Penny Blogs - An insight into the things in life that make me smile

The one where I got Covid on Christmas Day!

January 22, 2021 by Penny Leave a Comment

2020 really was the year that kept giving.

There I was feeling all smug that my kids reached the end of term without anyone in either of their school bubbles having to isolate. Yes, there was the bit where we went from Tier 4 on Friday to Tier 3 on Saturday and then Tier 4 on Sunday, but I was already at peace with the idea that seeing any family on Christmas Day itself wouldn’t be sensible, so again it didn’t damped my festive enthusiasm too much.

By Christmas Eve I felt on top of the world. A long-overdue Zoom catch up with some friends was wonderful, and after that I decided to celebrate with a glass of wine. A rare occurrence these days. I went to bed and then had a weird night of tossing and turning and not being able to sleep properly. I woke up with a thumping headache and just assumed it was the effects of said glass of wine. I carried on as usual though with the youngest, who was incredibly excited about their first Christmas where they had a clue about what was going on.

By lunchtime the paracetamol had turned the headache into a dull thud and so I went of to collect the eldest two from their Dad’s before returning and starting the rest of Christmas celebrations here. By 3pm it was time to put dinner on and I was starting to feel rough. Really rough. Rough enough that I pretty much fell asleep on the sofa and B had to make Christmas dinner – which to be fair about he did really well, even if both of us did totally forget the stuffing until two days later!

A bit of food made me feel a little better and I perked up for a while, before slumping again as the evening wore on. That night in bed though I again couldn’t sleep, but this time though I was starting to feel all feverish. Alarm bells started ringing, but I could still smell and taste everything so I assumed it wasn’t Covid but something else. By the next morning though I felt no better at all and sensible me said it would be wise to get a test. Just in case.

So, Boxing Day 2020 saw me heading to Luton and the glamorous location of a dodgy looking tent in an equally dodgy looking car park under a fly-over. As I approached, had it not been for the presence of a security guard in hi-vis, I might have assumed I was there to take part in a drug deal.

Credit where it’s due though – the whole booking a test process and actually being tested was incredibly straightforward. I was in and out within ten minutes and could have booked a test for as soon as 30 minutes after logging on to the NHS website.

Thirty six hours later my results came through and I was genuinely shocked to see a text message containing a positive result. Back in December it still felt quite unusual to test positive and many people didn’t know anyone who had. I spent ages trying to work out where I might have picked it up. Apart from one supermarket trip (when I couldn’t get a click and collect slot) I hadn’t been anywhere else at all. Literally just walking local streets with the kids. It’s my assumption that one of more of the kids picked it up at school, didn’t have symptoms themselves and then passed it on to me. My husband came down with symptoms five days after me, suggesting that I gave it to him, so that rules out it having come from him at work.

As time went on and the January return to school loomed it turned out that I wasn’t the only parent from my children’s classes who had been ill over Christmas. Nearly a third of us had and only in one case had their children shown any symptoms. This “new” strain seems to not only pass more easily, but also not present many symptoms in kids at all.

It goes without saying that having worked all this out I really couldn’t see how re-opening schools was sensible at all. Where my kids are at school in Hertfordshire the Covid levels were higher than many of the London boroughs where they announced that schools would remain shut. It made no sense at all and frankly sounded dangerous.

As a school governor, and in particular one responsible for some of the most vulnerable children in our school, I am fully of the belief that school is normally the best and safest place for our children. This definitely wasn’t the case in early January though. We were bought some extra time as my children’s school refused to take them back initially as there was still Covid in our household at that point (my husband was in his 10 day self-isolation period still) and even though the kids had finished their ten day period, there was no guarantee that they were not symptom free and had it in the same timescales. My kids school had an INSET day on the Monday, meaning that children were only due to return on the Tuesday, but of course all that changed when the latest lockdown announcement came through late on Monday night.

I could probably write a whole essay on the way the Government has handled Covid, and in particular the fact that so many announcements, especially ones involving education, come out late at night, or at least after the end of the normal school day. It’s infuriating, rude and creates even more work for people in what should be their down-time.

Trying to recover properly from Covid whilst homeschooling has been a challenge, to put it mildly, but as we head towards the end of January I think I’m nearly back to normal. I do seem to have the insomnia part of long-Covid that many people have reported, but other than feeling very unfit and a bit tired (which could be attributed to home-schooling!) I’ve come out of the whole thing pretty unscathed. At its worst I was aching all over my body in strange ways. I constantly felt cold and also developed a hacking cough. It wasn’t really how I expected Covid to be and was pretty debilitating at times. Not at all easy with two adults ill and three kids in the house. Three kids that had been looking forward to a normal Christmas…

Maybe for Christmas 2021 we can make a better go of things?

