Today I should’ve been...

Today I should’ve been at the Royal Albert Hall with my friends Helen and Clare at Classical Spectacular with my talented and wonderful friend John Rigby conducting. (Photo is from one I took four years ago at the concert - don’t judge me Blip police)!

Instead I was in the office getting more and more depressed by the minute as email after email came in with postponed film productions and cancelled industry events.

Today I counted just seven of us in the department that usually has around 120+ employees. Next week I am on annual leave Monday to Wednesday and planning to work remotely after that. Saying that I’m on standby for my new role from Monday morning so may end up being quite busy in my home office.

At lunchtime I walked down the High Street to M&S to grab something for lunch and dinner. Managed to get some gluten free sausage rolls (beauty of gluten free is it’s so horrible people only buy it if they have to) and a mini pot of chicken and edamame beans for my lunch but absolutely nothing for dinner. The shelves were bare!

Walking back to the office I saw groups of school leaving age teenagers outside McDonalds, KFC and Burger King. I overheard one of them saying how gutted he was to miss the last few weeks of school. They were stood close together looking at phones and sharing chips totally oblivious to the social distancing we should be observing.

After work I popped into Aldi and again the shelves were bare. I managed to get a pack of mackerel and Aldi’s version of actimel probiotic drinks, a big bar of chocolate and a bottle of white wine. All items critical to physical and mental wellbeing don’t you agree?

Spent much of my day thinking about all my friends in the creative industries out of work and felt so sad. No doubt I’ll be one of them in a few weeks.

This evening on a locations manager Facebook group I saw that someone had written to the NHS on behalf of the UK entertainment industry offering crew to assist where needed ranging from ‘lifters and shifters’ (the guys who lift heavy stuff), electricians, engineers, riggers, drivers, caterers, administrators and people who can man phones. Let’s hope the NHS take up the offer of help from other industries to make a difference and keep people in work!