Gloriously Ordinary Sundays - 9th March 2025

So, it's the end of the I Open My Own Front Door, Do You? campaign… well, the start of it, I guess, as this was the launch week - but don’t think it’s gone away. Thanks to everybody who shared pictures, thoughts, and photographs, all of which are now collected on the campaign page here on the Gloriously Ordinary Lives website.

A couple of things have really hit home for me. Firstly, how most of us never think about whether or not we open our own front door - because of course we do. So many people I spoke to who are outside of our world of health or social care, had to have the concept of somebody else deciding it was okay to do this explained to them. It's one of those ‘taken as read’ things. Something that doesn’t need explaining because it’s bleeding obvious.

Thank you, Faye, for sending in your photo and story.

The other thing that occurred to me is that, because we don’t think twice about opening our open front door, it's firmly there in the mundane of mundane and heart sing, part of the rhythms and routines of ordinary everyday life which just becomes that – a rhythm. Very little thinking.  It just happens. The issue? If opening my own front door is a part of the mundane of my Gloriously Ordinary Life and I don’t get to do it, then what else do I not get to do?

Do I decide who makes a cup of tea in my home?

Do I decide when I go to bed? When I get up?

Do I decide what I eat and when?

What I wear?

What colour I paint my walls?

So, without trying to get too profound, because I don’t think it is profound at all, is whether or not I open my own front door a good measure of how much else I might control in my life? A gateway to mundane, if you like.

Please please please keep sending me your thoughts and ideas about this. I will continue to share your stories here on the website so we can get people thinking and chatting ….and DEMANDING that I do get to open my own front door.

PS. Have you heard about the upcoming workshop for Social Work Week?

Creating Gloriously Ordinary Lives - workshop. Social Work Week is all about taking time to reflect on your role as a social worker. Join Tricia Nicoll to explore what Gloriously Ordinary Lives means for you as a social worker and to pause and think.

PPS. Did you see? The Gloriously Ordinary Sundays Podcast episode 10 is here. I chat with Sam Clark, Chief Executive of ⁠Learning Disability England⁠. We talk about the importance of people opening their own front doors as we share the new campaign - I Open My Own Front Door, Do You? - by Gloriously Ordinary Lives in partnership with Learning Disability England.