The world is a small place, especially considering that somebody coughed in China and it landed on our doorstep here in *Switzerland* (replace * * with wherever you are in the world).

Today has been Day 1 of a partial lock-down here and although we’ve been social-distancing for a few days now, today was somehow different. It marked the beginning of a new ‘normal’, which looks a lot like chilling on the couch, watching Netflix and eating a stash of freshly baked biscuits that were meant to last just a little bit longer than they actually did.

It also included a morning German lesson in my jammies using Skype and two ridiculously long walks through the forest with Hund Qweela who is loving this new arrangement and has settled into her new ‘normal’ of long walks, long baths and long belly rubs, so really, no change there.

Tomorrow will be different and so will the next. Things are changing quickly and each day seems to bring about new rules and new restrictions. All of our non-essential shops have been closed as well as all restaurants, bars, sports clubs, museums, etc. Only our grocery stores and pharmacies remain open to the public.

As from tomorrow morning, Julia will start school through a digital platform which will run from 9:00 to 16:00 daily. Classes have been prepared and will be presented each morning and FaceTime has been set up on each child’s iPad to ensure that they have access to their teacher. Two books, one English and one German have also been given to read as extra homework during this time.

Benito is still going to work however a home office is being set up so that he can work from home a couple days a week if necessary and the staff are rotating shifts to ensure that the work continues with limited contact. Work is a blessing at a time like this and we are so grateful that there is work and a steady income coming in.

We are now heading into the eye of the storm and we’re being told that things will get worse. I don’t know what worse is, I am scared of what worse is but what I do know for sure is we’re the lucky ones. We have each other and not only do we love one another but we really like one another too, which makes being isolated together just a little bit easier.

I read something the other day that said something along the lines of ‘what children will remember about this time in their lives, will be how their homes felt’ and it really made me think about the type of home environment we need during this scary time. So as much as we will try to keep things as ‘normal’ as possible, we will also be embellishing our days with late morning wake-up times, video game marathons, long phone calls back home, afternoon naps and of course freshly baked cookies, Netflix and belly rubs.

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