Skip to main content

Lockdown - week 4

Someone is definitely loving lockdown
It's clear I'm going to have to deviate from how I've been titling these posts as it's likely to become a tad monotonous the way things are going. This week will mark the end of a month in lockdown and I think we are all going a bit stir crazy. Thank goodness the weather has turned back to sunshine as the 2 days of rain we had at the back end of the week were truly miserable for me. It was not so much the fact that I couldn't get out (of course I did), but that the kids morphed straight into fair weather slugs and took to their beds for the entire day, coming to life only when we were thinking about bedtime. I ended up posting on FB about it - I wasn't seeking inspiration as to how to motivate them (other people's ideas on this never seem to go down well), but instead I was looking for some sort of reassurance that even if it weren't for lockdown this might be completely normal for a teenager / pre-teen on a rainy Saturday afternoon at the back end of the Easter holidays. Apparently I shouldn't worry, pretty much everyone else's child had done the same thing and everyone also commented on the fact that, despite not moving, they still managed to be constantly hungry - yep!

Everyone has a different way of coping. Our neighbours, normally both very outdoorsy people, have not been seen for weeks but today posted on social media that they had collectively run 30 miles (30 miles!!) on a treadmill (her - 4 hours and 55 mins) and climbed Kilimanjaro on an indoor climbing machine (him - 3 hours and 7 mins). Why?!?!? Surely between the two of them they could have found something better to do!

At least today the warm weather has returned and after 3.5 hours of writing a paper for work this morning (like climbing Kili, same effort, less calories expended) we had a lovely day in the garden and normality was resumed. I failed to do any 'proper' exercise, but Abi and I had a lovely long walk and the two of them then bombed round the garden on their Segways while I managed to do a bit of gardening. No plants to plant obviously but it's certainly looking very tidy given that's all any of us can really do. Abi brought Monty out for his first taste of the outdoors - he looked quite taken by the whole concept and slithered around quite happily - he's such a laid back snaky if there can be such a thing.

This week is back to school - well, back to what constitutes school anyway with remote learning and the Thursday morning maths lesson tears for Izzy. I have a busy week for work which I definitely prefer. I find the slower days more difficult as I've not yet managed to reconcile myself to work not being full on 5 days a week, 10 hours a day. What I will say is though I miss people and the flexibility of going to work when I want to, I wouldn't swap that for the pleasure of not commuting every day. I suspect I'm not alone in thinking it's going to be pretty hard to come out of this when it's finally time to do so. I think the world of office work may well be heading for a massive shift - well it will if I have anything to do with it!

Bits of the garden looking lovely, even if I could do 
with some plants to fill the gaps








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's beginning to feel a bit like Christmas...

I was sure I write the blog last week.... but, it seems another 2 weeks have flown by and now we are staring down the barrel of the Christmas holidays and the end of the year! Currently it's all about Doug and what a star he has proved to be so far. He has now been with us for 3 weeks and he is (so far, I keep thinking at some point it will change) a pretty chilled out puppy. As a second dog he has been thrown in at the deep end and has been to Sunday lunch with Alan & Sarah (which he loved), socialised at home with friends and their dogs, met babies (he loved Elsie) and started to go for walks. The walking has been a bit different to our previous approaches with new dogs. In the past we have ventured out carefully, making sure that our new baby only walks a short distance so they can experience all the new sights and sounds. Doug's first walk was after Sunday lunch last week, just him and 8 other dogs for bout 45 mins - he loved it! In our defence we didn't let him wal...
Post a Comment
Read more

Welcome Albert James!

So this week has been full of new things - Jess and Chris have welcomed Albert James Wilkinson Rayner to the family, a tad early but all doing well apparently (and so cute!!), I started my new job, Abi has her new shed and Dad got sorted on a phone that wasn't invented before the kids were born!! I always knew this week was going to be full on and it certainly has been. The first thing I had to do was try and sort out my diary which had been filled from dawn to dusk by my predecessor with meetings. I decided to set out as I mean to go on and immediately took out those that started before 9am. While I can get into  the office for 8am , it's a pain and requires me to be on the 6:30am train which is just a bit much every day (stating the obvious). I then made it clear that we don't need to be joined at the hip for the next 4 weeks which is a sensitive process - even though he is retiring it's hard to let go and he is understandably keen that the team are looked after. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Diary management!

This part of the summer is definitely typified by me trying to remember who is supposed to be where and when. Abi likes to be off doing something with someone while Izzy is happier to know she's close to home and so for the last week they've gone their separate ways. Abi has been down in Somerset making the most of Ben and Laurie being about. From what I can tell she's having a lovely time. Apart from the covert phone call one evening to tell me she was 'starving'  (Mum was cooking for the hordes and so it had been delayed), I've barely heard from her. The few calls I have had have very quickly ended in "can I go now" like I'm making her speak to me! Today she switches from Mum and Dads to a night or two with Kerrie - not sure who is more excited! Izzy didn't want to be away for that long so she opted not to go. She's very conscious that Abi and Laurie are joined at the hip when together and Ben has his own things he wants to do so she ...
Post a Comment
Read more