One Foot in Front of the Other...

We’re now basking in the “joy” of our another lockdown here in London. The first one, once we’d all realised it wasn’t the end of the world, wasn’t too bad. Well, I say that now, but at the time I was too afraid to tell anyone we were having a lovely time not having to face the human rapids of central London, it was the sunniest Spring on record (the washing actually dried in one day!) and there were finally enough hours in the day to work on our own projects. But some friends & colleagues weren’t coping too well with the isolation and constantly present fears. While some of us were glued to screens for productive purposes, others couldn’t tear themselves away from bigger screens and those ever-addictive formulas that make good TV binge-worthy. There were clearly people who were running for the first time ever (“heavers” they were affectionately labelled and our masks were donned as they huffed & huffed toward us). Marathon TV or YouTube sessions don’t get the blood flowing, nor the mind cleared, and so consequently there were a good number of us who felt less & less comfortable as that first lockdown progressed.

What kept us going (- or keeps us going, really, as the pandemic is still in full swing in the UK)? The idea that what if this really is the end of the world as we know it, or Heaven forbid, what if I get the bug and it’s lights out for me? Common sense dictated that there wasn’t much we could do about it if either of those scenarios proved eventual, so the best conclusion we came up with was “Well, may as well do what we want to do, right?” (within obvious restrictions). The short-term of that mind-set meant deciding what would we like to do, or have done, by the end of this pandemic. One decision was to make a good company website (finally): www.thatreallycool.com. Which instantly lead to What do we need for that? Which meant researching what we liked about other companies’ sites, what the latest trends are… coding?… really?… can I learn it?…who do I know that does that then?… they’re busy?? Doing what???… thank you Mimo for guiding me through the basics of HTML & CSS coding!…. And then Who’s free to fix my less-than-amazing website construction skills? It wasn’t a straight road (never before had I considered learning to code) and nor did the road seem terribly logical at times, but it meant we were getting something done - which lead to a film script, a photo series, interior decorating an apartment….

Yes, there were times when that voice in our heads came close to convincing us to sit through 8 hours straight of The Queen’s Gambit (it’s really good! - be warned!), And there were times when the insurmountable restrictions being placed upon us felt like prison, but the real prison guards were us. Did we want to allow ourselves some outside time for exercise? Maybe. Did we deserve chocolate today? A bottle of wine? Probably. Were we being positive enough? Mostly. Did we inflict any lack of positivity on anyone else? Nope. Were we still breathing? Yes, and well. And that alone, especially in a pandemic, was enough reason to do whatever we wanted with our precious time. Most of the time we can say we’ve been productive, some of the time we can say we were positive and some of the time Boris Johnson got an ear full (pretty sure he could hear us through the TV). Yes, we’re lucky we’re a good team: we bounce off of, inspire, persuade and annoy each other into doing things. But one thing we can thank COVID for is the reminder that sometimes all you need to do is put one foot in front of the other and the rest will follow.