My parents tell me that before I could even read, I would sit in my playpen (they weren’t frowned upon in days of yore) flicking through the pages of books. Dolls sat neglected on shelves, as did the pram to cart them round in. I’d found my true love.

I grew up in West Africa and with no television and limited access to books, I reread my stockpile over and over. I soon started to put my parents through my one-woman shows. I loved to write and perform and later on in boarding school I continued –making up funny rhymes, impersonating the nuns and generally being a class clown. I got high on making people laugh. But you have to grow up, right? And put all that childish stuff behind you.

I opened my boutique, Ashanti Gold, in Greystones in 2004. The apple hadn’t fallen too far from the tree – my Mum had a boutique under the same name in Gorey and I’d been on my first buying trip when I was twelve. When everything else failed, it was my go-to option. It was an environment I was comfortable in and could make a living out of, surviving one massive recession and three maternity leaves.

Covid-19 was a different challenge, or should I say is a different challenge. I turned the key in the lock back in March. How was I going to sell the mountain of newly delivered stock that I’d yet to pay for? How could I keep people engaged until I opened the doors again? I was advised to do vlogs. “Everyone is doing vlogs!” Some boutique owners are fantastic at it and I admire that, but it didn’t feel authentic to who I am. I couldn’t bring myself to strut in front of a camera and talk through the clothes. Would I now have to sell my soul to sell some frocks? I needed some semblance of professionalism and wanted the clothes to look good, however, I decided if I was going to make a tool out of myself, it would be on my own terms.

Many times, over the years, the creative in me has tried to make a run for it. I took a year out in my mid-twenties after dropping out of the corporate world and trained at Betty Ann Norton Theatre School, the highlight of my acting career being a Ban Garda on Fair City for five seconds. I treated myself to an MA in Creative Writing in UCD in 2010, and had a few small but boy-were-they victories. I was on my way. I’d written a novel, gotten an agent – look out world here I come! But the novel wasn’t published. And then it was my body’s now-or-never time for babies. And while I was lucky enough to receive three little boys out of that body, it was too hard to run a business and a household and turn on that creative spark.

Panic and desperation can be good driving forces sometimes. They pushed me into playing around with the camera and I came up with #lockdownlooks – tongue in cheek videos and photos for the boutique about staying safe but staying stylish. There’s a video about a mac which is perfect for flashing, another coordinating my dress to the sponge whilst cleaning the bathroom (and supping gin). I even bribed one of the boys to wear my old communion dress, staging a mock wedding so I could model a mother-of-the-bride outfit. For the first time, I married my creative to my work self. I’d always thought of the two as mutually exclusive. I had a ball – climbing onto the roof for a good photo, putting on fake blood and cotton wool for a botched lip-waxing job – I allowed myself to play and it felt good to be having fun again.

The first video I uploaded was terrifying. I’d sent it to my sister-in-law who is a good gauge of all things social media and her encouragement was the final push. I checked my phone every couple of seconds. What would customers think? What if they didn’t approve? The response was overwhelming. People sent through lovely supportive emails and texts, some saying that they even looked forward to them, that I’d made them laugh during a horrible time. Cha-Ching! It fulfilled some deeply suppressed need, something worth more than the rattle of the till (although, let’s be honest, that was nice to hear too with a mortgage to pay).

Of course, you can’t please all the people all the time. I operated under the assumption people knew that I wasn’t belittling the awfulness of the situation, but trying to find some light in a dark time. There was one nasty comment about people dying on ventilators and that I needed to cop on and sort out my marketing. One nasty comment versus a tonne of nice ones, but it made me sick for the weekend before I was able to move on. I happened to be reading a book about building resilience in kids and realised I needed to work on my own!

One morning in May – during a bad week – I bumped into a customer who made the mistake of being nice to me and I burst into tears. “Have faith,” she said, after miming a socially distant hug. “I don’t mean in God, I mean in your customers. People want to get to behind you and support.” Sometimes, words are enough and I remind myself of those whenever I panic about what the future holds.

I posted my last #lockdownlooks video the day before I opened the shop on June 8. I worried it’d be a bit like pitching up at the office on a Monday morning having disgraced yourself at the Christmas party, but so far so good. It turns out that customer was right!

And guess what? I’m starting to write again…