A mental health journal: day 50

Happy Groundhog Day. Look at that, we made it through November!

I apologise for the three week gap in my weekly blog. Sometimes the words aren't there and it's hardly the most thrilling of times. My lockdown days have been largely indistinguishable - school run, job hunt, daily exercise, weekly shop. Wine on Fridays and Saturdays. We are dug in, battened down. Waiting it out until Spring and hoping for a return to some form of normality. 

But there's disruption on the horizon in the form of Christmas. Like many I'm uneasy about the lifting of restrictions, but I can see why it's been done. The mental health cost of a Christmas lockdown - which millions would flout, further souring the mood of the nation - should not be underestimated. Either way, a post-Christmas spike in cases is inevitable. If there's to be a third lockdown in January, we'll all need a bit of cheer to see us through.

Needless to say our festive season will be very low key. All being well, we'll be joined by my wife's brother, who is part of our bubble. There will be small outdoor gatherings with parents and friends. I imagine mulled wine will be involved.

I have a bit of a battle with Christmas, which to me seems fantastically overrated. I love a bauble and a string of sparkly lights as much as the next person. I don't love the forced jollity or the relentless pressure to celebrate and spend. Or the cold and dark. 

Having grown up in the southern hemisphere I can report that far from being 'wrong' (as I can hear every reader now crying) Christmas in mid summer is freaking awesome. In South Africa it was celebrated with enthusiasm, but without the hysteria that grips the UK. Because the school holidays extended into the middle of January, our usual festivities were often followed by a week or two in Umhlanga, on the Indian Ocean coast. I'm sure my rose-tinted testicles (that's the correct phrase, right?) are a factor here, but I miss the warmth and simple joy of those days. And the relaxed pace which is conspicuously missing from a British Christmas.

Depression and the festive season can be a toxic mix and the years before my diagnosis were difficult. Nobody - least of all me - understood why I felt alternately morose and angry, why I was so overwhelmed by the avalanche of shopping and family gatherings. With better understanding, I've learned to dial out the noise and focus on the aspects I enjoy. My loved ones have learned to give me a little more space. I no longer buy presents for extended family (like many on the autistic spectrum, I find this extraordinarily stressful) but enjoy finding things for my wife and daughter. And in normal years, we try and keep the big gatherings to a minimum, with rest days in between. 

So I don't dread Christmas (much) any more. 

I do dream of spending the festive season away one year though. Skiing, perhaps. Or - whisper it - somewhere warm and sunny. In the meantime I'll enjoy the sparkly lights and the wonder on my little girl's face, eat my beige food (which does at least pair well with a variety of wine) and see as much daylight as I can.

A mental health journal: day 29

Where were you at 4.30pm GMT on Saturday 7 November 2020?

I was at home (obviously) hanging up washing (ditto) when the news broke; within minutes, my social media feeds had filled with clips of people dancing in the streets and opening bottles of bubbly. Like millions of others, I went a little blurry at the sight of CNN host Van Jones breaking down in tears. It was only then that I realised how draining the last four days had been.

I had followed the US election with interest, but without much hope. Not in 2020. And I had too many concerns at home to worry about a political battle happening thousands of miles away. Or so I thought.

Last week was rough. I felt twitchy and irritable, my anxiety skyrocketing, so beset by shivers and aches that I repeatedly took my temperature. Both my wife and I were unaccountably exhausted by mid-afternoon each day, our daughter reflecting our moods in sulks and tantrums.

But on Saturday evening some of the weight lifted, taking with it a chunk of the anxiety and exhaustion. We have some genuinely good news at last. There are mountains still to climb, but the world feels like a better place today - buoyed by the encouraging news of a covid-19 vaccine. 

This is a special week in our household. On 11 November 2000, I attended a family wedding which changed my life. I met a rather lovely woman, flung her around a cèilidh dancefloor without injuring her (much) and 7303 days later, here we are. Without that chance event, I wouldn't be here to type these words. Simple as that.

In a parallel universe, I've probably been talked into throwing a party to celebrate our second decade together. But in this one, food and drink will do just fine. Our wine rack is groaning with excellent bottles delivered by the brilliant Wine Utopia - supporting local business has never been so easy. I've been tasked with choosing and sourcing the food for our mini-celebration. It's a tough job... I was thinking along the lines of Côte at Home but am open to recommendations.

