George Fisher's Netball diary: Lockdown, life lessons and pods

George Fisher is back with a new Sky Sports netball diary, where she discusses tackling lockdown, life lessons and returning to training with the Vitality Roses.

My last blog was on April 1, a couple of weeks into lockdown. It was all new and quite uncertain territory... I'm not a lover of change so was feeling quite concerned about the whole situation. So, four months later, here's how I've got on…

I'd moved back home one week before my last blog; six very large adults, all quite opinionated (no surprise there), two dogs and one cat in one average sized house! It's been quite a journey, loud most of the time with lots of fun and laughing, but also a few disagreements along the way!

A lot of the disagreements have been my brother and I not sharing the same views on anything - from which sport is better, netball or basketball, to who ate the last bit of bread. Or it was my neat freak Dad moaning that we hadn't tided up very well; not to his standards anyway! Overall though, we have all got on pretty well.

Our Friday cookouts on the fire pit in the garden have become a bit of a thing now and we've even been known to sit outside cooking and eating in the rain. My Mum's been a bit stressed over feeding us all, partly because she is a total feeder and also because there's one vegan, one pescatarian and four meat eaters to cater for!

No one's gone hungry though, and my Dad, brother and Emil all take turns cooking on Friday's... as you can imagine in the Fisher household, that's become quite competitive!

I've actually really been enjoying cooking for the family and can now do a mean prawn linguine, tuna green Thai curry or veggie stir fry. Bet you can't guess who the pescatarian is?

I've kept up with my training schedule. We were training over Zoom and I was pretty self-disciplined with my exercise programme. I found that it really helped me to keep structure and routine in my life during lockdown.

Also, I started to run which is something that I've never been into before... and I think I actually enjoyed it! I'm probably the leanest I've been in a while and my mum says that I've gifted my weight to her, as she's suffered from the lockdown lard! Sharing's caring!

My dogs are also the thinnest they've been as they've been on walks at least once, if not twice a day! Some might say my dog needed to lose a bit of excess weight anyway, so that's all good. I guess, I've inherited the feeder thing from my mum!

It was weird being with the same five people for so long and only seeing others through a screen. As lockdown started to ease up a bit, and you could meet up with people outdoors, it really made me appreciate the simple things in life like friends, picnics and Halo Top ice cream.

In mid-July we were able to start England Netball fitness training at Bisham in small pods. We didn't share equipment and you didn't shower until you got back home... needless to say I was glad that I was in the car on my own on the way back!

The first session was a bit strange, with lots of rules and regulations to keep us safe, but it didn't take us long to get back into it. It was amazing being able to meet up with the girls, even if it was from a distance, and awesome to actually interact with people in real time outside of the family.

At the beginning of August, we went back into camp four days a week. It's so different to the old set-up.

Again we're in small pods, there's no sharing equipment, separate rooms, temperature taking etc. We had a Changing Minds session and somehow my family WhatsApp became the talk of the session... anyone would think we were a little different to the norm, but that's totally a story for another time! It's been a strange start to my fifth year in the Roses full-time programme but I am so grateful to be back and I'm totally loving it.

Flipping back to the beginning of July, I had awesome news in that I got a 2:1 honours degree in Sports Studies from the University of Hertfordshire. I was so pleased with this achievement as my final year had been hard to manage with being in the full-time programme and international tours etc.

With the help of some awesome lectures, a special shout out to Jarrod Lippiatt, I got through it over the past three years and can actually say I have a degree. That's something I didn't really think would ever be possible as I am severely dyslexic. A massive thank you to everyone who helped and supported me along the way.

There are good things about finishing uni, like no more studying, but there are also some not so good things like having to deep clean your uni house and bathroom after two years of living there! Luckily for me, my mum came to help armed with her gloves, mop and bucket and enough bleach to make even my bathroom and toilet white again!! Thanks Mumma.

So what did I learn in lockdown? I can cook from scratch. I actually have a degree. You can't pick your family but overall I feel I'm pretty lucky with mine.

I really appreciate my friends and my netball family. I'm really lucky that our family has not been directly affected by COVID-19 and I send my condolences to every family that has been impcated. I'm very grateful to all of the people out there who have just carried on doing their thing, to keep everything going for all of us.

Well, that's about all from me for now. It's strange, if you'd have asked me what I've been doing in lockdown, I would have probably have said not a lot. But, after writing this I think I've kept myself pretty occupied.

Until the next time, take care and hopefully we will all be able to get back out on court in the not too distant future. #RiseAgain.