“May you live in interesting times…”
Isn’t that an ancient Chinese curse? The times are surely interesting… and uncertain, and scary.
Essential workers are allowed to move around. And while they do, they are putting themselves at risk. For others, who are unable to work, or who have been told to self isolate/quarantine, even more uncertainty and fear. And the rest? For us, working from home has become the new normal.
I confess that this has made very little difference to how we work here. The pattern of the day is relatively unchanged. A walk to work around the farm to check on the sheep, followed by checking and responding to emails. A Skype/Zoom call or two, then getting stuck into spreadsheets, website changes, the next marketing campaign, or coding a new feature for a customer.
Coffee time is a chance to catch up and maybe review what each of us is doing, although it’s easier to look out at spring emerging on the mountains. We aren’t alone, because there are others who are in isolation and working here too (our daughters). One a technology consultant from London. The other a Business Analyst who is teaching herself to code.
Then we go back to our webinars or conference calls. We’re all working to different schedules, with different priorities, but the community is buzzing…
By contrast, outside the birds don’t seem to have got the hang of social distancing at all. Buzzards and kites, wagtails and wrens, dunnocks and robins, woodpeckers and blackbirds. All hunting for food and early scouting for nest sites before the migrating birds arrive as the weather improves. Nothing changes – but everything is new…