The dread ball is smaller today. I worry chiefly about my daughter, who faces the biggest challenges of her life - physical, mental, emotional - on a daily basis. She's so strong, but still so little. I can't protect her from everything, which is a mantra I repeat regularly but can't yet fully accept.

I hope everyone is finding ways to fight off the lockdown blues. For us, it's exercise in all weathers (brag: I ran/staggered 6km in the pouring rain today), Bake Off, Strictly, The Repair Shop, Brooklyn Nine-Nine reruns, Duplo, Play-Doh, lots of good food and drink. We're trying to make little plans, things to look forward to; trying, also, to focus on what we can control and shut out what we can't.

It helps that many millions of people are happier and more hopeful than they were this time last week. Long may that continue.

A mental health journal: day 23

Well. This is fun, isn't it?

Last week was half term - our first as parents of a school age child - and my wife took the week off. On her return yesterday, somebody asked her in all seriousness if she'd had a nice holiday.

We tried. We really did. And there were some moments of magic. But reality kept getting in the way.

In the early hours of Sunday 25 October, I was woken by the sound of my daughter coughing - a wracking, barking cough. She'd been getting over a cold, which has often developed into a cough on previous occasions. Her temperature was normal and as far as we could tell, food tasted as it should. In any other year we'd have dosed her with Calpol and waited it out. 

But of course we dared not risk it.

By late morning, after a sleepless night, we were pulling into our nearest drive-through test centre - mercifully, just 15 minutes down the road. The staff were friendly and efficient, the whole process appreciably quicker than our previous visit (to a different, more distant centre) during the summer. But the test itself was traumatic, as it always will be for a poorly four year-old and the hapless parent administering it. My wife rose to the occasion as she does every single day.

By midday we were home, tears dried, treats wolfed, hunkering down to wait. Friends and neighbours sprang to our assistance, delivering essentials as well as much-needed curry and Cava, and agreeing to drop our car off for its long-overdue service should we enter a third day of isolation. Not for the first time, I was grateful for the kind people in our lives, for a community drawn together in adversity.

It was a long 33 hours - but that's all it was. At 9pm on Monday, my phone pinged. Negative. We poured large glasses of wine and let the relief wash over us. My wife set about salvaging half term.

My brother and his family were visiting our parents in nearby Bramdean, and we'd made some complex plans to meet without breaking the rule of six. The first of these was a trip to a soft play centre with the three children. I can't even type 'soft play' without an involuntary shudder, but the pandemic has forced a semblance of hygiene into the armpit of children's entertainment: hourly scrubbing, nightly fog disinfection, fewer people.

After our recent trials I felt even more risk-averse than usual. But the weather was miserable and our daughter had had a wretched half term so far. So off they went, while I turned my brain off. And of course they returned with wide-eyed tales of huge bouncy slides and ice cream.

Our second expedition, to the Winchester Science Centre, was less successful. I'd spent too long poring over ever-worsening Covid statistics and was already sick with anxiety when we entered the ominously full car park. They'd taken all the usual measures - staff cleaning the exhibits constantly, every adult wearing a mask - but there were too many people for comfort. We lasted an hour. I kept the panic at bay, but it's the first time I've ever struggled to draw breath through a mask. I remember thinking that this place and others like it would probably be shut again by December.

I was wrong there.

Hallowe'en dawned to the growing noise about a second lockdown and the loss of Sir Sean Connery, and 2020 turned another shade darker. But after a week of broken nights our daughter's cough had abated; six hours of uninterrupted sleep had done wonders for the mood of the household. We celebrated with a playdate, dressing up, face painting and a spookily brilliant pumpkin walk beneath a full moon. 

As to the second lockdown - sooner and shorter might have been preferable in my uneducated opinion. Perhaps over an extended two week half term. Of course, the businesses and people devastated by the first lockdown will be most affected by this. I hope it's worth it, but there seems to be a spreading groundswell of dissent.

At the time of writing, the USA is waking up to election day. I can only hope that our fears about the result and its aftermath are unfounded, and that my friends on the far side of the Atlantic stay safe. 

I'm no closer to employment than I was two months ago. But there is hope. I've managed to keep up my fitness despite inclement weather and voluntary house arrest. My mental resilience has been sorely tested in the last two weeks. And it's stood up better than I would have expected. I don't think I'm supposed to be relieved that the holiday is over.

But I am relieved. We are still standing. And we did have cupcakes with skulls on.

A mental health journal: day 15

Job hunting. Insert your preferred string of expletives here.

