Marion's blog: One hour at a time

This pandemic has been raging on now for what feels like forever, but in reality, is a little short of a year and a half or so. During this time, we have followed the rules, stayed inside, stuck to when we could go out for exercise, shopped online, worked from home continuously, home-schooled a Reception / Year One student and a Nursery / Pre-schooler and finally activities have started up again – swimming, rugby, junior park runs, musical theatre classes and gymnastics.

My husband and I both received our second jabs a couple of weeks ago and were feeling quietly confident things were returning to a form of normality.

Until late Friday evening when I checked my personal email before heading to bed…there was the dreaded email saying someone in the activity that had happened 4 hours beforehand had tested positive, and we had to join the swathes of people across the country who had been or were self-isolating.

At first I felt denial – it wasn’t possible that it had actually happened. My husband was working an extra shift starting at 1am Saturday morning and was already asleep so I dealt with all the feelings of turmoil and angst myself and took ages to get to sleep. Then when my daughter cried out around 3am I went to her and so did he and I told him what was happening – it wasn’t me bearing the news alone anymore, but the rest of the night was very restless.

Saturday morning there was actually a reasonable amount of understanding which surprised me for a 4- and 6-year-old. Naturally, they were upset about all the things they were going to miss but didn’t dwell on it.

I on the other hand felt myself getting more frustrated and irritated with every passing minute – until my husband said something that really helped. He said “You’re not going to make it through if you’re thinking about the whole isolation. We’re not going to get through 10 days, just the next hour, then the next hour after that and eventually we’ll get there”.

So, we pulled out the paddling pool and rigged up the climbing frame slide to land in the pool. The girls spent a LOT of time playing in the water and enjoying themselves on Saturday and Sunday.

I write this on Monday morning with the week looming ahead. I started a new job working for the NHS in April and I have never been so busy or worked so hard – the thought of trying to home-school again (even if only for a week, fingers crossed) is frankly terrifying! Never did I think my daughter’s words would ring so true – on learning my new job was for the NHS, Miss 6 turned to Miss 4 and said, “our mummy is going to be a super-hero!” I fear it is going to take a herculean effort to get through isolation, but we’re all in it together and I hope we’ll all be super-heroes by the end.

Wish us luck!!

Marion works for NHS Digital after leaving the legal industry in March and lives with her wonderful husband, two daughters and their cat – one of the best lockdown purchases ever.

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• Families