I write as England emerges, blinking and wary, into a slightly more active, slightly less locked down December. We seem to have been sleep walking at times in recent months, though for many of us the dreams concerned have been busy, at times frantic!

I posted my Christmas cards this morning. 2nd day of opening Advent calendar doors, and unusually for me, they're away.  Not because I've wasted working days writing them, but because sleep has been elusive, and somehow filling the time I'm awake feels important.  As we count the days towards Christmas, at our house marked by consuming one small chocolate a day, I have more questions than answers about what's to come.  This is largely because my clients are also wondering and worrying.  I join them in their thinking about eventualities they have yet to face.  It's part of the job I do for them.  

The issues facing public services feel the same as they did before March - but as one senior leader said recently,  "yes, but just a lot more so."  Vulnerabilities in communities are still there.  The needs of children young people and families are no less, indeed for the most needy they are still more, pressing.  There's a sense of frustrated urgency in the air because for some citizens things are far worse now than they were at the start of all this. The clients' lament is, "We want to change the services that respond, we can see what needs doing, we want to be more present, more visible, more driving of the change.  We just don't have the people, the money, the energy or the head space to do that whilst also dealing with all the repercussions of the pandemic.  Not yet.  We will, if only we are recourced to do what we need to do.  Just not yet, and not at all if we are not resourced."   

The same leaders, managers and providers are equally keen to build on what responding to the pandemic has made them do together: things they should have been brave enough to do a long time ago. This is joined up work they don't want to stop doing, even when they are not grappling with CV19.  In every locality I work in, there has been and continues to be the concerted, determined, rapid dismantling of silo walls that previously slowed down their delivery to communities unfettered by too-solid boundaries between public bodies.  There has been a willingness, by their staff at all levels, to step into previous "discomfort zones":  to mix teams, to share resources, to work in flexble, agile ways.  To prove yet again, if proof were needed, that the Town or County Hall knows communities better, and can act for them more impactfully, faster and cheaper, than Whitehall ever could. Those lessons for the nation are ones we will forget "afterwards" at our peril.

We are still in uncertain times, despite today's splendid news that a first CV19 vaccine has been cleared for UK use. We cannot duck other contextual issues though, can we? The lost jobs that will go on growing in number and attendant misery before the economic landslide stops;  the massive public borrowing we will all have to pay back somehow, some time;  the fact our heads have been so full that we have set to one side both climate change, and the December 31st dawn of reality around the UK's parting from the EU.  I will take a break over Christmas and New Year with more uncertainty about what I expect 2021 to bring than I can remember in any turning year in my lifetime. We will look back at 2020 as an extraordinary, scary, brave and resourceful year.  And I hope we will remember and act on what it taught us about how amazing we can be when we work generously together, for a common cause.  

Are we nearly there yet? (posted in late May 2020)

We seem to be living in a liminal space at the moment. Between times. In uncertainty about where we stand, what the real picture is, how we are really doing. What will come next and what will life be like when it does, whatever "it" is? Is there going to be a moment when the sands stop shifting and we are certain things are going to be OK - for everybody? Are we locked down, or aren't we? Does the answer depend on who we are and what place we are considered to hold in society?

My work has continued, at a lower rate than usual, but there. Much of it is perfectly doable online including through any one of a number of video conferencing, document and presentation sharing programs. The consultancy I do, the safeguarding partnerships in which I'm involved, the charity whose Board I chair, the education partnership I also chair, are all still active. We have all met several times since late March, tea cups in hand, joggers on, hairstyles getting just a touch unruly by now. My fitness classes have been delivered to my exercise mat, in my bedroom, by my regular merciless teachers, three or four times a week. Some of my neighbours' children have been in school throughout because their parents are key workers. We have neighbours whose work in and with communities, or in vital industries and businesses that couldn't stop or close, some of whose shift patterns cover 24 hours a day 7 days a week, has never broken stride. You can't get a routine GP appointment or an equally routine blood or urine test for love nor money in my local health economy, but never fear, the vets are all still working in case your dog gets sick. Don't ask.

I have witnessed some remarkable phenomena as this emergency has continued. I've been blown away by the generosity in my community: people shopping for each other, keeping a watchful not obtrusive eye on neighbours and friends, being phone buddies to strangers, putting together treat packs for medics at the local hospital, taken in by one neighbour who works there, deeply appreciated by the recipients. We gathered at the required "shout your greetings and toast the moment from afar" VE75 community afternoon, kept our distance, revelled in being almost but not quite together, then all went home. We are planning a street reunion once we can see each other and enjoy each other's company as much as this close-knit little community is used to. As far as I'm aware, nobody living near me has been silly enough to fight for space on a beach or in a crowded park on any of the bank holidays we have had to date. Many continue to walk in nearby countryside or along the Essex rivers and creeks to which we so close. We have had 2 cases of CV19 among our neighbours, both Doctors, both BAME members of British society. Both are now well, each walking a slow recovery road but well.

...... And yet .....

As I write, a lovely neighbouring family is hosting a party in the sunshine. 2 sets of 2 parents, one single adult, 7 children all under 6, no social distancing I can see or hear. My anxiety levels as I listen to their laughter are not as low as I would wish, given the hosts live next door and a 5 foot fence is all that separates us. They are having a lovely time. Soon, at least two of the children will be back in school, as will two of the adults, who are teachers. They have both worked a rota - face to face days in school for key-workers' or particularly vulnerable children, the other working days including across the Easter holidays and many weekends, to keep their students both gainfully occupied at home and in touch with school, however their families or the school authorities feel about the sudden change of circumstances that started in late March.

The realisation has dawned on us all that at some point, however wary or critical we may be, we are all going back out there. We will not remain in this "between this state and that," "low-water mark as tides change and the land shifts under us" position. Face to face as well as online existences will be picked up again. I hope, given this virus - like colds or seasonal flu - isn't going away, that we will not forget what society can be at its very best. Yes, at the moment that "best" is driven by extraordinary circumstances, but it is teaching us things about ourselves that should permanently improve how we work, with whom, to achieve what; how we travel, why, and to do what when we arrive; and how we prove that we value what those who keep us going actually do. In our shops, at the council with its many unseen but vital services, for the Royal Mail or delivery companies, in schools and the health service, and more. We need each other - in this "between places" place, AND once we reach the end of this journey and start another.