If you're going through it at the moment - and especially if the pandemic has forced it upon you - I feel for you. I really, really do. 

It's a winning combination: tedious, stressful, time-consuming and often fruitless. And until you secure some sort of income, there's no escaping it. In the early weeks after losing my job, I let it take over my life. I streamlined the process with saved searches and email alerts and so on - yet still lost whole days on LinkedIn and Indeed. Whole weeks were wasted in online application forms. Because having spent countless hours toiling over the minutiae of my CV, of course I want to recreate it from scratch in a different format. Over and over. Who doesn't?

None of that was good for my health, mental or otherwise. Every job application, regardless of the process, takes a lot of energy: you need to project yourself into each role in order to articulate to employers why you want it, and why they should interview you. During those first weeks of unemployment, motivation was particularly hard; still seething over the recent past and what I'd lost, I struggled to picture myself working anywhere else.

With my wife's help, I added more structure to my days, with a strict limit on the amount of time spent on job hunting and applications. I needed something to rescue my mind from the mental slurry of vacancy listings, housework and the school run (and the other thing). Something productive and - ideally - creative. 

After a bit of soul searching and a lot of mileage on foot, I had several blog ideas, of which this is the first to come to fruition. And I've committed to finishing the novel I set aside before starting work at Carnival UK. Which is a bit scary, because I know from experience that it'll take everything I have, plus a bit more. The merest hint of half-heartedness from the author will show up instantly on the page.

So I've upgraded from Rudderless Daddy to Daddy With Purpose. Which is peachy and all. But barring a miracle, it isn't going to make me any money. And my biggest barrier to finding gainful employment - besides the countless others in similar situations - is confidence. I'm comfortable enough working on my own projects, to my own briefs and deadlines. But I'm terrified of joining a new team again, of having a group of strangers relying on me. I find myself hovering over the Apply button, dithering over my CV, missing opportunities. Which sends me into a spiral of self-loathing, wasting precious time and energy. So boring.

But there is cause for celebration: the response to this blog has been overwhelmingly positive. Thanks to all who have commented or messaged; please keep them coming. The common thread seems to be 'you are not alone', which is heartening and dispiriting at the same time. 

Writing this down is helping me get back to where I ought to be. I hope it's doing something for you.

A mental health journal: day 9

There are days when I find parenting deeply tiresome.

There, I said it. I'm a terrible person. I love my daughter to the moon and back, and we have a lot of fun together. But I can only spend so many hours wearing a cat-shaped hand puppet, or trudging around the park while she does 150 laps of the slide. After four and a half years, does it really still need to be all about her? When do I get my life back? What is 'my life' anyway?

The pandemic has knocked every aspect of life out of alignment. Lockdown wasn't easy for anyone, but balancing work, childcare and homeschooling amid deepening health and economic worries made it a particularly rough time for parents of young children. Because I was furloughed and then unemployed, it was easier for us than some. But months of non-stop Daddying does seem to have turned me into a self-centred arse who views playtime with his daughter as a chore, rather than the simple joy it should be.

The real culprit here is the numbing sameness of our existence, for which my feverish mind is partly to blame (though I am a self-centred arse). Our world contracted to the four walls of our house like everyone else's during lockdown - and hasn't expanded much since it ended. Our daughter returned to nursery in July and is now at school, but we're still working - and mostly playing - at home. 

Aside from the weekly supermarket run, I haven't been in a shop since February. I have been inside one pub and one café, both in the height of summer - and that's it. Aside from a visit to the dentist I haven't seen the centre of Winchester for nearly eight months. We did manage a family escape to the Lake District in August, which is probably the only reason we are still sane(ish). Self catering and sticking to outdoor activities kept me from freaking out, back in the heady days of summer when case rates were low.

I envy people who go in shops and bars and restaurants, who go to swimming pools and museums, who get on planes. Retail, leisure and hospitality businesses have adapted brilliantly to our new world, under hugely challenging conditions. I wish I could do more to support them, but our household is in survival mode and my brain will not allow me a moment's respite.

So that's a bundle of fun. If there was a party, I'd be the heart and soul of it.

My dread ball is quite large today. A day or two away from the news will help. If my offspring would stop leaking snot by the pint, that'd be dandy too. I'm thinking of adding 'unbroken night's sleep for the whole family' to my bucket list.

But it's not all doom and gloom. Bake Off has resulted in a heightened level of chocolate cake. Half term will bring a welcome change to the grind, which in turn will probably force me to MTFU and leave the house.

