Dr Seonju Marincowitz is a mycologist and curator of the FABI Culture collection.  Here are some of her thoughts on working from home during the lockdown period

It is 1 April 2020. It is the sixth day of the lockdown period. The dreadful fear of confinement for 21 days that haunted me during the first few days has faded away. Now I am settling into a new mode - working from home. Its Wednesday, no meetings. The day started no differently from other working days except for Classic FM, which I used to listen to in the car driving to work. Now I am able to now listen to wonderful music right up until just before my work starts. At 8am we “go” to work! My husband to his study room and me to my interim office. I have occupied half of our diningroom table as my office during this period because of its location with lots of sunlight and fresh flowing air. I miss my colleagues and students, lab work and endless walks in the corridors of FABI.  But I am also excited at having extra time during this period to get some writing and reading work done. I thus finally had time to work on my “Restio Project”.  For this, I hope to analyze the DNA data for the microfungi that I isolated from the members of the Restionaceae. At the end of this lockdown period, I will hopefully have substantial results that will allow this project to move to the next level. This is the bright side of the lockdown period.