I’d be lying if I said I was keeping a solid routine through the lockdown.

We are now in week 5 of the UK lockdown and I am at home with my parents, a mere 200 miles away from CCCU. You’d think this would be ideal for lockdown: parents cooking for you, constant company, familiar surroundings? If I’m going to be completely honest, it has presented challenges I wasn’t prepared for or had even thought of.

The first challenge that I was presented with was before I had left Canterbury, so lets zip back in time for just a second. I was preparing to come home to my parents for Easter, Lockdown had been rumoured but, at this point, life was still going on as normal. My first challenge was packing. Whilst I was planning on being home for 3 weeks and then coming back to Canterbury I had to prepare for the suspected lockdown, however long that might have been. This meant packing more clothes than needed which meant I had to pull out the emergency vacuum bags that every parent supplies their child with (right?). The next 24 hours were spent tightly packing 2 suitcases, one with my now vacuum packed clothes and essentials and another smaller one with all the books I could ever need to complete my year of study.

This was a level of preparedness I have not done since my ‘Brownies’ days.

So fast forward back to the present day. What challenges have I faced so far?

One challenge that I have had to face is one surrounding sustainability. If working within sustainability this past year has taught me anything is that it is important to grow sustainable habits over time. For me, these habits help me to make unconscious choices that are better in the long run, for example, putting tea bags and eggshells in the food waste bin. Being at my parents, who don’t own a food waste bin due to waste collection in this area, these habits are at risk of being broken.

How am I tackling this? Well it isn’t as simple as getting a food waste bin as the local council doesn’t collect food waste separately and so it would end up in landfill anyway. So we have been working on being more conscious of the food waste we produce by only buying the food that we know we are going to eat and eating a lot of leftovers.

Another challenge I’ve been facing in this lockdown is finding a good workspace.

I wanted to avoid my bedroom as I had read somewhere that if you work from your bed it’s not going to be successful because you associate it subconsciously with rest, not work. (I don’t know where I read that though). So I’ve tried in my garden with a picnic blanket. I’ve tried working in the living room and then I tried working in my parent’s room. I just could not get settled. Then I tried working in my room as a last resort. I locked my self away and tried it. Surprisingly it worked so I now have a cosy little set up going from my bed.

So now I am taking it day by day. Trying to get used to this new normal that we have been thrust into. Here’s to the next week in lockdown.

Stay safe everyone.