If you were feeling the energy (or reading the news), you probably knew that the lockdown was coming. And if you didn’t, no doubt you could read the situation from the pillaged supermarket shelves in the weeks running up to it.

People have been religiously stockpiling loo roll and pasta here in Switzerland — apparently, hoarding toilet paper is to do with a psychological need for safety — although this seems to be calming down now. The French, on the other hand — at least according to a humorous meme that was doing the rounds — sold out of red wine and condoms weeks and weeks ago (thank God I live in Switzerland!).

Because like the rest of the population and large parts of the world, I’m now holed up at home with my entire immediate family — a husband, four teenagers, two cats and around fifty fish. (I’m gonna be needing that red wine that’s still in strong supply here!)

Like for many expats, the older and at-risk members of my family live beyond the Swiss border, so ‘social distancing’ from them isn’t anything new (except that it’s now been given a name and new function). Still, knowing that you can’t just hop over the border by car or plane to physically help them out (such as with shopping) is tough. And because they’re the older generation, you’re limited, too, in reaching out digitally.

My 90-year old grandparents, for example, wouldn’t know where to start with a mobile device, never mind FaceTime. And although my 87-year-old charismatic mother-in-law does actually have the latest iPhone (yes, really!), sending an SMS is the limit of her capabilities (although, I must admit, I’m pretty impressed with how she bellows, ‘Hey Siri!’ to get her to dial a number for her!).

All you can do is hope that there’s some kindly neighbour giving them the physical support they need, and pay it forward by doing the same for someone in a similar situation in your own neighbourhood.

Because people, at their core, just want to help. And it’s at times like this that you really do see the best of humanity. People are taking on personal responsibility and ‘doing their bit’ in whatever way they can — even children…

I’ve never seen any of our kids as motivated as they were immediately after their school was shutdown, for example. Within hours, my youngest daughter had tidied and vacuumed her room (something that usually takes days of moronic mind-numbing nagging on my part), cleared and arranged her desk ready for home schooling, and tracked down the perfect ergonomic office chair on the internet (which, incidentally, she expected me to immediately go out and buy).

Even having to completely reorganise our entire family life by giving the kids a chunk of daily household chores, for example, has met with the minimum (if any) of the usual grumblings. Even they seem to be subconsciously feeling the common surge of solidarity.

The current pandemic has even spawned previously undiscovered family talents. My eldest daughter decided to cut her own her hair last weekend(!) and that of her younger sister(!!!) — they didn’t tell me until after the deed had been done — while I was tasked with shaving the back and sides of hubby’s hair…

Tomorrow, my youngest is for the first time making homemade carrot soup — she has to cook a recipe from her TipTopf cookbook as part of her home schooling programme. And her English writing skills are getting a boost as she’s found herself an English-speaking pen pal to write to in another part of Switzerland… via snail mail!

Spending much of the day studying online has meant that the kids are getting their digital fix already by midday. As a result, they are welcoming hands-on (non-digital) tasks we previously had to motivate them to do. One of them, for example, spent an entire day reading a book — an actual book composed of paper and ink!! Another sketched a drawing of one of our cats in various lead-shades of grey — no Apple Pencil in sight! And as a family, our table-tennis table is regularly being dragged out of hibernation for a game or two of run-around ping pong in the spring sunshine.

So if you can manage to momentarily forget the current crisis, there are things to be grateful for.

Our kids, for example, are spending time being ‘proper’ kids as we did when growing up… while we’re spending entire days together as a family.

People I pass while out for a walk (with the requisite two-metre distance) are greeting me with a welcoming smile and a gregarious ‘Grüessach!’ (unusual where I live!), while last night, someone from the other side of the village decided to give the entire village a solo rendition on his trumpet. No idea who he was or where exactly he lives, but me and my husband clapped and whistled at his clandestine warbled performance as if we’d been listening to Louis Armstrong himself (beats ‘The Masked Singer’ hands down!).

That’s not to say that the lockdown isn’t without its more challenging side family-wise. Doing the food shop has become even more of a stressful necessity than it usually is. Buying groceries (and yes, loo roll) for our family of six plus our neighbours in the at-risk group is a major feat — not to mention that to those shoppers policing the shopping trolleys, it looks like we’re stockpiling (we’re not). While the introduction of nationwide home office has upset my usual structured daily routine (definitely a topic for a future blog post!).

Nevertheless, never more than now am I appreciating all the things I’ve maybe taken for granted up until now. For starters, my freedom. Followed by having a steady income and good health.

But also friends and personal connection, social media and the internet, the telephone and the post. Everything that helps us stay connected to one another in this modern, busy world.

But most of all, what I now appreciate more than ever, is the simple physical act of being able to put my arms around someone I love. Something that modernisation and digitalisation will never be able to replace.

Life has been abruptly ‘reduced to the max’ for many people, all within the space of a few weeks. And it’s made me — and maybe you, too — consider the bigger picture, and put a focus on life that may have been unwittingly lost in recent years.

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