The Lockdown Diaries

[hobbes]

I did a proper tidy and sort of all my clothes and cupboards and under the bed. It only took 2 days.
I've also aerated the lawn and put some seed down. I'll need to water it in a bit tomorrow as it didn't rain last night as much as I thought it had.

Flew kites earlier. I love going kite flying with P and the cub. When P was young she and her Dad had some rather traumatic kite experiences (they'd never fly, her Dad would get all upset and close down, she'd assume it was her fault etc. not a very communicative bunch.) So a while ago I bought her a totally fool proof one and gave it to her when we'd gone to Blackheath to fly the cub's kite. The joy on her face as it soared was quite something.
There was a guy at the park who'd made his own kites from bamboo and baking paper who was brilliant at it. He must have had 200 meters of line out.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Love you, Benjm

[Benjm]

Enough of your sweet talk, Toby Gymshorts - I'll post a Wolves face mask picture when I'm good and ready.

[Antepli Ejderha]

That sounds really nice hobbes what kind of kite is that? I think my daughter would love to do something like that when she's a little older, she's not quite two.

[Ginger Yellow]

I did a proper tidy and sort of all my clothes and cupboards and under the bed. It only took 2 days.
I've also aerated the lawn and put some seed down. I'll need to water it in a bit tomorrow as it didn't rain last night as much as I thought it had.

Flew kites earlier. I love going kite flying with P and the cub. When P was young she and her Dad had some rather traumatic kite experiences (they'd never fly, her Dad would get all upset and close down, she'd assume it was her fault etc. not a very communicative bunch.) So a while ago I bought her a totally fool proof one and gave it to her when we'd gone to Blackheath to fly the cub's kite. The joy on her face as it soared was quite something.
There was a guy at the park who'd made his own kites from bamboo and baking paper who was brilliant at it. He must have had 200 meters of line out.

I was round your way on Saturday. Rode the bike to Biggin Hill and back, via Bromley (though I gave the town centre a miss).

[Balderdasha]

Day 95. Monday 22nd June.

And another week of "home schooling" begins. Topics today included: George and the Dragon, Peter Rabbit (the original animations from 1992 which turn out to be quite dark and still have the adults whipping the naughty bunny children), 3D shape sorting, 3D shape wordsearch, phonics, numbots, playing 20 questions, moving like different animals (bunny hops, etc), internet safety.

That took us up to lunchtime, my husband made pesto pasta with broccoli and green beans.

Then I had to do more deranged cleaning because my mum was due round after school. We've agreed we can go for distanced walks in the park, with the children, and can sit in the back garden together, and she can use the downstairs toilet, but I have vetoed physical hugging and going anywhere else for a trip in her car. So I treated the downstairs toilet to essentially the same cleaning regime I used on the upstairs bathroom over the weekend. The children helped a bit with the lounge, carrying toys and books upstairs. My husband hoovered everywhere in sight and sorted out all the shoes and coats in the downstairs hallway, which have a proper stand they're meant to be on, but are usually left in a big heap for everyone to trip over as soon as they come through the front door. So currently we may be hitting a bit of a record with having nearly four rooms in the house that don't look like they've been recently ransacked.

We played football in the park with my mum, and the kids climbed trees and we went to the bridge over the river and played poohsticks. Then we sat in the back garden and ate ice lollies. It was nice, but it did show that my kids are really unused to interacting with other people and find it a bit intense. After a come of hours my daughter started whispering "When is granny going home so I can play Minecraft?" So, both the children are banned from playing Nintendo switch today and instead are reading books.

I've just had to have a chat with my son about why the adults in Peter Rabbit were not being kind to the bunny children as he'd picked up two toy bunnies by their ears and was smacking their bottoms. I've explained that no-one will ever smack him and that adults don't do that now.

We've discovered a bizarre new gameshow called "the floor is lava" which is annoyingly repetitive but the kids think it's the most exciting programme ever.

[hobbes]

That sounds really nice hobbes what kind of kite is that? I think my daughter would love to do something like that when she's a little older, she's not quite two.

This is what I got for P but it would be too powerful for a little one. The cub can handle it just about, but he's 7 and the size of a ten year old. Same with my kite which is similar but more traditionally shaped.
The cub has one of these kites
It's smaller so has less power so the cub could use it straight away. It can be a little temperamental in low wind but should go pretty well. In fact on Sunday while it was blustery on the hill I spent a good hour just sitting on the ground as it flew itself while the "better" kites struggled a bit with the swirling of the breeze.

[Balderdasha]

Day 96. Tuesday 23rd June.

Home-schooling topics: more George and the Dragon, still life drawing of vegetables, 3D shape pattern making, making 'nature bunnies' (pictures of bunny rabbits using leaves as ears, etc), adding 'ful' and 'less' to words and using a dictionary to work out if they're real words or not, minibeast wordsearch, labelling the parts of an insect, singing a song about thoraxes and abdomens, reading more Beatrix Potter stories (Mrs Tiggywinkle is fortunately less disturbing than the one where some rats roll a live kitten up into some dough to make a pudding).

Husband made beans on toast for the kids for lunch and a nice feta and grapefruit salad for the adults. Then he took them out to the park while I phoned my dad to wish him a belated happy father's day (he claims not to care about it, but always appreciates the phone calls). Had to disagree with him and steer him away from his conversation about "why are there black people on midsummer murders now?", managed to find common ground by agreeing that historically there were lots of black cowboys and they are underrepresented on film, then had the chat about refrigeration in meat packing plants and whether that makes transmission of Covid-19 more likely.

