A mum has turned her entire living room wall into a photo montage to remind her family of happier times in a bit to help them cope with Covid trauma. Louise Whapshott, 46, and her family had a tough time, with her husband Martin, 49, ending up on the high dependency unit back in April 2020 due to the virus.
Her children, Corbin, 16, and Eva, 14, both still suffer with long Covid and chronic fatigue since catching the virus at school in late 2020. Head groundsman Martin's father, Jim Whapshott, 77, died after catching the virus in his care home in Crondall, Surrey, in April 2020.
Lou wanted to celebrate the special memories the family made together before the pandemic to remind them all better days are coming. She spent six hours wallpaper pasting an entire wall with 700 black and white individual photos of special memories and sealing them with a clear varnish.
The wall is covered floor to ceiling, including treasured shots of grandfather Jim. Mental health support worker Lou, from Chawton, East Hampshire, said: "I am always capturing our fun times on camera and Covid has reminded us of how short life can be and how quickly it can change.
"I wanted to remind ourselves of all the amazing things we have done and look forward to making more memories. We have too many good memories to be locked in a phone or computer.
"I had been planning this for months, got them all printed and then wallpaper pasted them, individually overlapping and covering bits I didn't want shown or to make them fit. We sorted them into portrait and landscape and into categories - a Corbin category, Eva category, Lou category, Martin category, and then family, dogs, cats, holiday scenes and friends to try and keep it all spaced out so not all grouped together.
"It took two evenings of pasting, so around six hours. My daughter pasted and I stuck. I love my photo wall and now I get to look at all these lovely, happy memories that make me chuckle.
"Life isn't quite normal for us at the moment with the kids but I am loving laughing about all the random memories we have made so far. I just hope we get back to being able to make lots more soon."
