Lockdown countdown

Goodness!  It seems the last time I updated this blog was April. And now it's nearly July.  And I don't even have a good excuse like 'we were in the middle of the ocean with no internet connection'.  Oops.  The NHS midwife in me says that, as it's not written down, May did not happen.  But that is obviously nonsense, because in May all sorts of things happened.

For example, Kit’s birthday.  We know Kit had a birthday in May, because we were reminded about it.  Every.  Single.  Day.  For weeks.  If anyone's wondering, by the way, what Kit would like for any future presents, the answer is the most garish item of clothing you can find.  I did my middle -class duty and tried to steer him in the direction of the Boden catalogue, pointing out all the applique/sequined wildlife motifs, but no, he wanted a pokemon hoodie.  And not the nice(ish) looking yellow one with a pickachu face on it.  No, he wanted the one that looked like someone had exploded a luminous paint set on it.  If it had come in shellsuit material he would've been even happier (it feels nicer, apparently).  B-day was also pokemon central (thank you Sarah, aka Queen of Party Decorations) - we had pin-the-tail-on-picachu, a pokeball pinjata, and inflatable pokemon balloons (oh, I can hear the pedants saying 'but all balloons are inflatable' - well, yes, technically, I suppose they are, but, be honest, you knew what I meant - I meant the ones with helium in, that float away while children wail when they inevitably let go of them. We actually still have a pikachu (no idea how to spell it, so I'm trying a few versions) stuck on the living room ceiling over a month later - there are threats to try to shoot him down, but that seems overly violent for a kids' toy - besides, I like seeing where he's wandered to from one day to the next...)

Kit's was not the only party in May though - Sarah and I were supposed to be celebrating her hen do on a 3-day, no-kids jolly with some other lovely ladies in a villa in Ibiza with a cocktail man.  I even bought a new bikini.  Instead I decorated a room here with more balloons and a giant inflatable flamingo (I had to blow it up bit by bit with rests in between - good thing I'm not a smoker or he would have been a very flaccid flamingo indeed).  There was also bunting to put up - but all the glittery letters fell out of the packet in a heap jumbled up - undeterred, I sent a photo to the other hens to ask what the letters were supposed to spell - quicker than Carol Vorderman, Hilde replied, but I shan't tell you what the answer was as it was too rude!  (Were rude words allowed on Countdown? Charlie once had a 7 letter word in Scrabble that was too rude to put down against his parents...)  We managed a 2 hour zoom call with 13 people - was lots of fun.  We had a brief discussion about how to play charades on zoom - private messaging, uploading photos, presentation mode - before giving up and deciding to go low tech - everyone closed their eyes while I showed the clue to the person doing the acting.  Then everyone else opened their eyes. Shhhh, don't tell Charlie - he thinks I'm a luddite already...

In other news, Roo made up for lost time and had 4 teeth fall out in the space of 10 days - he is very gappy and quite lispy now.  (Apparently, one of his friends was so worried by social distancing they left their tooth for the tooth fairy on the other side of the room...) And we had a home-made boat competition for Charlie's birthday.  Roo and I decided early on that we weren't going to win on engineering, so we went all out with decoration instead.  Charlie was hoping that this event would banish the memories of having been robbed in the home-made boat competition on board a Holland America cruise ship in 2008.  Alas, no.  He was beaten on coke-can carrying capacity, and on aesthetics.  We're trying not to mention it.

Home school has been going well - we talked about BLM and activism (very depressing to hear a 6 year old say 'but mummy, why would anyone do that, it's just so mean', but more hopeful to get them to figure out ways of changing the world. We tried to make it relevant to them - what would they do if no one under the age of 9 was allowed to use the metal detector - they said they'd ask the grown ups to change their mind and get the other kids on their side (like writing to your MP and starting a petition?)  The metal detector was great btw, we found a rusty nail, a copper button and two boats.  Well, BOATS - bits off a tractor.  We've now finished re-watching all 3 series of Detectorists (and found an extra Christmas special we didn't see first time round - very pleased about that) - haven't found anything to replace the end-of-the-evening void yet...

Right, have to go - I pinky-promised that I would read HP to the boys in front of the fire if they went to check the post.  Which they've done.  But apparently Kit 'might' have let one of the chickens into the kitchen when he came back in.  So I need to check that first.  (How do you 'maybe' let a chicken in?)

Much love to all

Hxx

Oh, I nearly forgot - this post is called 'lockdown countdown' because the countdown is on - flights to Spain on July 7th!  Gulp.