Steve & Soli Lazarus On The Emotional Roller Coaster Of Life & Times During London Lockdown. Walking. Crying. Missing. Being. Change. Time. ADHD. Creativity. Stoicism.

Your London Legacy

In these bizarre and unsettling times, many of the things we took for granted have been severely curtailed—and in some cases restricted all together. As you know, I have always loved the fact that I get to meet all the guests on the podcast in person, be it at their place of work, their home, or at a location that is specific to them; on the diving platform at Highgate Mens Bathing Pond, on the lifeboat with the crew at RNLI Chiswick, over a cappuccino in Little Italy Soho, or at the top of The Monument in The City of London. But lockdown in London has stopped all that, at least for the time being, and so I am having to reflect and rethink. With over 80 episodes in the bag we have a decent back catalogue, and so we’ve been re releasing some of the older popular episodes for new listeners to find and enjoy, and older fans of the show to revisit. I may start to record new episodes over the internet but it is nothing like meeting the guest in person. Face to face. Eye to eye. Sharing a chat and a joke and building that all-important rapport. It was not what I envisaged nor what I want to do, so we will see how this pans out. With any luck the lock down will end soon and I can get back to doing what I love most, and what I know brings you the best possible experience, meeting the wonderful London personalities that make up our incredible capital city. This week, however, I thought I would take advantage of the lockdown in London, and chat once more to Soli Lazarus…my wife. In this episode recorded at home, we chat over the ups and downs, successes and failures that make up the emotional roller coaster of lockdown in one of the greatest cities on earth. It’s quite personal in many respects, but I hope it gives you a flavour of how we have been coping and managing our days. I hope you get something out of it and would love to hear how you have been getting on too. This is Your London Legacy. “I just think, how on earth can we think this is lovely—I mean there’s been nearly 31000 people who have died…It’s all so bizarre.” 7:30 Soli and I, gratefully, have taken the time allotted to us to spend more time with our son and go on long walks through the woods. We recognize that we are in a fortunate position where we haven’t lost anyone in our immediate family to the virus, and so there is a strange split feeling about having time to spend with one another. This too doesn’t come without its own difficulties at home—being locked in close proximity to anyone can cause issues, but we’ve managed to work through them and take the time to discover new things about ourselves, our surroundings, and how to better grow moving forward. 13:20 Our daily walks have provided wonderful insights and peace in our life—and this walk has taken on new light thanks to reading https://www.amazon.co.uk/Looking-Eleven-Walks-Expert-Eyes/dp/1439191255 (“On Looking” by Alexandra Horowitz) which has pushed us to view our walk and surroundings form different perspectives; that of the trees themselves, ants, and each other—we even went on and did the whole trek in silence to better listen to the nature and city buzzing all around. 20:35 Soli and I both have been working from home and have been incredibly busy. Soli works with parents of children who have ADHD—and this time has proved to put her services in high demand. She’s stayed positive though and found ways to encourage parents to help their children learn and grow outside of the overwhelming demands the school system has tried to place on the students and their families. Soli has even devised a form for parents to use and highlight how their children have best been learning during lockdown, in hopes that upon returning to classes that their teachers can correct and help them better learn in school. 45:00 In the trend of focusing on the positive—Soli has won her first contract for a traditionally published children’s book she has written, due out in 2021. The book is aimed at children 7-9 yrs