Lockdown was the longest time Timothy has had away from his parents.
He stays at the Hearth Trust home full-time, but his parents often visit and he goes home regularly on the weekends.
Timothy loves spending a lot of time outside and being in big open spaces. He was able to do this during Lockdown, particularly due to a long fine spell of weather. There are always many outside jobs to be done like gardening, feeding the sheep and landscaping.
During Lockdown he took walks in the native bush track with housemate Corey, spent time weeding the gardens, building a compost and creating a new garden bed. Timothy is often found behind the wheelbarrow moving mulch and other loads.
A difference for Timothy was that he couldn’t spend time with his dad working on the property. Dad Noel often comes over to tend to outside jobs at the property. The pair also usually go on long bike rides in the weekends.
Timothy and his housemate Corey developed a closer bond during that time, enjoying many shared activities together.
There’s a large workshop on the property and during Lockdown that’s where Timothy enjoyed doing pastel art. With a support worker to steady his hand, he would spread a range of colours over large pieces of paper to make beautiful designs, and he was prolific.
He now has a collection of dozens of pieces of colourful art. “We were lucky we had a good supply of pastels before Lockdown,” says support worker Jen.
Timothy Zoomed with his family a lot to keep contact and also with housemate Andy who had gone home to his parents for the first three weeks of Lockdown.
Timothy’s sister Skye was part of the Hearth Trust bubble during Lockdown, and retaught him to knit again, a skill he had learned as a child. Knitting became quite a focus in the house with support workers and volunteers knitting several woolly slippers by the end of Level 4.
Live music is part of life at the home. There’s a piano, guitars and other instruments people play in the lounge and being part of the action is a favourite activity for Timothy.
Timothy loves listening to his music too and knows the lyrics to many songs by heart. He loves Simon and Garfunkel, Enya, ABBA, and John Denver among many others in his CD collection. During Lockdown he listened to his music while having ‘sleep-ins’.
He also enjoys playing games and doing puzzles and spent time doing these during Lockdown. Jenga was his favourite.
Timothy took part in the new evening activities of the house – Storytime, Mr Bean night and Dance night. And he shone as the Mad Hatter when dressed up for the Alice in Wonderland party that the large Hearth Trust community organised.
As the founding housemate, Timothy was the first to come to live at the Trust home. He has a special chair in the corner of the lounge by the bay window. When he’s not keeping active outside he likes to sit at the chair and enjoy the view of the open green space and finds pleasure in seeing all that is happening around his home. This was something Timothy could continue doing during Lockdown. – 17 September 2020
- This article appeared in Life in a Pandemic, a book about disabled and autistic people in Covid-19 Lockdown, 2020. © Life Unlimited Charitable Trust (now known as Your Way | Kia Roha).