It’s lockdown Jim, but not as we know it!

November 5, 2020 by Penny Leave a Comment

Here we go again. Lockdown Part 2. Or Lockdown 2.0 as some people seem to call it. Proof if ever it’s needed that we’re getting more adapt with technology naming conventions.

Whatever you call it, this lockdown is less than 12 hours old as I sit and write this, but the differences from the last lockdown are very obvious. My kids are still at school and as I dropped them off this morning and watched the usual gaggle of parents chatting on street corners it really didn’t feel any different to earlier in the week. A million miles away from back in March when we were all desperately swotting up on primary school grammar and realising that maths had somehow changed fundamentally since we were all at school.

Whatever your views on the decision to keep schools open, you can’t deny that it fundamentally changes things from last time. Yes, non-essential shops still have to close, but this time they are allowed to still open for click and collect orders. This is where the guidance from the Government seems to contradict itself. It tells us to stay at home other than for very specific reasons, yet I’m allowed to go over to the next town to collect an order from Hobbycraft to do some Christmas crafting. In the same way I can’t go into a clothes shop in person, but I can wander around a garden centre with the kids looking at the Christmas displays. As much as I can see how this is good for small local businesses, it also doesn’t quite seem right.

Let’s just think about it a bit more. I can’t visit the nearby outdoor Whipsnade Zoo to see their real reindeer, but I can see animated reindeer models decorated with tinsel indoors at the garden centre. How on earth is that logical in any way? Anyone who has been to Whipsnade will know that the site is made for people to social distance in it. Surely the Covid risk is far greater indoors than out? After all we’re being encouraged to exercise outdoors and parks and places like National Trust outdoor spaces are staying open.

I’m left thinking that this is going to be devastating for the hospitality industry with pubs and restaurants forced to close for a second time. Yet, at the same time, if this lockdown isn’t strict enough to make a difference then won’t it just prolong things until they can open again? If we’d not all been told to “Eat Out to Help Out” maybe we would have avoided this second lockdown and overall the effect on the hospitality industry would have been less. I can’t begin to think how stressful it must be for them thinking about how much Christmas trade they could miss if this extends beyond the initial 4 weeks.

I wish I had faith that what we’re going through is actually going to make a difference, but I’m yet to be convinced when the whole plan seems to be so full of holes.

Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash.

Five things my kids miss after five months of Covid

August 12, 2020 by Penny Leave a Comment

The last 5 months have been tough for all of us. Different from anything we could have ever imagined. As adults you can somewhat understand why things are different, but as a chid comprehending everything going on can be somewhat harder. As adaptable as kids may be, there’s still so much that they are missing. As we hit the half way point in the summer holidays I took time to take stock of the five things my kids are missing most after five months of Covid.

School

Top of the list for most kids has to be school. Whilst the idea of school being cancelled initially made some children jump with glee, the reality of months without their friends and the structure of the school day is now really having an effect on many kids, mine included.

My eldest two were lucky enough to be able to go back to school for four weeks before the summer term ended by virtue of their father being classed as a key worker. As much as they enjoyed being back, it still wasn’t school as they would normally recognise it. Bubbles of just 15 kids and not being with all their friends or regular teachers made it feel somewhat more like childcare in familiar buildings than school proper.

Hugs from relatives

As an adult I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that no one will tell us when we might be able to hug people again. It’s as if the government have forgotten all about that restriction on us. Maybe they hope that by saying nothing we’ll all forget that it is a rule still (as seems to be the case looking at pictures on social media) and then if we have a second wave they’ll be able to blame people for hugging each other?

As a kid though being able to see your grandparents and other relatives but not be able to give them a hug as they usually would is so difficult. I know some parents have stopped visits to grandparents entirely as the feeling of not being able to hug each other is too much for them to handle. I find it astounding that people can be allowed to sit next to each other on aeroplanes and get drunk together in pubs, yet a small child isn’t allowed to be embraced by their grandmother. Doesn’t that just feel wrong to you? In Scotland social distancing is no more for children under the age of 11. Why isn’t that the case here in England too? Or are the remnants of Hadrian’s Wall working as a Covid defence?

