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

Busy, busy, busy

Full English brunch for these two! Life is VERY busy and I don't feel like we have stopped for weeks (or is that months?) It seems like the 'to-do' list is endless and while I know we don't have to do it all at once, I have taken on the unenviable task of trying to get the Muppet to finish all the work he promised / we have paid for and that has been like pushing a mountain of water up a very steep hill. We've got to the point where I think we have got all of what we are likely to get and the rest we'd rather finish ourselves anyway. The electric gates are clearly a work of his imagination based on the gates / the electric cables he spec'd and the cheapo motor mechanism - there is no way they'll work so we have decided to not bother and source proper gates that do the job and look better as well. Knowing that we are almost at a point where we sever the ties feels very liberating. Looking back this last 6 months has been incredibly stressful and just didn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bank Holiday sunshine

Off to meet FiFi and Grumps for a walk  (and yes, she is on the seat) Finally after weeks of rain and cold weather, the tide has turned and we have glorious sunshine for the bank holiday weekend and half term - hooray, it's about time.  Also just in time is half term as the kids were definitely ready for a break. They have both done brilliantly settling into the school, making new friends and finding their feet in an unfamiliar environment. Izzy has just had her exam week and felt it went OK given she hadn't covered all of the syllabus, and Abi's exams start as soon as she is back next week. I hope she's done some revision as she left for Devon with Claire, Adam and Mia today and isn't back until Saturday. There is talk of looking at some of her notes but who knows. My view is that a bit of R&R will probably be at least as beneficial if not more so than cramming all week so she should take the time to relax and have some fun - she deserves it. So we packed Abi o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Half term

Whatever happened to half term?? It seems to have disappeared in a flash, do doubt partly as I was working having had 3 days off the previous week for Kerrie and Ryan's wedding. The plan was to not have a plan - both girls have exam week coming up and so our major intent was for them to spend at least half an hour a day or so doing a bit of revision. This has sort of worked - we only had one day where I got an irate message from Glenn that Izzy knows 'absolutely nothing' about her maths... we'll see. With half term comes effort grades and if they genuinely know nothing, it's not for a lack of effort. Abi did really well, keeping up her average and getting a 6 (top grade) in French again. Izzy, who we always worry is apt to cruise if allowed, got the first 5.0 average grade we've seen from either of them and 3 6's in French, English and DT - well done Izzy! I tend to assume all the kids work hard but it seems not - according to Abi "all the boys always...
Post a Comment
Read more