The idiom ‘count your blessings’ seems to have been foremost in many a person’s minds over the past few weeks. Indeed, during the lockdown, there has been increased media focus on mental wellbeing and I, like many others, have become more aware of what my ‘blessings’ are. Taking time out to reflect on this I mentally made a top 10 list. Perhaps unsurprisingly the items appearing on the list changed every week if not daily. However, number one was always, I’m alive and I’m healthy. Number two: my family and friends are alive and healthy. I have to admit, after the first two items, my lists then varied from deep to very shallow.

During the early days of lockdown, having a garden got in at number three because it was somewhere to sit and get fresh air whereas another week it was having razor to control my husband’s beard. Other blessings that have appeared in all of my lists have included working at Bushey Meads School, the privilege of playing a part in the development of our incredible students, as well as its sense of community. Idioms such as ‘count your blessings’ are in themselves are interesting as individually the words that makeup that phrase mean nothing and yet, together these words can provide great insight into our thought processes.

The creativity of some idioms along with their figurative meaning can make them difficult to understand and challenging to apply appropriately. Personally, I found that while ‘counting of my blessings’ does allow me to recognise the good in my life it is the appreciation of these things that actually makes the difference to how I feel. Having counted working at Bushey Meads School as a ‘blessing’ I felt happy at the announcement schools would reopen fully in September and am sure that many of our students and parents will appreciate this too.