It was a rude awakening and not a great start to our new normal lockdown this week. Up early on Monday morning to make Jonny a packed lunch with a lump in my throat and the cat brought in a bird. A lifeless feathered friend which she thought was everything I wanted and which of course couldn’t be further from the truth. A bit like how the easing of lockdown feels to me. Other people, namely our government, thinks I should want normality to resume and while that would, in theory, be a great gift, it is actually just terrifying. And people are now complaining about teachers wearing PPE and looking too clinical as if they literally don’t care about being as careful as possible and would far rather risk another wave to get back to normal. I mean, the ultimate in selfish behaviour!
I’ve felt this week like the beginning of week one when I was angry and couldn’t work out in my head how to deal with the situation. Back then I decided by mid week that we had to make the best of it, make it fun where we could so it was less scary, do everything we could to be safe and to keep the children away from any fear. I have employed the same mentality. I am not happy that Jonny has been out of the house at school and I don’t think it is necessarily safe, but we have been and will continue to be as mindful and as safe as we possibly can using the techniques we know and we will continue to make the best of the situation. It’s the other people I’m mainly worried about.
Thankfully he wasn’t needed in much and for that I am grateful!
As far as I am concerned my children will be home now until September at least and we will cope with home schooling because we can and we will have fun. And hopefully Daddy will be here as much as he can be – next week he will be working from home too, phew.
This week of thinking about adjustment was not my favourite because I am so unsure of its necessity but we are working out how to do this as a tight family – we have that strength on our side and I’m using it! As Jonny was home more than he was in school it’s still a bit theoretical so I am going to try and feel the fear and do it anyway, that’s what they say to do right?!
Monday was the first day the rules allowed us to go and see other people in their gardens, up to six – still at a 2m distance but we are allowed. So the first thing we did was visit Gram in her glorious garden where she got out all the water play fun!I mean everyone just loved it!A change of scenery is as good as a holiday it seems!And such a sunshine day was asking for a bit of this!I ordered a pizza for lunch – an actual delivery as Gram lives close enough to the city for Just Eat unlike us!It felt special!Like a celebration!Social distancing in the garden of someone you love very much, who you would ordinarily be super close to was hard for all of us but better than not seeing her by far, the kids faces say it all!They trampolined!And played!And we might be still too far for a hug now but hopefully it’s coming!Tuesday was very warm but we couldn’t find any energy – this hay fever set in and we all had a lazy day. We had Indian chicken kebabs with naan bread!With home made pink lemonade!For once I barely took any photographs!But I did paint Florence’s nails like cow prints which she was keen on and I was not!Wednesday was when the temperature dropped and it was muggy. We of course have home school which is never fun for anyone – we either aren’t doing it right or we are useless at it and when I say we, I do mean me!BUt Jonny hasn’t had to be in school all the time so that has been nice to have him home to help and to do our daily walk – something we haven’t done for a couple of day s and was needed!We often do bike rides or walks we haven’t done before but our staples and we have three, the long one, the short one and the super short estate one! This day we did our long one!Raffie always starts out well but gets a bit in need of cajoling towards the end, catch Jimmy is a good one for getting him moving!My heart throb Jimmy presented me with a heart shaped petal that he found!We found lots of blown away petals and flowers – amazinf to have been doing this walk as a family a few times a week for the last 3 months nearly. We have really seen the vegetation change and it’s been so interesting!Florence likes this walk as on the way and the way back there are lots of places to skateboard!Wouldn’t be a family walk without a family photograph!Thursday was a bit cold actually so we mostly stayed hom having just a short walk in the afternoon. Jimmy played on Fortnite, of course!Florence got to unbox some LOL dolls for my Instagram!And Raffie got to play with the packaging, which he was more than happy with!The heavens opened on Friday and so Florence and Jonny painted her room!And the boys huddled up on the sofa to watch TV!And when it hailed they went outside to play in it – they built a hail man and called him Bob!And we all had a movie night to see the new;y released to Netflix and highly recommended by Florence who saw it with friends at the cinema, The Addams Family!Another rainy day for Saturday but we all needed to get out so we drive down the road to have a walk somewhere new and we found a GREAT Pooh sticks river!I’m pretty sure this one won every time!Florence and I now want to move here!Raffie thought it was the greatest place to dance! (Look at the light, I loved it)!His brother joined him – this is Jimmy’s dance which he taught Raffie – funny boys!It was a super soggy walk, but super lovely too!Big boys found a train track!And when we saw a train the littlest boy was VERY happy!And then very unhappy when we wanted to walk on!There was thunder and lightening and it was indeed very frightening if you’re two (but he had his big sister looking after him so he was ok)!But somehow, despite the cold and the wet and the lightening and the thunder, it was a really lovely walk!But we were quite pleased to reach the car just as it started to hail again!Sunday I drove past McDonalds and it just happened to have no queue so… Would have been rude not to!I was VERY popular when I got home – I’d been out attempting a different shop but hadn’t gone in (again) due to the volume of people, I just kept on driving!What a treat!Then we went on another ramble!Saw some ducks!Got wet!Rolled down really big hills!Got VERY muddy!Climbed on stuff!And Raffie hitched rides. With Florence!And me!But mainly Florence!
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