Simon Minty's recent thoughts and more

Whilst delivering training ( Managing Mental Health  in the time of Covid) we were discussing what has been tough this year. One delegate explained lockdown's impact on her work wasn't that novel as being freelance in the creative industries meant her work always fluctuated. However, she said she was exhausted, not because of Covid stresses but because she had spent the second half of the year explaining and educating people, who increasingly asked her about being a black person. She said this took more effort than anything else she’d experienced this year. It reminded me of being on a panel on International Day of Disabled People convened as part of Purple Space’s 24 hour worldwide broadcast. It was a rather illustrious panel with representatives from the World Health Organisation, International Labour Organization and the European Union and hosted by the razor-sharp Susan Scott-Parker . I was asked to explore if we could measure the progress of disability rights by the p...

Spend a couple of minutes thinking about the answers to these questions.  What’s working ok for work and for home? What’s difficult? What do you do to make yourself happy?                         OK, I’ve thought about it. Here’s mine... Understated mug Work - Like many, I’m working from home. For me that means delivering virtual training. I’ve bought a fan to cool me as my office area gets hot. I have acquired two understated mugs so, during video calls I look professional and not a teenager with a Simpsons or Snoopy mug. I like my ‘commute’ from the kitchen to the office.  Home - Communication with my family is way more than usual. Video calls, audio calls, even the odd card or letter. I like that. I sleep a bit more.  Difficult - The loss of human contact, someone in the same room, a handshake, a hug, a wink. I miss going to dinner with an interesting person, not seeing theatre or ...

Lockdown, shake up, lay down This is longer than the page. On a desktop, scroll down the body of the text to read it all.  Well what are we to do? Everything has changed. We sort of saw it coming but by golly, it got big very quickly. I’m in lockdown in London. I don’t have a specific underlying condition in addition to my impairment, making me more susceptible. By the way I prefer the word susceptible to vulnerable any day of the week. However, I am staying in.  Going out for a bit I had a busy diary, March through mid-July. And then in the middle of March, I saw diary appointments, conferences, training, travel, all fade away. Within a week, my diary was empty, save a stubborn, optimistic appointment in July. I did my last face to face training on 17th March in Bristol; Managing mental health at work. It already felt like we (me and co-trainer Juliette Burton) shouldn’t be there. The hotel was empty and felt weird when we arrived. Hand sanitiser on every de...