For several weeks, I have more or less ceded my desk and the ‘good’ laptop (although that’s stretching the term good somewhat: it’s the one with Word and Excel on it) to my eldest for schoolwork. I have been contributing further to the sagginess of the sofa, with an old computer on my lap, running Elementary OS and Libre Office.

While both Elementary and Libre Office are perfectly serviceable and in some regards better than their Microsoft counterparts, the conversion process isn’t always seamless and in delivering useable documents to my client, I’ve had to apologise for strange bullet points or indents that I just can’t seem to do anything about.

I finally decided yesterday – with slightly aching back – that the sofa was not indefinitely sustainable as a workplace and Mrs Garytone and I spent a while rearranging a large TV and a pile of gaming machines so I could reclaim my desk, albeit that means I now work in the same room as my eldest does his schoolwork.

I have not shared an office since leaving Essex Music Services in August 2012. Both my son and I have a habit of talking to ourselves while working (to make matters worse, he is currently composing and various beeps and synthesised violin sounds are emanating from the other corner of the room).

Mrs Garytone and our youngest work on the kitchen table: clichéd but doubtless a very common experience. At least we have enough space to get away from each other when we need to, a small garden and the option of going for a walk (despite the cooler weather). I am conscious that families I knew in my last job and many of the children at Mrs G’s school are not so lucky.

Even so, it remains to see how long sharing an office remains tolerable. I know I did it before but somehow it seems marginally easier with people I’m not closely related to!

I am privileged to be working with my former music service colleagues again, looking at what they are all doing to continue offering musical opportunities to children and young people in crazy times.

Of course, many if them are offering online tuition but don’t underestimate the efforts and strain that many music service heads have been through to clear all the hurdles, particularly those which are still part of local authorities.

I imagine many people, at least briefly, imagined that lock down would be a slightly easier time (there would be plenty to be working on). Some people I have spoken to have taken a month to get approval to use Zoom. Others have simply been told no, the safeguarding risks are too great.

Those services that are independent may have been able to take decisions about online platforms more quickly but are grappling with real fears about lost revenues (for most, comfortably into six figures a term), whether and when to furlough staff and the uncertainty of how long it’s all going to carry on.

In spite of this, many music service heads and management teams are thinking strategically in terms of their hastily developed online offers becoming long-term features of their mainstream offer when the country eventually returns to some sort of normal.

They all worry about their services and about how this whole situation will turn out. Paramount is their concern for the teachers and tutors who make the services so great.

While I am thanking my lucky stars that I left music service management before CV19 took hold in the UK, it is exciting to learn how music services are responding and staying positive. My admiration for my colleagues is renewed and increased. I wish them all success in meeting their challenges and with the return to a new normality.