Last Updated on 19 May 2020 by Colette
We’re still here. We’re still at home. Eight weeks in.
Looking back to the start of Lockdown, the idea of being stuck at home for eight weeks seemed unimaginable but I guess now, much as I still want it to be over, we’ve become more used to it. The pandemic itself isn’t always at the forefront of my mind, I don’t feel so constantly on edge. But equally I don’t “forget” that we’re on Lockdown now and find myself thinking “We should go out for tea tonight” – those sorts of thoughts have passed now as we’ve settled into this “new normal” (I hate that phrase almost as much as the words “unprecedented” or “strange / unusual times”).
I started the week feeling tired and wobbly after the Prime Minster’s announcement on Sunday night which left us all with more questions than answers. I didn’t sleep well and spent the whole day feeling fairly flat and uncertain about the next steps. I don’t usually watch the daily briefings or the news working on the basis that once schools were closed and furlough / self employed grants were announced, there was little else I needed to know. Of course the “address” on Sunday night was a little different and I felt it warranted my attention!
As I mentioned in my Week 7 diary, two of our three children will be among the first to be invited back to school – and this is something I have mixed emotions about (you can read my thoughts on whether we will send our children back to school here). I found that social media was definitely not a good place for me to be on Monday (or in fact most of the rest of the week) and I basically avoided being online as much as possible.
I felt better on Tuesday – this often seems to be the case for me at the moment; a bad day is just that, a bad day. We start again. Dave was out at work all day but the kids were pretty good at just getting on with their work – Amy seems to be less inclined to argue with me about it now thank goodness – though I have noticed she needs me to keep a close eye on what she’s submitting to her teacher as she often does half a job if I’m not supervising. On Tuesday afternoon the postman delivered three letters for the kids from Granny – they were super excited to have post and really enjoyed reading their letters. Mum had gone to great lengths to make sure she told them all different things in case they compared their letters – so it was nice for them to be able to tell each other what she had said. I rang her to tell her the letters had arrived and we ended up chatting for about an hour and a half which was really lovely and nicely passed a good chunk of the afternoon for me!
Wednesday saw the first official day of the new guidance – though in all honesty I think mostly people started following (or continuing to ignore) the new rules from Monday. Will delivered us some homemade brownies and then we took Poppy for a walk in the park together. The kids were gutted that they couldn’t come with us but thankfully are old enough to understand that “the Prime Minster said we could only meet one person at a time”. It was so nice to be able to see Will properly (rather than down the garden path) and have a chat without the kids to distract us – the half hour we were out flew by. Of course having to keep our distance and not being able to hug him when he left was hard, I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that – nor do I want to. I can’t wait for the time we can have physical contact with those we are close to.
The highlight of Thursday was a new fence panel – now if you follow me on instagram, you’ll know I’m not even joking! Our garden has been something of an accidental Lockdown project – in the 12 years we’ve lived here we’ve never quite got on top of the space but with time on our hands and the weather being kind, Dave and I have spent a lot of time sorting the garden. For me that has mainly involved painting the fence – all the way down both sides of the house so far. I had left the back left panel as we were waiting for it to be replaced with a new taller panel – there’s a couple of reasons we wanted to do this but mainly just for privacy. The new panel finally turned up on Thursday after Dave chased the fence guy and it was in and fitted in record time. I was super giddy that the back corner of our garden (where we’ve now created a patio / seating area) is now private and can’t wait to be able to make use of it.
On Friday, Poppy and I took a drive to York to see my parents for the first time in three months. I would never ever go that long without seeing them usually so it’s been hard. March and April should have been packed with visits for Mother’s Day / my birthday / our birthday meal / Easter weekend – and of course none of those things could happen. We’ve had Poppy for 8 weeks now and I was dying to be able to introduce her to everyone – especially Tilly! – so she came with me. It was the longest car journey she’d done since we brought her home and, despite being nervous, she coped really well right up until we were about 15 mins from York and she was sick . . . Thankfully the journey home was less eventful and she slept the whole way!
For me, just 2.5hr round trip in the car on my own was a joy – a chance to listen to podcasts and be on my own – though after over 8 weeks of not really being in the car, it did feel pretty strange!
Saturday was a hard day which we mostly spent not flying to New York on our much planned for and looked forward to trip. . . Sad times. I also had absolutely killer period pain which just added to the joy – there was no joy. I cried a lot. Dave spent the afternoon fixing some niggles with the new fence panel (it didn’t match up in the corner and it was really bugging me because it made it look “plonked”, he also tidied up some fairly slapdash workmanship). In the meantime, I cleaned (anyone else really missing their cleaner?) and then started painting the new panel once Dave had finished.
Aside from a lovely walk in the park with Mich on this morning, the day has followed the heavy Lockdown theme of fence, fence, fence – I finished painting the new panel and then made a start across the back – I’d been umming and ahhing about painting it as I knew the blue was going to be an absolute nightmare to cover but in the ended we decided that a tonal grey would be better than the bright blue so Dave picked me up a different brand of paint which thankfully has done the trick and is covering the blue nicely (two panels down, three to go!) (Oh and Dave decided to trim our holly bush into some sort of weird Minecraft-esque topiary)
It’s been a funny old week – and whilst on the whole I feel fairly settled and less anxious, I’ve felt very sad and flat – oddly sad for Ben that he’d missed SATs week (not because I agree with the tests themselves but more for the things he’d missed like having toast for breakfast at school each day or a party at the end of the week – things that are part of his rite of passage as a Year 6!), sad for our cancelled trip to New York, just sad for so many reasons I guess. Hopefully next week will see a brighter mood.
