The first few days into a bitterly cold January and we were plunged into a third lockdown.

I had exciting plans for this month - I don’t tend to do resolutions, but I do like to look at the year ahead like a blank canvas, and to see it as a space to plan and dream and achieve. Despite having lots of new ideas emerge over the festive period, I have yet to lift a paintbrush or a pen. We are stumbling through our days in a somewhat clumsy manner as we adjust to school moving once more online, and us all being in the same house together. Even though deep down I felt that another lockdown was probably inevitable, my free spirited self did hope that it wouldn’t come to that, and to be perfectly honest I feel like I’ve been hit by a train. I oscillate between feeling alright, and getting on with things to feeling deep despair and absolute exhaustion. The motto ‘take one day at a time’ has become take one moment at a time.

This time round also seems more challenging for some of us. Is it because of the cold and the dark? The first time round we were blessed with the warmer weather, a blossoming garden and long, light evenings. We took walks through our forest and admired the wild flowers, watched butterflies and birds, and the crystal water of the river bubble enticingly over the stones. This time, we walk in the woods and everything seems wet, grey and brown. The paths are choked with thick mud and we return home cold to the bone and dirty. It all feels like effort but we persevere because we also understand that there is magic in the fresh air, and being surrounded by nature.

I’m not sure that there’s a one size fits all remedy for getting through the days ahead. For me, it is a simple one of eating healthy food, moving my body, getting outside and resting well. It’s keeping in touch with friends and family. I have also continued with my daily meditation practice (I like the ones with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar) that I started in October and which have benefited me enormously. I journal, write gratitude lists and pull oracle cards, I do whatever is needed to feel more positive.

In November I started to do workouts on You Tube with Lucy Wyndham Reed - short bursts of high intensity training for no more than ten minutes has become something I do most mornings. On the days I don’t, I’ll do some gentle yoga instead. I am making sure I drink lots of water, and I’m drinking two or three bottles a day. Focusing on my health and well-being helps me feel like I’m doing something positive, it’s also something I can control when there’s so much in the world at the moment that I can’t.

I plan to get back to my sketchbook in the coming days. I also invested in the Design Trust Planner and their Business Club again this year, so I am also going to take a couple of hours to work through some of those exercises, to give me a path of sorts to take me through the next couple of months. It’s important to me to have a focus, otherwise I drift. This week has been rather topsy turvy, but I am determined to carve a way forward in the coming days. We have also decided to start work updating our old kitchen, and my mission to declutter our home bit by bit continues as well.

As yet, I still don’t have a word for this year. However, I just came back from a walk in the woods where everything was glazed in a hard white frost, and without warning I was enveloped in a sudden flurry of snow. As I walked, the tiny shards of ice stinging my skin, I passed branches with the tiniest buds showing - a small beacon of hope and promise of warmer days to come. There again, the word hope appears…I wonder if that is destined to become my word for 2021? I shall sit with it a while, it would certainly be fitting for these challenging days and weeks ahead.