Lockdown blues

Be thankful I didn't write this this morning - I woke up with a large dose of lockdown blues (if this blog had a facility to have sound I'd add harmonica at this point.  In fact, it probably does have that function, I'm just too much of a technotwerp to figure it out.  Where's a teenager when you need one?).  Guess it had to happen at some point, and 4 weeks in isn't too bad (or is it 5 weeks?)  Probably not helped by two large rum and tonics last night and staying up late talking to Charlie about the futility of life without a purpose and whether we'll ever be able to travel again anywhere ever. There was a small high point in our discussion when we found out that friends in Spain have, yesterday, been allowed to take their kids outside for an hour (woo! first time in 6 weeks) - this is a positive sign that things are improving, and might mean we could finally get to our boat.  Charlie is all in favour of heading out to Spain as soon as we possibly can, so he can start being Captain Daddy as planned.  But I am feeling uncharacteristically pessimistic about it all. What's the point in going if all the quirky cafes and quaint old buildings are closed and we can't explore the secluded bays an beaches. What happens if it all totally shuts down again?  So, I was wondering if maybe we should just postpone the whole trip for a year, as our friends have postponed their wedding, on the basis that a decision, even if not the outcome that we wanted, is better than being in limbo as we currently are?  At least then I could go back to work and feel useful.  Charlie was less keen on this idea as a) it would mean being further away from our adventure and b) if I went back to work he'd have to look after the boys on his own.  I'd like to say a) was the greater influence on his thinking but I'm not entirely convinced...

So, after all that, we went to bed feeling grumpy and tired and disillusioned and impotent (hmm, possibly not the best adjective to use in the same sentence talking about going to bed?  I meant in terms of not being masters of our own destiny as we are waiting on other people's decisions, obvs)  But I've been for a run in the sunshine now (current favourite soundtrack is Christine and the Queens, but the French versions, not the English ones, as it makes me feel much more cultured - I'm not really that cultured though as I spent the whole run daydreaming about being a Musketeer - 3 series (I refuse to call them seasons) on iPlayer - you can thank me later).  Feeling much better now - who says I have no purpose in life?  I just built the Spinjitzu Monastery out of a cereal box for a delighted 5 year old.  (He did point out that it ought to be red and black, not red and purple - I told him he should take it up with Kellogs)  I was due a parenting win though - last week Roo and I were learning about codes and ciphers in school - he was being mighty annoying so I wrote him a code that said 'it's no fun doing school with you if you don't concentrate'.  So then he wrote a message back to me in code that said 'I love you'.  I felt really bad :(  Actually, he's been lovely this week - I've been reading them Winnie the Pooh, and was totally unprepared for the last chapter, where the animals are aware that Christopher Robin is going away for some unspecified reason (going to school?  growing up?), so they make him a poem and say goodbye and - well, that's as far as I got before I couldn't read anymore - the tears were streaming down my face and I was sobbing - Kit asked me if I was 'happy sad' or 'sad sad' and Roo said 'it's alright mummy, I'll read the rest' - so I cried some more at that point as Christopher Robin takes Pooh to an enchanted place in the forest and explains that he'll always be with him even if he's not actually there.  Took me all day to recover!  

Happily, Charlie is also feeling refreshed and motivated - you can tell this as we have hardly seen him the last 3 days.  Instead he has been mostly...videoing himself in the garden with a selfie stick - yes, you read that right, he has bought a selfie stick.  But, it's all in a good cause.  He's been thinking about how to reach a wider audience with his pilates teaching for years, and wondering about putting classes online, but he's never had the time - not an excuse anymore.  So, he's recorded, and edited, his first lesson and it's on YouTube now - go there and like it/subscribe and give him feedback (do you like his trousers?  can you hear and follow the instructions? should he do the whole thing in lycra? more/less banter?). The first lesson's not very exciting - lots of small movements and breathing - but it's important to get the basics right so you don't hurt yourselves.  After he posted the video yesterday we had hourly updates about how many likes/views/subscribers he's got - edge of the seat stuff, I'm telling you.

What else have we been up to?  We felled a couple of trees, had a couple of BBQs and a takeaway (cause of excitement in this house - I'm in charge of rations and hate waste so we're never allowed takeaway unless there's nothing else to eat - yesterday there was only BBQ left overs for dinner and we'd already had that for lunch and dinner the night before, so I relented, much to everyone else's delight).  No more Dead Things to report on this week either.  

I might go and have a cup of tea now.  As ever, do let us know how you're getting on.  No one's been brave enough to use the comments yet - go on, you know you want to...

Hx

PS how could I forget?! I've got lockdown hair - I joined in with the communal hair dyeing project and now I look like the woman from Roxette....still wondering if that's a good thing or not...

Lockdown hightlights

Ahoy there! Update from me (Helen) today instead. We are the picture of a modern loving family just now - all plugged into our individual screens! And to think I thought this adventure would bring us closer together... Ah well.