Swimming and libraries

We’re a family who enjoy simple pleasures during school holidays rather than flash trips away. Two highlights for my kids are usually going swimming together and taking trip to our amazing local library. Both aren’t allowed right now. The swimming pool has just reopened, but only for lane swimming or formal swimming lessons. My kids just want to mess around in the water, much like friends are doing when they are able to go away to places with their own pools like Butlins or Centre Parcs.

The local library is also reopening this week, but only for people to collect pre-ordered books. As a small child the joy of the library is being able to go in and choose a new author or book from a vast choice. Sitting down with a phone app and clicking on things just isn’t the same.

Playgrounds

The reopening of playgrounds has varied so much around the country. In some places they are open and as you walk past you could almost think that nothing had ever happened. In others playgrounds are still all taped off and the grass in them overgrown.

As a responsible parent I feel that I shouldn’t let my kids into an open playground if it’s too busy. No child let loose in a playground after months of it being off limits is going to remember to social distance. Especially not if they’re a toddler. But imagine how heartbreaking it is to a child to get to a playground and then be told they can’t go in whilst other kids are in there running wild.

Spontaneity

Children may not all understand the word spontaneity but that is definitely what they are missing these summer holidays. One of the lovely things about the long school holiday is being able to get up and say “what shall we do today?” Nowadays pretty much everything has to be booked in advance and it really does take some of the joy out of things. Getting slots to visit a National Trust property is like getting Glastonbury tickets and has to be attempted the Friday before. If you’re visiting somewhere new you need to do your research in advance and book a table somewhere for lunch or dinner, or else you run the risk of having hungry kids and no where to feed them. Places have (understandably) restricted visitor numbers so you just can’t always get a slot somewhere on the day you want. I understand why it has to be done, but when you’re a kid used to being able to be spontaneous it really can be quite disappointing.

I know all this is being done for our benefit, but at the same time we really do need to think about the impact this all has on children. My toddler’s not been able to mix with anyone her own age for months now and that surely must be having a developmental impact on her. She’s at the stage where she should be going to toddler groups and stay and play sessions and just can’t. The older two miss their friends and normal life acutely. Hopefully schools will be returning next month, but with bubbles still in place it’s not going to be how it was when they waved goodbye to their friends back in March. They’ve missed birthday parties and traditional end of school year activities. School trips were cancelled and my son will even be going to a new school in September. They also miss all the extra curricular things they love. Cubs and Beavers. Swimming lesson and football training sessions. Who knows when all that will be back to normal.

Penny’s Corona Diary – 3 August 2020

August 3, 2020 by Penny Leave a Comment

It’s nearly 2 months since I penned the last of these diary entries and I suppose as life has started to get a little bit back towards normal it’s also got stupidly busy again and so time to write has become harder to find. I did manage to find the time to tell you about an epic sewing make for LMC’s birthday and also share a lunch recipe that was getting us through lockdown, but there’s so much more been going on here.

Firstly – the kids went back to school for a month. Woo hoo!!! That was a pretty big change after months at home having to make do with me as their teacher. Their Dad works at a supermarket head office – so whilst not a KEY worker, he still qualified as a key worker and so they kids were allowed to go back to school under that title until the end of term. It was, quite frankly weird. I welcomed the routine again, but not so much having to set an alarm for in a morning. They were in special key worker bubbles at school so they didn’t really get to be with all their friends, although LMC’s did at least include just children from her year group. Master C’s was a mix of all different ages instead.

The school day looked very different, as did the amount of work they actually had to do. The drop off and pick up felt like some strange military organised conveyor belt system through the playground. As a school governor at the infant school I was heavily involved in the risk assessments that the school had to do as part of their wider opening on 1 June, but being part of it as a parent did just feel a bit alien after years of normal school runs.

The kids were glad to be back though, and I think both of them thrived from having routine back and other people to interact with.

At home we have moved all the bedrooms about here and we’ve finally decorated LMC’s new Harry Potter themed bedroom, and also Tube Stop Baby has a room of her own at last. The alcove area in our room that did contain her cot has now been transformed into a working area for me and gone are all my excuses of not having somewhere to work. They’re all projects that I mean to document on here. I just need to make the time to actually do so.

In my downtime, I’ve certainly enjoyed being able to meet up with friends on socially distanced walks over the last few weeks. We also managed a socially distanced WI committee “meeting” in a local park one evening which felt a bit like being a teenager again. All of us sitting around until the sun went down. This year really has been one for strange experiences!

