Lockdown Diary Week Six!

Six weeks, that’s a summer holiday’s worth of time that we’ve been home on lockdown and I have to say that really and truly, aside from the weirdness of not seeing Gram and other family, it has rather felt like a summer holiday in lots of ways. We have been happy and enjoying each other’s company while basking on sunny days in the garden – when we’ve been gifted some sunshine that is, this past week it’s been thinner on the ground but not totally absent. In many ways we feel lucky to feel unaffected on a large scale and have been making the best of the situation if we can. It feels very strange that it’s been a summer holiday’s worth of time though and we still don’t know when and how things will get back to normal.

I feel very proud of the kiddos though who have just adapted. It helps that Beavers, cubs, ukulele etc are organising lessons remotely and that we’ve had family time on Zoom but really they have done mega well. They don’t moan (much) and Jimmy in particular has dealt wit his birthday coming at this odd time very well and with amazingly good grace, not sure I would have been the same at his age!

EIGHT! He turned EIGHT whole years old on Saturday and though eight IS still very little, it feels pretty grown up for my dinky boy to be another year older. We celebrated and had lots of fun with our army and world war 2 mad hooligan and I’m pretty sure he had a brilliant day! The build up of asking daily how many days reached fever pitch by last Monday and I shouldn’t think it will be long before he starts asking how many hundreds left until his next one. We had another lovely week and my lovely boy had his brilliant birthday – I’ve written a separate post for his birthday but couldn’t not mention it in the diary as it really was a day to remember. No massive trips, no meals out, nothing all singing or dancing at all really yet very special all the same and it’s made me wonder… All we really need is each other and I think perhaps birthdays to come may be a little less material and heavy on the thought and time with people as we all had such a fantastic day (and night as they slept in the tent which coincided with Beavers and cubs doing a remote sleep out too)!

And we feel especially blessed this week as after 11 years of working towards this goal Jonny has been offered and job (and accepted of course) to teach a mixed year 3 and 4 class at the school he was really enjoying learning at before the lockdown. He just loved it there and is mega excited to be starting in September which really will be 11 years after he started his OU course to get a degree hoping to one day use it to teach. It took 6 years and then we had the sticky issue of not being able to afford for him to take a year out teacher training but with some funny old decisions turning out to come clean in the wash we were finally able to tighten the belt for an unpaid year long on the job teacher training and now this… I am thriled for him. Happiness isn’t about money and this past few years have absolutely taught us that as a family. We had to take a massive reduction in income not just for this year of training but for the forseeable as an NQT wage isn’t really anywhere near what he is used to earning however, he is HAPPY! And he really wasn’t before. And ALL I want for anyone I love is them to have heartfelt reason to smile, thanks to Jonny right now we all do and we are over the moon for him and for us – he made his own luck, it certainly wasn’t handed to him on a plate and I think he’s bloody inspirational I really do!

Roll on more sunny days please!