And there's the new book. That, I think, has potential if I can write words good. Back to it...

A mental health journal: day 5

Five years ago a motorcyclist popped a wheelie in a 20mph zone on a public road. He lost control and mowed down two pedestrians. They were my newly pregnant wife and a friend. Both suffered serious injuries - life-changing in the case of our friend - and for a while, we feared for the health of the baby. I was surprised that the police incident form - which we had a copy of - included the address of the motorcyclist. That seemed unwise. 

So I've had some practice in coping with anger. And in 2020, there's a lot of it about. Frustrating and depressing as my own situation is, it's a lottery win compared to many. Gatwick Airport, for instance, is running at 20% of its normal capacity, with little chance of recovery this side of spring. That has caused thousands of job losses in nearby Crawley, with many more to come - effectively turning it into a ghost town. It's a similar story across a travel and hospitality industry devastated by the pandemic and the clusterfuckery of our government's response to it. Millions are suffering, and like most I feel powerless to do anything about it other than use my grain of common sense and follow the (often contradictory) rules as best I can.

Yet an outrageous number of people seem to be carrying on as if nothing has changed. They're hosting weddings and parties, sending their teenage children to school with Covid symptoms, getting on trains while awaiting test results, proudly declaring their independence by strutting around Tesco without a mask on. A tsunami of arrogance and negligence and utter, utter idiocy - some of it perpetrated by people who are supposed to be setting an example. 

All of that makes me angry.

Despite the practice, I'm not very good with anger. It seethes and burns and eats away at me, sometimes erupting at undeserving targets. My wife, my daughter, the occasional inanimate object. The exercise helps, but the closest thing to a coping mechanism seems to be work. Which for me is writing. Blogs, fiction, almost any sort of content (did I mention I'm available...)

It's Friday, but doesn't feel like it. I'm tired. Everybody, I think, is tired. It seems impossible to feel grateful for what you have without accompanying guilt for those worse off.

There are things to look forward to. Holding my little girl tight. Drinking wine with my wife. Watching something silly on TV.

Today's post has turned into a bit of a rant, for which I apologise. Getting it out has marginally improved my day. I hope it hasn't made yours worse. I hope that you're finding things to look forward to.

A mental health journal: day 3

Managing anxiety, for me at least, is all about momentum. Keep moving, keep ticking things off the list, try not to let anything stop you in your tracks. The tricky bit is that although most people who suffer acute anxiety have a good idea of what might trigger it, it can still sneak up on you unawares.

For instance: I was an obsessive hand washer long before it became fashionable, and so keeping a small person clean - but not so clean that they never develop any immunity - is a bit of a battle for me. A couple of weeks ago, when my wife was doing the school run, I waved them off and watched them walk down our road. It was rubbish collection day, and wheelie bins stood at even intervals along the pavement. From a distance it looked as if my daughter brushed against a bin on her way past. I couldn't be certain, there was nothing I could do about it, and in all likelihood no harm had been done - but my mind would not let it go. Stopped in my mental tracks, I lost most of the morning fretting about it.

For the last two Wednesdays, I've walked with them to the end of the road. That circumvents the problem rather than solving it. But it gets me through the day. Baby steps.

Five years ago, during the darkest days, generating and maintaining momentum was nigh on impossible. There were times when choosing breakfast cereal sent me into a flat spin - depression feeding anxiety, and vice versa. During those times, exercise saved my life. 

I've always tried to stay fit, with varying degrees of motivation, but in recent years it's become my primary weapon in the fight against depression.

Most of the time it's as simple as going outside and putting one foot in front of the other. I use a Garmin GPS watch to track steps and distance, with a daily step goal of 12,000. That's about 10-12km every day. It's enough to push me (different for everyone of course) and force me outdoors whatever the weather. 

It can be hard to fit in - I've found myself running in 35 degree heat, splashing through puddles in the dark, or trudging around our living room at 11pm in order to reach the magic number - but it works. Endorphins are released, demons kept at bay. Being me, I'm slightly obsessive about it, but I won't lose my shit if I don't make the goal. (I've taught myself not to)

My ball of dread is quite small today. The sun is shining and I'm looking forward to a run later. The job hunt is in hand - I'm waiting on a couple of applications - and the novel is next on the list. I'll be lucky if more than a few hundred people ever read it, but that's not the point. It will be completed, it will be the best I can make it, and those few hundred people will be entertained.

