Last Updated on 17 January 2021 by Colette
I woke up on Monday morning of the second week of this new lockdown, feeling super anxious and panicky – I don’t know if I’d dreamt something or if it was just to do with the day ahead but it absolutely wasn’t a great way to start the week.
I dropped the girls off at school, had a conversation with the administrator about the changes to their Critical Worker policy (basically that my girls would have to attend full time or not at all – which I wasn’t at all comfortable with) and then came home to make sure Ben was getting started on his home learning. We decided to swerve his PE lesson in favour of taking Poppy for a walk – I figured that an hour of fresh air and conversation would be far better for all three of us than Ben slogging his way through a PE video and spending even longer in front of a screen.
I spent much of the rest of the morning rattling off a blog post about how the first week of this third lockdown had gone for us as a family and, as I had expected, I felt much better for spending some time writing and just getting my thoughts out of my head and down on paper (or at least on screen!).
I usually teach on Tuesdays but this has been changed temporarily to help school during the Lockdown period and so I’m teaching Fridays instead. It was nice on Monday, knowing that I still had an extra day to get stuff done, but I knew I’d be less happy about it at the end of the week – I’m not a fan of working Fridays and I’m so used to my working routine that it threw me all week! Hopefully I’ll get into the swing of that soon!
Tuesday morning was spent mostly at my desk writing before heading out to take Poppy for a walk and my osteo appointment – I’ve recently started wearing orthotics which has made the biggest difference to my hips and general pain which my osteo was thrilled about. The treatment itself was a joy – I always feel so much loser and more comfortable after she’s finished! On the way home I had a conversation with the girls’ headteacher about the critical worker policy change and thankfully he had had a change of heart and we agreed that the girls would now only need to be in school on the days Dave and I weren’t at home which I feel so much more comfortable with – obviously it’s harder work to have them at home, and both girls would probably rather I let them attend school full time if I’m honest, but morally, keeping them at home as much as possible feels like the right thing to do!
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday passed in a blur of school – three days for me, two for the girls and one for Ben. I’m finding my three days in school are wiping me out at the moment – we’re still finding our groove with everything and there’s a lot to think about (Zoom catch ups with the home learners have been the biggest learning for me in the last week – getting to grips with the technical side of things, keeping the children at home engaged whilst also managing the children sat on the carpet in class with me . . . I can’t wait to just have them all back in class!) The massive positive of being in school at the moment though is my colleagues – I work with some really very lovely people and the laughs in the staffroom at lunchtime are life saving.
Our typical weekends now focus around dog walks and bike rides (for the boys until it gets warmer) – but the heavy rain of this weekend meant we had no desire to go anywhere on Saturday! (Is anyone else just heartily sick of the mud?) I had a lie in, did some cleaning and went out to return some online shopping with Amy. The kids all tidied their rooms, Dave did some glossing and then Dave and Chloe made some pretty epic cheesecake brownies together.
Sunday morning saw Dave get up and out on his bike, though not before setting Ben up with an online spinning class (his brakes are still broken). Dave took the kids to church (how are they still open?!) and I enjoyed an hour or so in the house on my own – just pottering and tidying but in silence which feels like such a luxury at the moment! After lunch we did some brand work that I needed to film / photograph and then went out for a short walk. My knee was giving me grief which made things hard work (I fell on the ice two weeks ago and today we discovered that hills are absolutely not my friend at the moment.) It was quite busy – I much prefer getting out first thing when it’s quieter but our Sunday commitments just don’t really allow for that.
I feel better heading into week 3 as I’m more settled in how things are working for us as family – who needs to be where and when, and I’m getting to grips with how school looks too. I’m going to hit the ground running having ticked off most of this coming week’s blog work already which is a good feeling and means I will be more able to concentrate on helping the kids with their home learning as they need it.
