It was my birthday yesterday and Mrs K’s planned birthday treat of a night away from the kids at a hotel with red squirrels in the grounds fell victim to the Covid-19 lockdown. But I quite enjoyed the luxury of reading the paper in bed all morning with a steady stream of hot drinks and snacks.

After we cut my cake at teatime, I gave the kids a little pep talk saying that this was the weirdest period of my life (and I grew in up Belfast in the 70s & 80s), and it was very likely to be the weirdest in theirs too, but we needed to take it easy, treat each other with respect, and we’d get through it. Of course my planned Churchillian address was met by a wave of mickey-taking from my rumbustious brood, but I hope enough sank in to help them through the coming months.

The crisis has created a distinctly two speed lifestyle – those working their arses off trying to save/protect lives and keep the basic requirements of modern life – food, power, broadband – running, and the rest of us who are confined to barracks, frustrated that we can’t do much of what we normally do (and learning how to homeschool the feral children). Despite my many years of experience, it always takes me a while into adversity to accept that we can’t control many things in life, but we can control how we react to it. One week in and my mind has finally switched from “why can’t I do X!” to “what can I do?”

We’ve been providing our Green Academy training via webinars for years, now I’m working up how to do interactive workshops (the backbone of my consultancy work) in an on-line format. It will take a couple of goes to get it right, but a new way of working is emerging from my trials, so the two major projects I’m working on and the Corporate Sustainability Mastermind Group will keep going. I’m just going to have to accept that it won’t be perfect at first.

Anyway, I hope all my readers are managing reasonably OK and I’ll leave you with my new motto: stay strong, stay safe, stay sane!