And I will keep moving.

A mental health journal: day 1

This is my attempt to document a life - rises and falls, light and darkness, and everything in between. On Mental Health Day 2020, I realised that it was time to face the fact that I'm not coping very well, and to do something about it. Hence this journal, a weekly(ish) stream of consciousness. Writing as therapy.

I have struggled with anxiety and depression since my teens, although it was 2015 before I realised that life didn't have to be - shouldn't be - varying degrees of pain. If I thought about it at all, I probably assumed that everybody was like this. More likely, I simply drifted along, trapped inside my bubble as the world passed me by.

Eventually I hit rock bottom and the bubble burst. I recognised - with a little help from my friends - that I needed help. I got it, fought through some tough times, and emerged feeling like a real person for the first time in my life. Also, I became a father. The two happy events are, I suspect, not unconnected.

In 2020 I'm hanging on to my mid-forties for dear life. I'm husband to a wife who should really have superhero status. And father to an exquisite little girl who is at once the light of my life and the source of my darkest terrors.

I haven't had a good year. Nobody has. Mine started to unravel when I became ill - with Covid symptoms, though it may have been 'flu - in late February. By Easter I had still not fully recovered, having lost five kilograms in weight. As the pandemic and resultant economic meltdown worsened, I was furloughed. On 30 June, I was made redundant. A dream job in a dream team, which I'd worked so hard to make my own, cruelly snatched away. I put on my bravest face, as we all do, while oscillating between black despair and seething rage at the injustice of it. Inevitably, my already fragile mental health began to spiral. 

And so here we are. Monday 12 October. The continuing search for a purpose beyond job boards, the school run and keeping the house tidy.

I wake every day with a ball of dread in the pit of my stomach - a fear that I won't be able to cope with whatever the day throws at me. It varies in intensity from day to day; about medium today which is pretty good for a Monday. 

My daughter started Big School last month. These are the most demanding weeks of her short life to date, and the strain is starting to show: mood swings and tantrums, dark shadows under her eyes. She seems to be loving it, which is wonderful, but I worry about her. I always, always worry. 

I remember reading somewhere that until you become a parent, it's impossible to appreciate the depth and totality of the love, and its flipside: the unfathomable terror of something going wrong. I have, so far, found it impossible to strike a balance between my desire to protect her from everything and her need to live life to the full. For me, that has meant four and a half years (and counting) of relentless piano-wire tension. I've managed to dial it back to a manageable level when she's not with me, but any sort of adventure for her is a waking nightmare for me. It's debilitating and exhausting, and drains energy which I really could use for other things. Like working, or some sort of self-improvement, or anything more than simply surviving.

I got another rejection today. There have been a few of those in recent months. I feel oddly calm on the job hunt front, after a rough few days. I missed out on an opportunity last week because my confidence is shattered and I'm terrified of letting people down. It's tough looking for a new job when you already had the job you wanted.

And that, for now, is all she wrote. Without the need for backstory, future posts will be shorter. I have a couple of hours before reverting to Daddy mode, which I plan to spend working on my novel. It's long overdue and I beat myself up about it, while admonishing myself for beating myself up.

If you've read this far, a gold star for you. Have a good week. I'll try and scowl a little less. 

(Lock)down, but not out

Tuesday 25 February 2020. 9.20am. I remember a bright, chilly morning, the first hint of spring in the air. Southampton's insistent breeze dappling the green of leaves and shrubs, sunshine picking out the white detailing on the houses of Atherley Road.

I remember walking quickly as I usually do, my watch tracking my pace. It was 2.4 kilometres from my parking spot on Norfolk Road to Carnival House. On a good day it took 23 minutes, 3000 or so steps, 170 calories. Everything measured and recorded. I loved the metrics, the daily routine: found myself calmed and centred by the time I arrived at work.

There was a ripple in the routine that day, though: a rawness in my chest, a sense of struggling, a little, to draw breath. I remember thinking, with a flash of annoyance, that I was coming down with a cold. Nothing major, just another skirmish in the seasonal battle to stay healthy.

That was the last normal day.

Monday 16 March, 9am. I didn't park in Norfolk Road that day. I parked across the street from the office, paid the exorbitant fee, walked the hundred metres or so to the main entrance. Reached the first floor with the breath rattling in my chest, my hands shaking as if I'd run a marathon rather than (foolishly) climbed a flight of stairs.

