Little Lockdown Lessons
I know that there has been an incredible amount of suffering and disruption since March 2020, and I would like to pause for a moment to respect those affected. But, for a lot of people, there has also been some really positive experiences – from the small to the potentially life-changing.
Initially, I was in a state of panic when life dramatically changed in late March 2020. Then after a few weeks, I began to reflect on what was happening in my own world and how I could potentially improve my life in the short and long term. As April moved into May, I began sharing some of my thoughts and experiences with others – thoughts which I felt may be perceived as inappropriate. Yet, it became apparent that a lot of others were on the same wavelength.
In the last three months, I honestly believe I have become a better person; to myself, my family and for Treasure Trails.
For our latest feature, we want to share the positive changes we have experienced ourselves or heard about from others. We’ll put the spotlight on a different element each week, all wrapped up in the headline of ‘Little Lockdown Lessons’.
There’ll be a puzzle for each topic to sharpen your Treasure Trails clue-solving-skills, to get you ready for your next Trail adventure!
There are seven weeks, and seven features, all reflecting our seven highlights as follows:
Little Lockdown Lessons 1: Setting Free our Inner Creative
As a parent confined to a small space and one ‘leave-the-house-outing’ per day allowed, we were forced to get creative. There have been some pretty silly things which we have done which have created some great memories, and some pretty impressive things we have heard others have done, which we want to share with you! Hopefully, they will help you to reflect on what you yourself have achieved, or think of what you may wish to tackle over the summer. Let’s face it; life is most definitely not back-to-normal!
Have a read of our awesome article here.
Little Lockdown Lessons 2: Connecting with Family & Friends
‘Physical’ social circles changed from 30-40 people to perhaps four or even just one for most of us. During lockdown, I turned 40, and my dad 70, and we had some pretty cool online parties. Family members that I only ever spoke to at Christmas all of a sudden became a regular contact. And the four members in my household… well, we created some pretty crazy events and lifelong memories as I spent a year’s worth of time with them over just two months (I’m not sure they saw that as such a good thing as I did!).
Little Lockdown Lessons 3: Food for Thought
Food became quite a topic (as did toilet roll). Availability of online deliveries and fear of malnutrition were soon replaced by thoughts of local produce, foraging, and growing our own food. There were some pretty creative dishes made with limited ingredients (but at least that 12-year-old pot of pickled onions finally got eaten!).
Little Lockdown Lessons 4: Rebranding the Family Walk
I’d like to think we were masters of this already, what with our immersive storytelling and eye-opening Treasure Trails. But the whole nation started to focus on the one-a-day allowance of a walk, with it becoming the daily highlight for lots of us. So many people revelled in their discoveries of new, local routes that they never knew existed, and some even spotted often unseen British wildlife roaming around as they wandered. Suddenly, a dash of adventure started to get sprinkled all over family walks (or was I the only one who rocked up in fancy dress and starting hiding cryptex challenges for the kids?!).
Click here to read our ‘Rebranding the Family Walks’ ramblings!
Little Lockdown Lessons 5: Writing Treasure Trails
This one leads on rather nicely from rebranding the family walk since so many Trailers (and a few TT Towers team members) decided to kick it up a notch. We’ve had a lot of people contact us to say that they had been inspired by a previous Trail they had been on and had decided to give it a go! They stuck on their thinking caps and tried their hand at writing a treasure hunt or trail around their home village, or even their garden, as they really wanted a fun way to document what they had discovered – which, was a whole lot more than they thought. Someone said to me just yesterday that they had re-fallen in love with where they live.
Read all about our local discoveries here.
Little Lockdown Lessons 6: Embracing What We’ve Learnt
Homeschooling was an interesting one, but something which was so magical at times as we took our own creative spin on things. But, it’s not just the kids – so many life-long dreams of things people have wanted to embrace or learn have been achieved. It’s not all about new languages or playing the guitar; sometimes the tiny things mean the most.
Find out what we’ve all be learning here.
Little Lockdown Lessons 7: New routines to keep
As someone who reveals in routine, when these were turned upside down, I broke out into a cold sweat. A short while after, I realised this was a great opportunity to set some new temporary routines. In fact, some of these routines I quickly came to see were actually an improvement on my old ones, and I hope to keep them for years to come!
They are small and silly, but I feel better for them and that’s the main thing. My personal highlight, which everyone is bored of hearing about, is cold showers, which then led to cold water swimming.
Read our final set of Little Lockdown Lessons here.
We’d love to hear from you
Our hope is that you’ll share your stories with us. The longest conversations I seem to be having with people are all about ‘change’ and ‘new things’. We’d love to hear from you so that we can start to incorporate even more positive change into our lives.
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