I’m also delighted to say that I managed to go and visit my mum again. The rules permitted us to stay overnight at her house, whilst still social distancing with her. Not an easy thing to do, but I think we managed it.

The rules have been changing so much here over the last couple of months that I’m not totally sure what all of them are any more. Face coverings are now mandatory in shops and I’m just about getting used to my glasses steaming up whenever I need to speak to someone in a shop. From next week they have to be worn in more indoor spaces, but to be honest that sort of puts me off going anywhere indoors, so I think I’ll just avoid doing so as much as possible.

We have been making the most of the great outdoors though. As a family we’ve been trying to fit in as many walks as possible and even little TSB has been getting in on the action. On several occasions now she’s surprised us all by walking over a mile in one go. Quite a feat on those little legs of hers. She’s also decided that now is the time to drop daytime naps, which means that some days now feel incredibly long!

July also saw me celebrate my birthday in these semi-lockdown times. I don’t normally do much for it anyway, but it still felt a bit weird thinking that I couldn’t do anything to celebrate properly this time round. We went out for a nice walk that day and enjoyed a picnic lunch en route. The highlight of the day was probably picking over a kilo of blackberries that were then enjoyed as both lolly pops (by the kids) and in an apple and blackberry crumble (by the grown ups). I do enjoy a bit of forging. Simple pleasures.

The other thing that has changed our day to day life here is that B has gone back to work properly. As I mentioned before, he started a new job in lockdown, but they have actually managed to fit in some training for him now which means he’s back out on the road most days. It’s a bit weird going from all 5 of us at home 24/7 to just me and TSB. Strangely quiet, but yet not at all peaceful! That’s the effector a whirlwind toddler who is always full of energy.

Now that the school summer holidays have started the kids are away with their Dad for longer stretches which is giving me the opportunity to get stuck into work again. Not easy when everything seemed to come to a bit of a halt when lockdown happened. Being self-employed isn’t easy right now, but when you were making some of your income from writing about travel it’s particularly difficult. I’m looking at how I can alter the balance of my work to reflect what is going on. More work on toys and games, more crafting and book writing and more re-selling to fill in some of the financial gaps. I’m not sure what travel writing is going to look like moving forwards. I’m keen to get back on the road (or the rails) but realistically that’s not going to happen quite yet. We do have a UK trip planned for later this month (one that was booked before all this happened) so it will be interesting to see what it all feels like. We’ve also finally managed a family day out and I plan to write about what that was like as it was certainly a different experience to how it would have been last year. I’m seeing travel bloggers take tentative steps back towards travel, with plenty off them opting for the camper van option of doing so, but I’m not yet convinced that it’s the right thing to do with a toddler in tow. Time will tell.

Lockdown lunch: Pitta Bread Pizza

June 25, 2020 by Penny Leave a Comment

During lockdown I’ve suddenly had to get used to organising lunch for the kids every single day. With a child still at infant school, and so getting free school lunches everyday (and the other one preferring a cooked school dinner over sandwiches) I’ve been lucky until now not having to think about something new and exciting to fill a lunchbox with every day. The problem during lockdown was not just coming up with lunch ideas, but also time to make said lunch whilst also homeschooling them. Hence, pitta bread pizzas soon became our go to lunch option.

Pitta bread pizzas are quick and easy to make, and also something that I could set the kids on to prepare whilst I cleared away the mess of the morning’s lessons.

Ingredients

All you really need are three basic things:

pitta bread
passata
cheese – grated

That really is it for necessities. Yes, you can then go on and add any other toppings you like to your pizza, but that’s really up to you and your kids.

How to make pitta bread pizzas

Firstly – turn the oven on to 180 degrees and send the kids to wash their hands. Whilst they do so get the pitta breads out of the packet and lay them out on a baking sheet.

Grate some cheese – we just used cheddar and if you can prefer you can obviously but it ready grated – and pour some of the pasta into a bowl.

Once the kids return with clean hands get them to choose their pitta and then place a spoonful of pasta on it. Use the back of the spoon to spread the passata around the surface of the pitta.

With the pitta covered with tomato you can then add the cheese. Any other toppings come after that. we had salami slices torn into smaller pieces on some of ours, but you could use anything you fancy really. Tuna, ham, tomato slices, red onion, olives, sweetcorn, peppers.

Bung the pizza in the oven for 6 – 10 minutes. Exact time really depends on your oven and how crispy you like your pizza.

