Update, 21st May

We are on day 15 now, and my dad is so exhausted by this vile virus. But the 111 GP thinks we have passed the crisis point. She said we had done well. I think when she said that the full enormity of it all began to dawn on me. My dad, who is in his 80s, has an underlying lung condition and has Covid. He is in the same house as my mum, who has severe chronic progressive MS. The carer who was with us here is a woman of colour – she is also at high risk. My teacher Mimi talks about something called 'pendulating' – essentially when something is too much to deal with, you steer your thoughts away from that thing and come back to it later. And that is what I am doing as much as I can.

I have found some great ways to pendulate. There is my Qigong and my yoga, of course. There is the beautiful garden here. I am listening to self-empowering podcasts – I whole-heartedly recommend Dr Rangan Chatterjee's Feel Better Live More. I am reading. And I am watching the Vicar of Dibley, right to the end - the joke with Alice after the credits still cracks me up every time!! We now have a new live-in carer who is very calm, and we should be getting Covid tests by post for mum and me today. The sun is shining, and at the moment everything is peaceful.