Lockdown Letter #2

CORONA VIRUS LOCKDOWN - WHAT IT’S LIKE.

Hello whoever you may be. What I’m going to talk about today isn’t just your average story it is about how myself and the rest of the world are managing during a huge global pandemic.

It’s difficult I must agree, staying inside your homes… hang on, you probably need to know more of the story to find out about where we are today. The story starts in Wuhan, China. Picture a man and then a bat. Before you know it, he consumed the animal. That is not your normal story starter is it? Anyways, as this is not generally what us humans do, it very sadly started a virus called: corona virus. a.k.a: Covid 19. It was slightly problematic at first, there being people from the U.K still in China, but luckily, they managed to fly home and go straight to self-isolation, to make sure that they didn’t have this virus. I understand that you’re probably thinking that it’s not such a big problem after all. Now my friend, that is where you are VERY wrong.

With travelling and the fact that this pesky little virus can spread extremely quickly. There was no stopping it from practically spreading all over the world! Crazy, I know!? Some countries had more cases than others so reacted quickly went into what we call: ‘lockdown’ early. Lockdown is where that specific country, closes its borders, people have to stay inside and no travel (except for essential journeys). This all happened from around November 2019 – March 2020. But, trust me, it does not end there.

I am also fully aware that might have been a lot of information to take on board at once, but I’m to do it a quick as possible… I don’t want to bore you! Back to the story, I live in the U.K. We went into lockdown sometime in March 2020. To be honest it was all quite overwhelming and very, very strange. I knew that I was going to have to find some things to keep me busy during the 3-year Easter holidays. Sorry years? I meant weeks. Straight away I decided that I would spend lots of my time baking, which I have to admit was very enjoyable! As a dancer, I also took on lots of stretching and workout to keep my strength up and pass the time. Those weeks flew by! Oh, and by flew I meant went slower than a snail… at its ultimate lowest speed.

Back to school! Well, when I say this I mean up to my bedroom, let’s download zoom! With my school, we started to do online classes on zoom. I must admit its weird at first, viewing your classmates and teachers through a tiny box, but you do get used to it. I do miss sitting in a classroom and learning things, surrounded by my friends, but it’s unfortunately STILL not possible. But do you know that there is one thing that is really special about this strange time in our lives? That would be the community, the clapping for our NHS workers at 8pm on Thursday nights, drawing rainbows and sticking them in our windows and really sticking together and sharing love is what really matters right now.

8 weeks in lockdown. 5 weeks of online school. I guess you could say that I’m adjusting to the current circumstances, but life is quite unpredictable at the moment, so I am not really sure how to feel. Managing to keep up with my school work, facetiming family and friends, going on lots of walks and bike rides – just keeping myself busy.

Dear person of the future of past, I hope you enjoyed this insight on life during a global pandemic (from a 13 - year olds perspective). Anyways I hope I didn’t bore you, as its not the most exciting story to share, but what I hope I did was bring a smile to your face about how the community really stuck together and helped each other out. And, I have an exceptional bedtime story for my future grandchildren...

Beth 😊