Self-isolation week 1: a little too late.

It's day five of my self-isolation and I think I'm finally getting onboard with what life is going to be like over the next few months. But boy has this been a long week, and boy will it be a long few months.

A week ago today, my mother called me from Milan, Italy. She told me we were running out of time if I wanted to go home because flights were being cancelled left and right. While Italy's borders have been closed for weeks now, there were still routes home through various European cities.

From my bedroom in London, where the skies were blue and the streets were still full of laughter and no sign of the virus: it was hard for me to imagine what the scene was like were my family were. But I knew it was bad. So it was time for me to face reality.

For me, that day was the beginning of the virus's personal impact on me. Between February 22nd and March 16th, friends and family across Italy had been sending me all the updates.

Visits that we'd programmed had been cancelled, and parties they'd marked into their calendars had been postponed... but nothing had been as drastic as this. The thought of being blocked out of my own country really scared me.

March 16th was a long day. Discussions with my flatmates and my friends, phone calls to several family members, emails to our landlord... it was only when I decided to take a trip to the supermarket that I realised how serious it was getting. Let alone pasta or toilet roll... I couldn't find soya sauce, or chickpeas, or rice, or even bloody porridge!

The pandemic fear had hit London. It was time to get out of there.

The next morning, I booked my flights for Milan. They cost the world, and I was going to have to go through both Frankfurt and Munich. But if it meant seeing my family before the lockdown - we didn't care.

I spent that day savouring London. I walked to Regent's Park, and up my favourite spot in London - Primrose Hill. London had never looked so beautiful, the skyline was impeccable.

My flatmate left that evening. Saying goodbye to her felt like saying bye to your child as they leave for boarding school, or University. You get that feeling of empty-nest syndrome.

The next few days I spent inside, only leaving to run around the neighbourhood. I packed and cooked and listened to bad Indie music with my boyfriend and friends. It felt like what was happening was something from a movie really. Like we were about to enter an apocalypse. And we were just waiting for it to happen. The calm before the storm.

But at 7am on Thursday, 19th of March, I got a phone call from my mother. Germany's borders were closing. Home was no longer an option.

I had to resort to my plan B. And that included making one of the most difficult decisions of my life: stay in London, or move to Edinburgh and live with my aunt and uncle. Of course my mother rather I lived with "real" adults - and it helped that my aunt was also a trained NHS nurse.

So I re-packed. I ate breakfast. I said my goodbyes. And at 1.30pm I was on a train leaving King's Cross and heading straight for Edinburgh Waverley.

Now I find myself in my aunt and uncle's kitchen. It's been days since I've been outside properly, only going out to run and to take walks by the beach in complete isolation. News emerged yesterday that Italians can't even do that anymore. And while I strongly agree that going out unnecessarily is the best way to fight this pandemic: I know that fresh air is the only way I'm going to get through this mentally. And I'm sure this is true for millions across the world.

What happens when they stop us from doing that? What happens when people, who don't even have gardens - can't see daylight for weeks on end? They say it's temporary, but how long is temporary?

It's a scary time.