Penny Blogs

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.

Days are blurring into one. Weeks are passing in a haze. It seems it’s over a month since I last wrote a lockdown diary, but to be honest I am losing all sense of time here. I have no real concept of just how long we’ve been at home for.

The last month has been a bit of a blur. My husband has gone back to work properly meaning that I am now home alone with the kids in the day time. he was working from home before, but now having an alarm set every morning and him being out of the house from 9 – 5 has definitely changed the routine here. When the older two children are here it’s all a bit of a blur trying to home school both of them whilst also stopping the youngest from destroying the house or trying to escape. When it’s just me and the youngest the days feel incredibly long as I’m simply not used to there just being the two of us here without things like the school run to punctuate the day.

We’ve finally tackled some big projects like moving my eldest daughter’s bedroom into another room. My husband’s final days of working from home involved trying to strip 80s style wallpaper and then a mad panic to get a Harry Potter themed room finished before LMC’s 10th birthday.

Said 10th birthday also meant a deadline for me to complete a Harry Potter dressing gown that I promised myself I would make in an attempt to make her lockdown birthday a bit more special. I’m delighted to say that both projects succeeded, so look out for blog posts telling the story of both.

In the wider world, the government here keeps making vague announcements about the easing of lockdown. Not helped at all by Dominic Cumming’s and his own personal version of the lockdown rules. I’m still incredibly angry about his actions and also his refusal to resign.

I’m also pretty mad about various people who seem to think that lockdown should be completely over and that the rules can be bent to suit them. Apart from my husband going to work and me collecting the kids from their Dad’s house, we’ve stuck by the rules completely. It’s hard, very hard, especially when you see others not following them, but I believe it is the right thing to do. Schools going back for some children has resulted in an awful lot of work for me as a school governor, especially in terms of reviewing risk assessments. The work school staff and teachers are doing right now is frankly incredibly, and I just wish they would get the recognition they deserve of that.

With all this going on what I am really lacking is time for me. Both time to work and time to relax. There are more bedroom changes that we need to complete here so that the youngest can finally move out of our bedroom and I know that will have a huge effect on being able to go to bed when I want and actually being able to do simple things like read in bed at night time to help me unwind. Until then though I fear it’s all systems go still. Lockdown has been long and relentless for parents and right now I can only dream of an end to it all and some proper rest and peace and quiet. I know we’re in an incredibly lucky position in that we’re all safe and well, but Covid is definitely starting to take its toll in an indirect manner.

I’m getting to the stage of lockdown now where I’m no longer sure how long things have been like this. I actually have to get the calendar out to work out just how many weeks this has been going on. I’d say that it’s becoming like a “new normal” but then it might just sounds like I’m jumping on the bandwagon of using a new phrase that the media and government seem to have adopted.

What is very obvious to me though is how many people seem to be now picking and choosing which lockdown rules to follow. There are far more cars on the road now than there have been before. People are starting to shop more often. They’re taking their kids to the supermarket as a jolly rather than only as a necessity. Those outings for daily exercise seem to be increasing in length and people are sometimes jumping in the car to go and do them. It’s almost as if people have forgotten the reason we’re doing all this.

I know things are hard, especially when you’re juggling everything as so many parents are, but I’m genuinely worried that this lax attitude that more and more people seem to have now is just going to cause a second peak in cases. I understand that there is a pressure to get the economy going again, but at what cost? I’m not convinced that everyone’s new laxer attitude is directly related to people needing to work though. That’s what concerns me most.

Back in our little bubble life has been progressing quite nicely over the last week, although things are so busy that I genuinely wonder how we ever found the time to actually go to school! Since the Easter holidays finished my daughter’s school work seems to have gone up rather a lot. Her school aren’t forcing her to do any of it, but she wants to try and keep up with what everyone else is doing. I’m trying to encourage her to do a bit each day and she’s actually been much better at cracking on and doing just that. Staying one step ahead of what she’s doing is the bigger challenge.

My son is somewhat harder to encourage to work, but he too has down some good stuff over the last week. I’m also working hard on trying to get him to see that him winning board games isn’t the only possible outcome of a family game. He didn’t take his first experience of losing at Monopoly very well. Then again, I wasn’t too impressed either when my daughter had me out this afternoon when I landed on her hotel on Park Lane!

The weather hasn’t been quite as nice this last week which means less garden time and on some days sadly none at all. The whole situation is so much easier to deal with if we can get outside regularly. Instead there have been a huge number of board games with the older kids and lots of CBeebies for the youngest. I figure that’s acceptable considering everything else going on.

My husband I have been trying hard to tag team as much as possible to both be able to work during the daytime and reduce the amount of evening time that I need to spend working. Some days it works well. On others not so much. I think the feeling of being constantly tired is just one I’m going to have to learn to put up with. Making more time to do things for me is helping my head though.

I’m charging ahead with one of my crochet blanket projects right now. Encouraged by managing to join in with my knitting group last week via Zoom, and also a crafty catch up with WI friends too. It was lovely to see what projects everyone has been working on. I’m also making more of an effort to actually watch things on TV when I sit down rather than just aimlessly putting on whatever I first come across when I turn it on. As well as the end of Race Around The World I’ve also finally started watching Friday Night Dinner and enjoyed this week’s lockdown version of HIGNFY (and been tickled by the idea of Ian Hislop having a cat called Colin!) With the kids we watched the musical of The Midnight Gang from the Chichester Festival Theatre, which was excellent. I thoroughly recommend it.

I’ve also just started on what I think might be a bit of a rabbit hole of documentaries by Molly Dineen. Tonight we watched Heart of the Angel after someone recommended it on Twitter. Utterly fascinating. Combine it with the Hidden London videos from the London Transport Museum and it’s made me realise how much I want to spend more time learning about the history of the Underground. Our Tube Stop Baby project may be on hold for a bit, but I’ve got plenty of stations that I still need to write up and loads more I want to learn about stations we haven’t yet made it to. This could keep me busy for a while! Combine it with some of the other classic documentaries that have made their way onto iPlayer and that should certainly keep me busy for a while longer.

Add in another board games night with friends on Skype (Chainstore this time – a write up to come soon), plenty more jigsaw puzzles and my son doing an online Beaver sleepover and it really has been a full week. The eldest two are here less this next week which means a bit more time, but also time missing them. I usually keep my self busy when they’re not here and get out quite a lot to distract me from missing them. That’s obviously not possible right now and the quiet after they’ve left is strangely loud.