RECENTLY I have been writing a series of ‘day in the life’ features to try and shine a light on the work that people in various industries are doing during this pandemic.

Today, I thought I would share mine! Today is a Sunday, I am writing this for Monday’s paper, we always write a day in advance, meaning I am never quite sure of the day of the week.

On the weekends we don’t have our normal morning video conference so, to a degree, I am able to set my own timetable.

The day begins by checking for any breaking news or events in the diary - since coronavirus happened there are never any events in the diary - but I knew there had been a big fire the day before so got ready to go and try and interview the poor owners.

Before I left I scheduled all our social media posts, told the group work chat where I was going in case anything happened and hit the road!

When I got there I was surprised by the amount of people already at the Farm Shop, I have never been to the aftermath of a fire before, so I was nervous, excited and felt very much like an unwelcome guest! I tracked down the owner of the shop and we had a very emotional interview. He was devastated.

I did my best to remind him of all the support he had received from the community. He showed me round and I took some pictures and videos then we said our goodbyes. He was very kind and polite considering he believes he may have lost his home and business overnight. I made a mental note to check back in with him next week.

I get back in and sit down ready for a phone interview with a gentleman who is raising money for care workers.

He is lovely, we chat for far too long about coronavirus and the NHS and family and life and death. I enjoy it immensely.

The clock is ticking now though, so I write up the awful fire story, see on twitter that someone has been caught speeding, so I write that up as well. Then get to work on a story about two councillors in a disagreement and the death of a former mayor.

It gets to 3pm and the daily coronavirus figures come in. I reluctantly open the email and pray that there are no new deaths reported in the county. It worked! Zero today.

I happily write up the news and then realise I have a Fair point in tomorrow’s edition! And..well you know the rest!