Getting out of the house

The woman on the branch is my boss, clowning around for the benefit of young people in wheelchairs. We'd gone to Westonbirt arboretum to meet the young people and their carers or parents there. We took the students for one-hour sessions (three per group, outdoors, one support worker each) so that their parents could have a short break to do some walking/coffee drinking/reading about astrophysics. Some children from our clubs have become very dependent on their parents during the latest lockdown. Hardly surprising, since the schools are closed.

We took two groups, and had a short break for lunch in the middle. There was also a coffee van, I'm pleased to say. The cafes are closed, but the place itself was not as crowded as expected, and it was just AMAZING to be allowed more than ten miles from Stroud! I'm a social care worker in this role, and my first jab was more than three weeks ago, which is the only reason we could run this scheme. I hope that we'll soon get back to some one to one indoor play sessions at the hub in Stroud. Children need to play with others, and social opportunities have been so limited lately.

Got back at 2.15 and it's been raining on and off ever since. I'm so glad we went in the morning! I discovered on the way back, that my boss, who is not from the UK, had spent some time at Iona Abbey in the 1990s, and had known the then-chaplain, C, who later went on to become a nun! We were both surprised at this. I knew C because she and her sisters were at school with us. The family later settled on Seil Island, and C worked in the wholefood shop in Oban before leaving for Iona. I still see one of her sisters in Crieff, but C is part of an enclosed order, rarely visited.

Six degrees of separation and all that. Fascinating how we are all so interlinked.