This time last year - our last live gig

Can you believe it's a full year since lockdown began.  I remember reading avidly accounts from China where people were relating how they coped with 7 weeks lockdown and I remember thinking, how will we do that.   Then it was announced that we'd have to shield for 12 weeks.   My mother was convinced she'd be dead.   We were all in such a panic - trying to get mum used to using an iPad or phone to no avail.  And I nearly had a meltdown in a supermarket when people were standing right on top of me!  So stressful.   

And here we are a full year on.  

We had our last concerts as part of the Emigrant Woman's Tour - Csilla and myself - on International Women's Day (belated greetings for yesterday by the way, to all my lovely women blogger friends ) and then one more on the 13th where by that stage nobody had the nerve to come out.  Our final date of the tour for the 14th was cancelled along with the St Patrick's Day gigs.   

Now to mark the year and to wrap up the project, we are filming the show tomorrow.  It's been a frantic week or so here - frantic by lockdown standards anyway - how are we getting so tired when we're doing next to nothing - but we've finished writing a song and have it recorded now - final tweaks this morning.   

Today is my final day of practising to lip synch all the songs and we've all the dialogue rehearsed, clothes organised and are more or less set to go into an empty pub that was absolutely freezing when we went to check out locations on Saturday - so I think I'll be bringing a blanket as well.  And we all have to bring our own food, cups, glasses everything.   It'll be interesting to see how this works with social distancing etc.   We have five different sets in the one room.   

It's been good having a deadline to work to, and it's been great getting back into the studio.   I sang a song about growing up in the country last year for the show but it never felt finished - so that was the main job of the week to finish rewriting it.  The Stories that Lived in the Woods.   

And fingers crossed, next week when the Executive announce the first dates to open up lockdown, we might at least be able to meet a few people in the garden.   And Spring is inviting us outside again.   Woohoo :)