A care worker has released a blog about how life has changed in care homes during coronavirus.

In the comedic and emotional blog, 29-year-old Natasha Sansom talks of how residents keep telling her to smile and ask her for her hand in marriage.

Natasha, from Bacup, put the blog together after wanting to write about her day to day job for years.

She said: “I always wanted to write a blog but when it involves work its hard to write something.

“I think its nice to let the families know from our point of view that we do care about their families and our residents and that we are looking after them even if they can’t see them.”

Natasha was inspired to become a carer by her mother from a young age

“We still always have a laugh and a joke and we try and see the light behind wearing mask

“Sometimes they ask why we are wearing the masks and I tell them its to hide this face so I don’t scare you.”

In response to this, Natasha stuck googly eyes and drew a red smile on her mask to amuse the residents of Whitworth Care

“I did that when they said I wasn’t smiling anymore,” she added.

“I told them ‘I am smiling under this mask you just can’t see it’ so I thought I would draw one on.

“Little things like that keeps them smiling.”

Residents of care homes have still not been able to see family members for months due to tightened restrictions in East Lancashire.

For this reason, Natasha thinks its more important than ever to keep people amused to help families during the lengthy separation.

She found herself getting emotional

“I really wanted it to be positive and funny to send out a nice message but it was really hard to keep it positive at times," she added.

“It’s a completely different world. I read it back to myself afterwards and I had a bit of a cry.

“I think at the moment my life is just work. We can’t do much outside of work so I think making that one thing we can do as positive as possible is the best way to do it.”

The care home holds activities for residents which have picked up massively during the lockdown as they used to take place while families were visiting.

Activities have included making cakes, crafts and little parties being held for missed celebrations with family.