Celia’s Lockdown Diary

I was thrilled to be able to work during lockdown, after an initial horror show of having all work cancelled overnight.

Robin Ince and Trent Burton at Cosmic Shambles Network invited me to join them for two episodes of The Stay At Home Festival (this one with Nicole Smit, Tim Minchin, Robin Ince and Josie Long) and another as Celia Jesson with David Baddiel, Josie Long, Robin Ince and the sublime Phil Jeays). Celia’s lockdown diary with a beach romance theme was part of Sea Shambles for The Royal Albert Hall, and at that point, I pretty much burst with pride.

Radio 3’s The Verb with Ian Mcmillan included some new entries from Celia’s diary too, so all in all, very pleasing to feel like there was some life outside of home schooling and general despair.

As well as making some little films for Renfrewshire TV (more on that soon), Michael Spicer had his own brilliant, much deserved and well received comedy show on Radio 4 which I was proud to join in with, albeit as a character called Josephine who was boring, perhaps it was based on me.

But happiest of all, my second series of Wife On Earth Podcast has just come out on Cosmic Shambles Network. The first episode was recorded before any of the lockdown took place. I wanted to set the second series in Celia and Fred’s suburban home. Little did I know how appropriate that would turn out to be. The series isn’t overtly about lockdown as I didn’t want it to date, but there are moments and mentions, such as Fred taking up learning ukulele and Celia recording in the airing cupboard. The second episode is set in a supermarket, and I called it Supermarket Surrender as a homage to Mills and Boon.

Working from home and home schooling has been very difficult. And hats off to all my fellow creative types who lost all their paid work overnight and are now working for free in an attempt to keep their creative work going when all this is over. It’s horrid feeling like you’re not doing anything well enough. Instead, we’re juggling all things and hoping our best will do.

Listen to my podcast if you fancy, it’d mean the world to me. Aside from shouting about handwriting and concentrating, and using a puppet to be the teacher, it’s currently all I’ve got.

Jo