It was 19 days since I had last seen my desk, and they had not passed pleasantly. Nobody wants to read about it any more than I want to write (or think) about it. But the gist is this: my 'cold' turned into something nasty with some - though not all - of the hallmarks of you-know-what. By 16 March I was barely functioning, just beginning to rejoin the world as it started to fall apart.

Carnival House in Southampton is home to P&O Cruises and Cunard, two of Britain's oldest and best-loved cruise lines. For the past nine months, I had been applying my meagre skills to the Herculean task of turning Cunard's attractive but disjointed website into something befitting one of the world's most famous luxury brands. Our small but well-formed digital team was part of a high performing, 60-strong sales and marketing division. They are some of the most talented and dedicated people I have ever worked with, and I was privileged to be among them.

The work was challenging and exciting, the travel industry - new to me - endlessly fascinating. The environment was creative and supportive and flexible. For the first time in years, I felt valued. I belonged. And the coffee was free.

Over the weekend of 14-15 March, after battling on for two months in the face of a deepening global health crisis, the Powers That Be made the difficult - and unavoidable - decision to call a halt. Despite stringent - and successful - pre-departure screening and on board hygiene procedures, ports across the world were beginning to close; cruise itineraries had been altered and re-altered, but we could only go so far. The ships remained Covid free, but we were approaching the point at which we could no longer guarantee the safety of our guests and crew. There was no option but to pause operations. Every forthcoming cruise would be cancelled and our ships - scattered across the globe from St Kitts to Sydney - would be turned around.

I remember the entire Cunard team being called together to relay the news, remember standing with knees knocking, battling to take it in as my body threatened to dump me into an embarrassing heap on the floor. Shocked at my frailty, I left the office a couple of hours early. It was to be my last day there: later that evening we were asked to work from home the following day if possible. By midweek that had been upgraded to 'do not visit the office unless there is a critical need to do so'.

Two days after that - on Friday 20 March - the UK entered lockdown. Along with many businesses, schools and childcare settings would be shut indefinitely. Our daughter was a month short of her fourth birthday and due to start Big School later this year; since the age of eleven months, she'd attended a local nursery whose wonderful staff and facilities had played a huge role in her life. Suddenly we faced the real possibility that she would not return, that this era would end prematurely. The finality of it proved too much for my normally pragmatic wife; at collection time that awful Friday, she burst into tears and took half the room with her.

During the following days, the company's focus turned to repatriating thousands of guests and crew, cancelling tens of thousands of bookings and dealing with the fallout, and bringing the ships home. And like millions of others, we adapted to working remotely, living on Zoom as our world contracted to the four walls of our home, as the roads emptied and the skies above fell silent. We coped, somehow, with the challenges of two full time jobs and full time childcare. To their great credit, our employers were understanding and flexible, adapting their ways of working to our needs.

And still I battled to recover. Four weeks since I had first fallen ill, I was still coughing, still sleeping in fits and starts. I had lost five kilograms in weight and although my appetite was slowly returning, I still struggled to concentrate for more than a few minutes and felt exhausted after a short walk. Embarrassed at my continued weakness after so much time off work, I did my best to hide it from my colleagues. But my performance, I knew, was suffering.

The media did their usual worst as the pandemic approached its peak, twisting the knife and deepening the fear and anxiety. But we had made a conscious decision to withdraw, to focus on our bubble. We settled into a routine of sorts, our daughter happy, for now, to be at home with us. By the second week of April - Easter week - I felt almost well: focused and productive at work, taking the first steps towards my usual fitness regime. After seven brutal weeks, our tide was slowly beginning to turn.

And then everything changed again.

On Wednesday 8 April we learned that Carnival UK was to take advantage of the government's furlough scheme; within the hour, I was informed that I would be among the 300 or so furloughed staff. I accepted with mixed feelings; happy to do whatever was necessary to help the business, a little relieved at the reduction in the household's overall workload... but mostly, bitterly disappointed. It had been a hard road back to full health and productivity. I wanted to make up for lost time, support my beloved team through the challenges that lay ahead. And I felt a simmering unease at the prospect of being out of the loop in such turbulent times.

Stop being ungrateful, I told myself. Benched on full pay (the company topping up the government allowance) with a garden and easy access to green space... there were many in far worse situations. And so we adapted again. While my wife toiled at her laptop, my daughter and I found endless new ways of entertaining each other. We were joined by an ever-evolving cast of fluffy toys and imaginary characters; as the days lengthened and the weather warmed, we ventured a little further afield for our alotted hour of exercise.

