Carriages Café, Newark, offers nervous folk a gentle return to socialising with Life After Covid sessions

A Newark café is doing what it can to help ease people back into socialising as lockdown restrictions ease.

Carriages Café is hosting a series of Life After Covid sessions to support people who may be struggling.

Owner Wendy Baird said post-lockdown anxiety could show itself in several ways.

“You may be feeling nervous about interacting with real people again, fearful of being in a public building, worried or stressed about the future, having trouble sleeping or generally feeling unsettled,” she said.

“Getting back into the real world may look very scary and be causing even more anxiety and keeping you from the things that you used to enjoy doing.”

Newark Community Hub is using Carriages as a base for nervous people to sample a little freedom in a safe environment with a small number of other sufferers.

“While we cannot promise you an exact return to your life before Covid, we can offer you a taste of what it used to feel like,” Wendy said.

The Life After Covid sessions will run for three hours on Monday mornings and afternoons, and Tuesday mornings.

There will be a mix of interactive and passive sessions, a chance to talk to others, and refreshments served to individual tables in sterilised cups or glasses.

Wendy said: “You will be given your own table and a bubble will be assigned to you for the duration of the workshop, with sanitising hand gel, paper towels, a sterile glass and bottle of water.

The workshops will include a chance for people to reflect on why they feel anxious, try some gentle exercise, and take part in therapeutic activities such as mindfulness, art, music and poetry.

Sessions must be booked with Wendy on 07577 898222 or at Newark CommunityHub@gmail.com

The café re-opens on Thursday, August 6, but will be closed to other customers during the special sessions.

On Wednesdays, the café will host bookable community coffee mornings to show what they do, and it is starting a coffee club with unlimi-ted drinks for £30 a month.