Well. Here we go again. Lockdown 2.0.
Except it’s nothing like the Original Lockdown.
How is it better?
The kids are in school and nursery.
Work is busy so a nice distraction.
I don’t really go out anyway so I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.
There’s a vague ending on the horizon. For now.
At time of writing that Baked Bean Trump is looking like he’s on his way out (please God).
How is it worse? The miserable weather means weekends can no longer be spent frolicking in the sprinkler (alas them, not me).
I have no reasonable excuse to open the back door and order them to amuse themselves outside for the afternoon so instead must enjoy having them, and their joyful noise, within earshot at all times.
We are in the second wave which, for me, lowers my optimism a little bit. In the first wave where we are now was a certainty. Now we must accept the very real possibility this may not be the last wave and that the vaccine they keep promising is not going to materialise.
All that said, I have to admit I really didn’t expect to get this far into the autumn (winter, even) with my full quota of marbles still clattering about in the same location.
I last posted here the week before school was due to start back, when I was just hoping for a week or two before we were thrown back into isolation. If I could get on top of my workload, catch up with myself and clear the decks, it’d feel like a little holiday. And then, when one or (heaven forbid both) of the kids’ year groups were sent home for a fortnight, I’d be in a far better place to manage childcare + work + our old friend, home schooling.
But, we made it to half term!
It didn’t always feel so certain, though. Within three days of school being back in session a child in Year 5 tested positive for Covid and the whole year was sent into a fortnight’s isolation. When that email came through at 6pm on a Sunday I genuinely went cold. And we weren’t even affected. It suddenly felt like this was going to be it for the rest of the year, waiting every day for the email from the head which tells us one of our year groups is being sent home.
However, when no more emails came that sicky dread faded and it is with great joy and huge privilege that I can confirm this half term has been gloriously, delightfully uneventful.
Henry and Bella are back in the classroom with their buddies and having a whale of a time. Xander has settled into nursery in record time and, not content with one big life change, he also picked the last few weeks to learn to walk and get his first two double teeth. All of which meant something had to give so he stopped sleeping for six weeks. But that’s ok, I’m a hard woman and once I decided the 2am parties were not related to illness or pain I left him to cry it out, and after two nights of stress we are now six nights into 12 hour sleeps once more. (I realise smuggery will only fast track me back to square one.)
And Andy and I have settled comfortably into our daily routine as colleagues, bringing each other cups of tea while each trying to avoid the other’s eternally enabled Zoom camera of work calls, and wondering how the hours between 9am and 3pm can disappear in what feels like 20 minutes, when the 3pm-8pm shift is like an eternity of vegetable consumption bribery, interminably tedious reading homework, splitting up fights over plastic tat, psyching ourselves up for three consecutive bedtime routines, and explaining for the umpteenth time why a bath is required (“look at your knees, Henry”), before enjoying an hour’s peace and then crawling into bed.
But hoorah, we made a full six (now seven) weeks without any drama! To celebrate, Andy and I both took half term off work and larked about with the kids, making up for a very crap summer on the entertainment front. We did rock climbing (never have I had so many panic attacks in such a concentrated period of time), we did trampolining (far be it from me to advise a 44 year old man that somersaulting will only ever end badly - thankfully only a sprained thumb), we went for pizza, wet walks in the woods, sleepovers at Nonna and Papa’s (yeah we made seven, call the police), a distanced Halloween and more afternoon movie and popcorn sessions than you can shake your square eyes at.
(And by the end of all that I was forced to admit that the stress of lockdown I had been blaming on work + kids + homeschool was actually just caused by kids. I love them but my goodness the noise….)
But now, once again, we say goodbye to swimming, tennis and ballet lessons, playdates, wine dates and generally diluting the chaos with other people, and hello to rainy Saturday afternoons either in the house or trudging round some fields and, when things get desperate, scurrying round the house putting all the clocks forward an hour so we can get them in bed and asleep by 7pm.
All that said, I’ve pledged to make the most of Lockdown 2.0.
First off, I’m going to get all my Christmas shopping bought, wrapped, labelled and, where necessary, ready to post by 2nd December.
Second, I’m going to walk/run 100 miles by the end of this month, not just in place of my Covid-cancelled exercise classes but as part of a charity challenge set for our family by my sister, Ray. (If I was in two minds about committing to this, my mother somehow managed to cover 5km in one day, largely by power walking round Morrisons, so the gauntlet has been well and truly laid.)
And finally I am going to get the blog back up and running. Which is a big old challenge in itself, given I am not leaving the house. Or, for the most part, my desk.
I hope I can bring a small amount of entertainment to your lockdown - or if nothing else I will help you waste three or four minutes every day, which has got to be a bonus.
In the meantime I’m going to go back and refresh the BBC News homepage for the 721st time today in the hope the blue bar has edged a little closer to 270 and given us one solitary reason to celebrate in 2020.
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