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Using Lockdown ‘Wisely’?!

Carolyn Voisey by Carolyn Voisey Additional Needs

Carolyn Voisey

Carolyn Voisey

Mum to one incredible little dude, I work full time in higher education and have my own small business as a jewellery designer/creator. I love noth...

Hands up if, like me, you have been stirred to learn a new skill or brush up on a neglected one during lockdown?!

As we’ve now been without our usual care/support/respite network for the best part of 3 months it was high time that I started to do something (anything) that was just for me and not a part of my caring role… I may adore my son beyond words, however mentally lockdown is leaving me feeling stifled, frustrated and more than a little low.

Given that I have something of an obsession with picking up various fabrics wherever I go, it seemed as good as time as any to unbox the sewing machine, check it was still working and get back to improving my now very rusty skills. Initial success making fabric face masks has encouraged me to try and be a little bit more ambitious… and that was where the problems start!

I swear to you, this machine is the Spawn of the Devil himself.

Much cussing has been heard echoing out of the living room this week as I battled yet again to work out what was wrong with the wretched thing this time… being the Mum of a medically complex little chap has taught me patience, or at least I thought it had, but this pest of a machine seems to have been sent deliberately to fray the last nerves I had still intact… and in so doing, it has allowed me to sob, rant, rage and release the tension and angst that have built up over the last months of struggling to juggle everything while feeling that I’m not managing to do any of it very well.

This lockdown is getting harder the longer it goes on. The absence of that critical support network of carers, hospice, family, friends is weighing more heavily now. So, while it may not be very enjoyable for the rest of the household to hear me call a Singer sewing machine every name under the sun (and a few of my own devising), for me it has a cathartic effect that I haven’t found from anything else – and I do A LOT of different crafts!

I shall end the post with a hope that everyone out there struggling with this situation finds something to help them through it. Don’t feel you have to be somehow more productive because you suddenly have so much time at home – not everyone wants to learn a new skill during lockdown; let’s be honest, it’s a situation that is very far from normal. We’ll all get through it, in our own ways.

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