Well this is all a bit surreal isn’t it??  Following the initial panic, financial anxiety and uncertainty of how long this would last, Britain, on the whole, seems to have settled into the Keep Calm and Carry On’  mentality that we seem to have genetically inbuilt in us.

I am writing this on St George’s day and having lived in England for 23 years I feel very proud of my adopted country and the way they have taken this very much in their stride.  However, the way that dentistry has been forgotten in England (not so much in Wales or Scotland it seems) is disgraceful.  We were told by our Chief Dental Officer that we were to cease to see patients on a face to face basis and triage over the phone until the Emergency Dental Hubs were set up, promising that this would be soon.  That was almost 4 weeks ago, and still they are not open.  So we are left trying to help our patients with both arms tied behind our backs and blindfolded to boot!!  Every single patient of our practice that I have spoken to over the past few weeks has been very understanding and it reminds me just how lucky I am to work with such lovely people and I miss seeing them and having the social interactions that we have every day that make our job so much easier.

I am also missing my work colleagues, they are such a lovely bunch of people.  Simon, as always, has our best interests at heart and he, Vicki and Emily have been very busy keeping us all together (virtually of course) and making sure that the practice heart keeps beating so that when we are allowed to see patients again it will still be the same welcoming happy place that it was before this hiatus.

On a personal note, the lockdown has been a blessing in disguise in some ways, I know my son Oliver will agree as he no longer has to sit his GCSE exams in a few weeks!  We have had time to spend as a family and having 2 teenagers this is not usually an easy task so I will be grateful for this time with them before they once again disappear with their friends.

We have 2 very energetic boxer dogs who are a bit of handful to say the least and need 2 of us to take them out, so we have taken the opportunity to spend time with the children whilst walking the dogs.  Fortunately for us, their schools are continuing to teach them via distance learning on their computers so we haven’t had to deal with stress that is homeschooling as that may have changed my perception of this time!

As I mentioned earlier I am not a native English woman, as most of you will know I am a proud Welshwoman.  I didn’t grow up in a Welsh speaking village and only learned Welsh up to secondary school so I have taken this time to learn Welsh again along with keeping up to date with my dental CPD.  I am also an avid reader and have had to be quite strict with myself and not pick up a book until the chores are done or the day is lost in a book!