I think that 20th March, 2020 will be stuck in all our minds....I picked Fred up from school, I tried to keep my upset hidden, I was crying inside for him, for me, for us all, it had all gone wrong, this wasn't in the script.

As a commercial photographer in the Lake District I was looking at a good, healthy diary after the Winter, lots of excitement for great projects both locally, nationally and overseas. Overseas jobs had been paused while Brexit issues settled and flights were a bit more sensible.

It stopped, everything just stopped, there was no need to cancel anything, we knew, it wasn't going to happen, first up was the Hawkshead Brewery Spring Beer Festival which I was booked in for two long days, an awesome team, beer food and banter - gone.

There was phone calls and emails, we didn't really bother to try and re-book, I guess we just knew that we were in it for the long haul. As the days and weeks went on, 'home-schooling' became a thing, or didn't, depending on the weather!

Looking back, I think I became a bit poorly, trying to put on a brave face to Fred, it was pretty easy to hide from everyone else though because we didn't see anyone, WhatsApp is a great wall to hide behind and fake being 'OK'. It took quite a while for me to process what was going on, financially I had already written off any hope of keeping up with everything, adopting a 'what will be, will be' attitude, we could eat, we could shelter, I was able to share the care of my boy with his mum, we would be OK and could deal with the shit-show another time, everyone else would be in the same boat and we were a long way away from the bailiff coming!

So, once I got my head around it, this 'lockdown' business was a massive opportunity, to spend time with my son, to create some head space, help some friends with marketing their businesses as they adapted, I sacked off 'Furlough' very early on as to do it properly was far too restrictive.

Home schooling was tough, we did however spend our time well away from other people, playing in the woods, in the fields, watching the buds come out on the trees, we quickly went from Winter / Spring, to late Spring and Summer, it seemed to happen fast, although life went by much slower, we noticed things, instead of cars on the busy road outside my house, one night there were rabbits!!

I took pictures though, plenty of them, no real thought behind doing it, just a case of having a camera with me, also during this time Canon UK sent me some kit to play with, which was brilliant and I did have great fun with them, for anyone reading and interested in cameras, I had an EOS 1DX Mk3 (I use 2 x 1DX Mk2's) also an EOS R, EOS R was to experience the mirrorless body but also the new RF lenses, ready for when the EOS R5 came out - they were of course incredible!

So, while we are not back to 'normal' we are getting used to the 'New Normal', life is a bit slower, we have all learnt a lot about each other and I am delighted that as soon as we were allowed we hung out with my partner, Dena again and to Freddie's delight, her dog, he really did miss her and they play and play and play, a Collie and an eight year old - a perfect match!

A huge thanks to all my clients who have been in touch, hopefully I helped those that needed helping and thank to you those who helped me - I am always grateful to those who put their trust in me to produce work for them, if you are thinking of engaging a photographer, please do call to chat, drop me an email, or even if you are not looking to hire a snapper - please do share my website!

Thank you.