So I’m not sure how this is going to pan out, or why I’m even doing this at all. To be honest, I would love to say that I’ve been inspired because of the large amount of free time that I have to finally get a chance to do something I love.

In theory that is totally true. For a while now I have been dreaming of having a period in my life with a lot of free time where I could just blog for a living and enjoy my life. As you may be aware though, my blog is a travel blog, where I write about the incredible cultures that I discover and adventures that I get up to while I travel the world and meet loads of new people. Writing about being cooped up in a London apartment where my travel is confined to 2.5 rooms and my local Sainsburys is a whole different kettle of fish. The pressure to be funny is immense as there are absolutely no cultural learnings, interesting events or new acquaintances to fall back on (except the Sainsburys employees – I always have a great chat with them, and there was that one time this young guy stalked me through Sainsburys trying to talk to me early on in the lockdown but I’m pretty sure he was mentally unwell).

So in reality the reason I’m doing this blog is to fulfil the demands of my number 1, obsessive and loyal-till-the-end fan; my mother. That, and the fact that eventually one day this will probably all seem like a distant dream, and we might want to refer back to the blog for evidence that it really happened. And if any of my friends read the blog (perhaps a 10 minute break in between Netflix episodes), reading about my laziness might help you to feel better about yourselves, which is an extra bonus.

You see, I’ve spent most of the corona period relaxing, enjoying life, drinking, chatting with friends and relatives, playing games and watching Netflix and Disney Plus. I have done some useful things- spring cleaning the house, getting rid of old stuff and learning how to bake more for example, but overall I would say it’s been a pretty unproductive period.

There have obviously been horrific moments for me and times when I badly miss normal life and interaction with strangers (and everyone who knows me knows how much I love chatting to random strangers- I got that one from my granny). 

However, despite these moments of weakness, I have to say, with a pretty guilty conscience, that I am actually enjoying a lot about the lockdown. I’ve spent the larger part of the last few years whizzing about like a crazy person- travelling abnormal amounts, having loads of work and generally spending most of my time on the go like a headless chicken. I craved some stability and some down time.

Now before you rush to any conclusions and add to the already plentiful supply of conspiracy theories circulating, I can confirm that I was nowhere near Asia in the first half of the year. In fact, I was travelling to Bosnia and South Africa around the time of the first corona cases; two countries affected very little.

I have to say, when I was dreaming about this downtime, it was me on a beach somewhere sipping a cocktail, no work, and a rich husband financing everything, but hey I’ll take lockdown. I’m still working but I’m working less days now and things haven’t been as stressful at work as they usually are.

I also don’t have to commute which is the biggest dream come true. I used to wake up before 7 sometimes to make it to the gym before work at 9am. Now my alarm goes off at 8 for my exercise, but I snooze until 8.50 because I just can’t make myself get out of bed until the last possible minute.

Not to mention that I get to avoid the most god awful experience that only my fellow Londoners will ever understand; TFL (transport for London). Livin’ the dream. It also means I get an amazing 8-9 hours of sleep a day, something I haven’t experienced probably since I was about 8 years old (Serbian children stay up later than English ones and luckily for me I had relatively relaxed parents).

I’m also on lockdown now with my amazing flatmate and my amazing boyfriend which I’m 100% confident is the best lockdown combo in London if not beyond. We all get on really well, we’re all quite positive individuals and we have loads of fun together. It can’t be easy at times for my calm and peaceful boyfriend Miguel spending 24/7 in a confined space with his mad girlfriend but he’s loving it really.

So I will attempt to document some of our experiences of the corona period as factually and interestingly as possible (Lord help me). If you are still with me by the end of this blog and plan to read the upcoming blogs thank you so much for your support and I apologise in advance. My only hope is that I started the blog so late (my mother is relentless and it took weeks of moaning to get me to do it) that we might actually be out of lockdown soon and you will be spared from pity reading the rest of it. Enjoy! 😊