Take out and enjoy.

A wonderfully simple lockdown lunch that can be prepared, cooked and eaten in just 15 minutes. Also, a brilliant way of getting the kids involved and therefore counting as a home economics lesson too!

Observant readers will notice the there’s not a single picture of a cooked pizza in this post. There’s a very simple reason for that. Whenever we make them they’re eaten by everyone (including me!) before I can get my camera out. That’s how delicious they are!

Sewing a Harry Potter Dressing Gown – Simplicity Pattern S9002

June 19, 2020 by Penny Leave a Comment

Making a birthday special in lockdown is hard work. But when you have a child that is a massive Harry Potter fan, you’re planning a new Harry Potter themed bedroom for her, and then you happen across a sewing pattern for a Harry Potter dressing gown then you have to make it as a birthday present. Even if you are somewhat up to your eyes in home schooling in the middle of a global pandemic at the time!

Harry Potter Dressing Gown

It’s ages since I’ve done any proper dressmaking, but with added confidence from watching this series of the Sewing Bee I figured I should be able to manage a dressing gown. Originally I’d seen someone sharing an Instagram post of a Harry Potter cloak that they’d made, and I then ended up down an online rabbit hole that took me to *Simplicity Pattern S9002 for these house themed Harry Potter dressing gowns, or robes as they call them in America.

I think the last time I made something from a proper paper pattern was actually back in secondary school, yet I have a whole collection of patterns that I bought not long before I left my ex-husband that I’d never got round to doing anything with. There’s also a whole box of vintage patterns somewhere in the garage that also need some love and attention. I figured that I had to stop being so scared and just get on and make something.

Fabric choices

For this dressing gown I decided to make it in fleece fabric as I know my daughter loves that soft feel to a dressing gown. I ordered my fabric from Empress Mills who have an amazing selection of both plain and patterned fleece online. With everyone in lockdown at the time it was a fair while before I actually got the fabric, but lots of people inform me that they normally have a much quicker turnaround.

Sew on patches

I chose an obvious black fleece for the main body of the dressing gown and then, as my daughter is a Gryffindor fan, went for a red wine colour for the edge, hood and sleeve bands. I found a *Gryffindor sew on patch on Amazon which was perfect for the front of the gown. It’s worth noting that this isn’t included in the pattern and there are no hints on where to buy one from. Amazon seem to have a *wide selection of Harry Potter sew on patches though that should work for the four different houses.

Following the pattern

The pattern itself was relatively easy to understand, with good clear instructions and diagrams of each step. I found laying out and pinning the pattern pieces incredibly hard work, especially as I don’t have a big enough table, so was working on a deep pile carpet (80s style!) on my living room floor. It made cutting the pieces particularly difficult, especially as the fleece is really quite thick when folded double.

Luckily fleece is so much easier to sew than it is to cut. It’s also quite forgiving in terms of having a bit of stretch so that if you pin pieces together well you can always stretch one piece enough to line up notches etc. if your cutting has been slightly off.

The part of the project that I found the hardest was the contrast cuffs and edge bands. For all of these you apply iron-on interfacing to one of the band pieces before attaching it, and then you have to attach the other piece of the band and have one edge of it pressed under. It’s relatively straight-forward, but the problem is that fleece doesn’t exactly press nice and neatly, and it certainly doesn’t hold the press. To finish the bands off you’re supposed to stitch in the ditch, catching the folded under edge neatly on the other side so that the finished result is all neat. Let’s just say that the fleece didn’t exactly help to make this happen. As I said before though, fleece is luckily quite forgiving when sewing, and I ended up having to sew a few bits by hand to make sure the edges were caught under neatly.

Finished result

I’m so pleased with the finished result. And incredibly proud of myself for getting it finished, without needing to call anyone on FaceTime to help! Admittedly it’s not absolutely perfect, but it is far better than I expected it to be. If I were to make it again, I’d probably go for a less firm interfacing as the bands and cuffs are a bit stiffer than I’d like, but that really is a minor thing.

And the best news is that my daughter absolutely loved it when she opened it on her birthday morning.

What next

The whole project has certainly given me my sewing confidence back. Probably a good thing, as Master C has asked me to make him a dressing gown for his birthday in September. He’s already chosen the pattern he wants (*Simplicity 3575) and I’m hoping that it won’t be too tricky. I might just have to find a more amenable carpet to cut the pattern pieces out on this time!

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