Since I started my creative writing degree course with the Open College of the Arts (OCA) last June, my daily journal writing has been in a good old fashioned notebook. Today I have felt the need to bring that daily writing to bristol2brighton.com. I can’t really put my finger on why I have this need to record my thoughts in a blog rather than on paper but as the title suggests, it is something to do with the rapidly changing world we are living in and perhaps with a small readership, my thoughts may be shared with others. The posts may not be daily but I am intending for them to be frequent – recording my feelings, thoughts, observations and opinions on various topics but particularly the worsening COVID-19 situation. Coronavirus is affecting us all in one way or another and I feel I want to do my bit in recording an ordinary man’s experiences as the virus spreads it’s darkness across the world.

Why does the title of this post refer to day 1? For me, today is the first day of a changed way of working. I worked from home for the majority of last week but I still, albeit with a slight trepidation, conducted a number of site visits; I am a kitchen and bathroom planner which means I visit customers in their homes. But from today I will be working from home for as long as I have work to do. Following that, who knows? As my business will not be reopening after today for the foreseeable future, work will eventually run out and it is unknown what will then happen. To state the obvious – the situation is a major concern, a worry that seems to be permanently residing in the mind, creating a strange and unshakeable lethargy, making it hard to focus on anything but the virus and how it is affecting everyone. Perhaps that is a reason in itself to write about it in some way.

The posts in this series will not necessarily be cheery but I don’t want to be a merchant of doom and gloom; I want there to be positivity where possible. As a positive individual I will always believe that we should head for the light; it is there, we just need to be patient and believe that we will reach it at some point.

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