Despite the best of intentions, my contact with my work colleagues diminished as we faced a very different set of challenges each day. Very quickly, my ten months at Carnival began to feel like another lifetime, a golden era. As the days and weeks of lockdown ran together like spilled paint, I reverted to my default role of Daddy - but without the safety net of nursery and childminder.

I'm blessed with a wonderful little girl, a person of keen wit and impish humour, of kindness and strength and beauty, of occasionally terrifying athleticism. I could burst with pride, and I love her more than mere words can encompass. But she is demanding of time, energy and patience as only a four year old can be. For hours at a time, days at a time, it was just the two of us: the responsibility lay heavy, the mental and physical strain relentless.

There were tears and tantrums and moments of pure, teeth-grinding frustration. But they were balanced by laughter and sunshine and simple fun. Although the world had ground to a halt, some wheels continued to turn: September and school drew steadily closer. We were hugely relieved when our daughter landed a place at the local primary, where she would join most of her closest nursery friends. Her fourth birthday passed without the raucous party it deserved, but there were balloons and banners, a Shawn the Sheep cake, and a new trampoline.

The cake (baking and decorating of) and trampoline (purchase and assembly of) were the work of my long-suffering wife, who learned to switch seamlessly from work to Mummy mode at the end of an exhausting day and somehow found the energy to lift the mood of the household. I got us through the week, but it was she who provided the highlights: a first tentative walk in nearby woods after weeks of housebound isolation, socially distanced visits to the gardens of friends and relatives, an unexpectedly wonderful afternoon on a deserted Bournemouth beach.

We needed those moments of wonder, those happy memories, because the reality outside our bubble grew bleaker by the day. It had become clear that the economy, and the travel industry in particular, faced its deepest crisis for a generation. Not even a company as profitable as Carnival would escape unscathed. The news was shocking when it came, but not surprising: we would be entering a period of consultation, starting in early May and ending on 30 June, when a large number of staff would be made redundant.

Now our daily games and rituals took on a new role: of diversion for me as well as my daughter. The minutes dragged; at quieter moments I fancied I could hear the clock ticking in my head. Having tentatively restarted my running regime in mid April, by mid June I was pushing my body as hard as I could, finding release in exhaustion from the piano-wire tension of waiting for news.

Again, it was a sledgehammer blow when it came. And again, there were no surprises. For a variety of reasons beyond my control I had fully expected to face the axe. But the reality was almost impossible to bear: my last working day had passed without my knowledge. I would not enter Carnival House as an employee again. I would never again contribute to the Cunard website which I so loved, warts and all. I would be cast out of the dream team. I have never in my life felt so crushed.

I bore no ill will toward my employers. From the top down, they had been transparent and honest and supportive and honourable. Ultimately, they had been devastated at the measures they had been forced to take, to ensure the company's survival. I had heard from all sides, over and over, that we were victims of circumstance, nothing more. But the tendrils of self-doubt are insidious: had I somehow ensured my own downfall? Was there more that I could have done?

The fact that more than 400 of my colleagues and friends were going through the same agony was of little consolation.

That was a month ago, and the pain has dulled. I've dragged myself back onto the merry-go-round of job-hunting, kept up my running, tried to be nice Daddy instead of distracted, grumpy Daddy. Tried, also, to put my energies into appreciating what I have, rather than mourning what I've lost. I have a life, a wonderful, supportive family. I can feel the sun on my face. And there's always wine.

My daughter's nursery was able to reopen. It isn't quite the way it was - nothing is - but she's back amongst her friends, watched over by the staff whose superhuman qualities I now appreciate more than ever. She's in safe hands during these last crucial weeks before the most seismic shift of her life.

My former team haven't faded into the woodwork and nor have I: we've stayed in regular contact and a picnic is planned for the coming weeks. And I've revised my earlier mindset: being part of the Cunard family was my dream job. I'm not letting it go forever. So:
I might have worked my last day.
I might not enter Carnival House as an employee again.
I might not get another chance to contribute to the Cunard website.

But there will be an end to this. And when it comes, I look forward to the Cunard and P&O ships - my ships - lifting anchor and moving away from their various mooring points along the south coast. I look forward to seeing them in port, welcoming guests and sailing the world again. And if there's the merest hint of a glimmer of a chance, I'll do everything I can to return to Carnival House.

Because it's where I belong. And the coffee is free.