It's been a while since we last wrote on the blog, as neither of us was really sure what to write - we are acutely aware that for most people, lockdown has been/is really hard, so it didn't seem fair to write about what we've been up to here, where we are actually having a really good time. But, then we agreed that the whole point of the blog is to write about our lives and our adventures, and no one wants to hear about boring stuff, so here, after all, are the highlights of the last few weeks:

 - lots of dead things - we found loads of badger setts on a walk - we know they were badger setts and not fox dens as we also found a dead badger. Sadly, I've still never yet seen a live one. The dead one was fascinating though. The children were a bit more hesitant in their appreciation! Which is why, when I found half a dead frog (with a bit of spine exposed) and a whole, fresh dead shrew (vole?) yesterday I suggested we dissect them in homeschool. I had visions of that being the prompt for the children becoming surgeons or the next David Attenborough. Charlie, however, vetoed the idea and said I'd give the boys nightmares instead. Now my housemates think I have an unnatural obsession with dead things...

- Margaret - and just to prove I'm not obsessed with dead things, we rescued a bee and stopped it from being A Dead Thing - we found it (well, her, as we discovered all male bumblebees die at the end of the season and it's only the females that hibernate, so we called her Margaret), looking a bit woozy in the garden - think the poor thing had just woken up a few days too early, lulled into a false sense of security by a day of warm weather. We gave her some sugar and water (we grew up with Blue Peter so knew exactly what to do) and watched her lap it up with her tongue. Amazing! She had a little rest overnight, then started cleaning her wings and we released her the next day.

- homeschool - OMG - how are any of you doing homeschool while still working? We are managing 1.5-2 hours a day and that's exhausting enough when we don't have anything else to do! We've done experiments with lemon juice/baking powder (produced C02 to blow up a balloon), made a castle (with working portcullis) out of toilet roll, practiced guitar, and tried to work out why we have eggs and rabbits and chocolate at Easter (needless to say reading the bible didn't help with that). Thankfully the 'bigger boys' are arriving tomorrow (age 12 and 14) so that will entertain our smaller boys - Kit will ask from the second he gets up when will they be awake (they are teenagers, so the answer is always, after lunch), and then he'll follow them around like a groupie all day. It is quite endearing. And they are *so* patient with him. Thanks boys!!

- pilates - C has been teaching us all pilates - every 2 or 3 days we've been having lessons and I'm happy to report, we're getting better. Even managed one lesson outside. I've been running, and C tried a bit, but he's had to stop before he injured himself. Not to be deterred from getting his hour of daily exercise though, he found a bicycle in a outbuilding, fixed a pump in a Heath-Robinson style, and went cycling without bibshorts, fancy pedals or shoes or even a bike computer. Who knew such a thing was possible?! He came back a happier man though, so all good (he's been pretty down the last week as the reality of 3 more weeks of lockdown hit and the possibility of getting to LG slipped further away)

- raft - having said that though, we did manage to get afloat last week! There is an ornamental pond/lake here, with pontoon, so C and the others built (again in a Heath Robinson style) a raft, out of pallets and old containers and bits of rope, and we spent a happy few hours rowing the thing up and down (only let the children go on after C had taken his phone out of his pocket and taken his shoes and jumper off, just in case...)

Right, think that's all for now. Actually, no - I nearly forgot! I've been to hospital! With the world's most pathetic injury. I fell and got a thorn in my hand (well, I assume it was a thorn - I didn't actually see it - given the after effects though I'm wondering if it was, in fact, the lesser spotted blue fang tooth hairy spider or similar. It was pretty sore at the time but got worse all afternoon until I ended up calling 111 at about 2000 as I couldn't move my little finger or index finger and my middle finger and wrist were beginning to get in on the act too. Happy to report that one out of hours appt (hospital was empty, very hard to put on face mask/hand gel with a dodgy hand, staff couldn't have been kinder) and a couple of days of flucloxocillin later, it's nearly back to normal :) (C and I were pondering, on the way to the hospital, does anyone ever phone 111 and not get an out of hours appt? Every time we call we get an appt - is that just because we only call when we're actually sick? But if everyone always got an appt there'd be no need for a phone triage system. So what does everyone else call them about?)

Right, that really is all for now. I can hear the dulcet tones of the boys next door arguing about who's turn it is on the game boy (they can't find the charger for the other one). I shall have to intervene, but I'm loathe to do so as they might suggest playing the same game as yesterday when I spent over an hour with them pretending to be knights with helmets and swords, rescuing a princess from a dragon in the dungeons and then building a den in the time honoured fashion out of cushions and tables and blankets. I was Sir whinge-alot (whose accent was most west country, but slid into yorkshire and then irish for some reason), Kit was Sir eat-alot and Roo was Sir sleep-alot). Wish I could hand on heart say it was fun - I've just never been into imaginative play - I simply don't get it :( they thought it was great though and that's the main thing. 

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Much love Hxx