height of the restrictions I was more aware than ever of the distance between our family unit and our own parents and siblings. My parents live in Tipperary, and my three sisters are in Dublin, Kildare and London, and my husband’s parents - and all bar one of his six siblings - live in Galway.
I’ll never forget just how brilliant it was to meet my sister and niece, with my two kids in tow, on Sandymount beach when regulations had eased to allow it again. It was a scorchingly hot day in May. My son high-tailed it into the water as soon as he could, despite the fact that that he was fully dressed and my daughter kept dropping her food in the sand and trying to eat it. It was chaotic and it was wonderful, because it was a moment shared with people I’d really missed.
In the months that followed we managed visits to Galway and to Tipperary, where cousins got to hang out and shrieks of laughter filled gardens again. We also managed a break to Ardmore in Waterford where we spent our days on the beach and our evenings by the barbeque.
One clear positive to come out of the last few months is the bond that has grown between our two children. At the start of the pandemic our daughter was simply too young to play the role of partner in crime to her big bro. She could wind him up though. He was the creator, and she the destroyer. But nowadays they tear our house asunder as a team. It’s comforting to know they have each other’s back.
While balancing work and family, it has been a challenge to find downtime that doesn’t involve the kids, but I’m working on it. My current guilty pleasure is searching online for beautiful pieces of mid-century furniture that I never buy, or at least not yet. Our house is still a work in progress and so for now I’m enjoying imagining the possibilities.
I do make time for good TV; it’s just usually crow-barred into a thirty to forty-five minute window at the end of the day. During lockdown my husband and I rediscovered Ozark, jumped on the Tiger King bandwagon and geeked out with The Mandalorian. The best thing I watched recently was Staged on Netflix. Filmed during lockdown featuring actors playing themselves, it was a concept that could have backfired terribly, but it was in safe hands with David Tennant and Michael Sheen involved. I loved it.
I do miss the cinema, and I never managed to get back to a big screen when they re-opened briefly. Honestly, I just couldn’t face Tenet. I have enjoyed some good movies at home recently though, including First Man and BlacKkKlansman.
My one lockdown dream was to escape to a restaurant for some good food, nice wine and the company of grown-ups. Thankfully I’ve enjoyed a few glorious meals out in recent months. Bliss!
As the evenings close in, and as restrictions do too, I long for the time when we get to chat about the weirdness of living through the pandemic in the past tense. For now though, I’m determined to make the most of zoom calls with family and friends, pizza nights at home, wrapping up warm for walks in the park, and online Christmas shopping.
