With the Pandemic of the Covid-19, in the last couple of weeks a lot of people have started working from home or, as they say in french, they do “le télé-travail”. Now it is obligatory to stay at home in many countries. A lot of people can not do their work at home, so their income may depend on how their employer or their government is reacting during this complicated time. In any case, it is a good thing to stay at home to avoid spreading the virus.

I am lucky, specially as I am a freelancer, because for the moment I can continue with my work. I also did some hours as extra baker in a café in Cologne, but I will not be able to continue because with less clients there is less need of extra help, and now the café is closed for a while anyway. I will miss it, it was my pause from working at home or working in Geneva and also my little window to learning some German.

Working from home for me is the normal everyday thing. The biggest change is that I will not be able to go the herbarium in Geneva for a while. I suppose that we will find a solution like high resolution scans of some of the species.

With me staying more than usual at home I am happy that my routine is getting better. I am waking up earlier, doing some yoga or sport, working on my botanical illustration and also doing some other fun and quick illustrations. I started a WhatsApp group with my family and proposed a creative challenge for 14 days. They have participated almost every day with photos, videos or drawings. It is cool and even if they do not participate they comment and we stay in touch.

Of course I have a lot of time because I do not have kids. If I had I would probably be home-schooling them and taking care of them. My nephews (10 and 11 years) are continuing to learn things thanks to the homework that the teachers are sending and their parents who are helping them. I have friends that have small children and have to find ways to organize themselves so they can take care of them while working from home. So kudos and good luck to all of those parents and people who have children! I have Toulouse, my cat, he sleeps besides me or sits sometimes on my drawings 🙂

So, here are some examples of botanic work and some of the drawing that I made for the creative challenge from this week. And I hope that your quarantine is not to hard.