Then went and joined my family in the park. Husband had bought a new frisbee to replace our disintegrated one and a whistling boomerang because on Sunday son had been trying to turn a stick into a boomerang. Scorchingly hot. I brought minimilks and a freezer pack out with me. Spent a while in the shade of the trees. Pleasantly, as 'real' playgrounds are closed, my kids are now creating their own natural playgrounds. There's one tree that's particularly good for climbing which they call "the climbing frame", one tree with a bouncy branch which works like a rocking horse, one branch that's good for swinging off.

I did some litter picking too, found some busted skateboard wheels near the ramps.

Had a chat in the phone with a friend in the back garden when I came back. I was reminiscing with him about when we used to fly on the budget airline called something like "GoAir" and whenever you travelled on the shuttles around (possibly Heathrow?) airport it would play this really jaunty tune "Go, go, go, go, go, boop, boop-de-boop" that really put you in a good holiday mood. Does anyone else remember that? I think they carried on playing the tune even after the airline collapsed.

For dinner I made Quorn nuggets with rice, satay sauce and loads of veg (broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, edamame beans, baby corn). Stop press, son ate some vegetables straight away without having to be bribed or coaxed!

Kids now watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film.

[S. aureus]

Your post has made me discover that there are two seasons of Midsomer Murders that I haven't seen!

[treibeis]

Today, right, the sixth-formers broke up for the summer holidays. So they were all in the park, crates of lime-flavoured beer, spotty faces, too-thin legs, too-big feet, too-big mouth, the works.

(I should point out that the park is a social divider. To the west, you've got the lawyers' and teachers' kids. To the east, you've got the schools that don't have a sixth form. I'm on about the kids from the west.)

So, the sixth-form kids turn up, ripped to the tits on somebody else's alcohol, need a piss. I tell them, because the law tells me, it ain't gonna happen. Alpha Sixth-Form Kid - good-looking, girl's lips, you know - starts quoting the Notdurftgesetz. That's a law that states that everybody's entitled to use any lavatory anywhere. It's the same as the law that states that everybody's entitled to a glass of water from anybody, or that London cabbies have to have a bale of straw in their boot in case the horse gets hungry. So I tell him to go do one.

Ten minutes later, Plod turns up and starts quoting the Notdurftgesetz. I tell them that the Seuchengesetz (epedemie law) trumps the Notdurftgesetz each and every time (which may or may not be true). Then Plod fucks off, which I, if I'd been them, would also have done. If they can make it up as they go along, then so can I.

[Balderdasha]

Day 97. Wednesday 24th June.

Everybody spent the day sniping at each other because of the heat. I was by far the worst offender. Things improved marginally when we stuck the kids in the paddling pool and I sat in the shade in the garden reading the rest of my book.

Then me and my husband had a date night sitting on our porch roof drinking gin and tonic, which was an unexpectedly lovely end to the day.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Straying briefly into haircut whingers territory, the latest lockdown easing guidelines have come in the nick of time, because this spell of hot weather has made me realise that I'm rocking quite a dense hair helmet at the moment and really need it thinned out a bit.

[treibeis]

I'm rocking quite a dense hair helmet at the moment and really need it thinned out a bit.

I currently look like a cross between a young Noddy Holder and Dougal off The Magic Roundabout.

[Nocturnal Submission]

I feel like I'm wearing a woolly hat.

[Patrick Thistle]

Kids now watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film.

The original or the reboot?

[Balderdasha]

The original or the reboot?

Reboot.

[Balderdasha]

Day 98. Thursday 25th June. 14 weeks completed.

Pictograms with daughter. Made Mr McGregor's garden out of Duplo with son and spent hours re-enacting all the Peter Rabbit stories.

Spent the afternoon cleaning all the individual parts of our pushchair and piecing it back together. It's in reasonable condition given the absolute battering it got for 6 years. I estimate it's got at least 10,000 miles on the clock. We might be able to get ?100 for it on one of the local selling sites.

Went to the shop in mask and gloves. I was the only non-employee who bothered with any protection. Bought supplies for a late afternoon barbecue which we're now enjoying. Requires three different varieties of burgers (pork and chorizo for husband, Quorn for me and son, breaded vegetable burgers for daughter), but at least everyone eats.

[treibeis]

Yesterday afternoon, there was a downpour in the park, which led to the scabby drunken youths in the park seeking shelter under my parasols.

I told them it wasn't on - there were about 20 of them under a 16m2 parasol - but they wouldn't move. I briefly considered the old advice about twatting the biggest, gobbiest member of the group in order to gain respect, but a) they were all smaller than me and b) the people present who were bigger than me were regulars who could duff me up with both hands tied behind their back. So, before anybody else beat me to it, I called the police.

What did Plod say? "Oh, come, come, now. I'm sure the group will disperse once the rain stops."

So, if anybody fancies a rave-up during the corona crisis, just turn up at my place when it's raining. Then you can do what you like, be as obnoxious as you like, infect as many people as you like, get infected by as many people as you like. The police said it's okay.

[Nefertiti2]

yesterday there was a downpour in a Hamburg park. A group of young people sough shelter under a parasol. The cafe operator considered responding violently but instead called the police.

the police told the cafe operator he had over reacted.

[HORN Reborn]

I think I've got this lockdown malarkey sussed.

6:00 Get up, read news.
7:00 Catch up on work emails.
7:30 Take tea up to Mrs H.
8:00 Joe Wicks exercise followed by shower.
8:30 Watch an episode of Frasier while drinking coffee.
9:00 "Work".
16:30 Exercise.
17:00 Relax/Dinner/Bed

We are growing increasingly numb to the challenges that the majority of households have to face in lockdown. At this rate when I retire I will be shamelessly voting Tory to protect the status quo.

[treibeis]

Fookin' 'ell, Chewie, what was it like working with Harrison Ford?

I'm seeing more "Minor Character In The Long Good Friday". An accountant, maybe, or a driver.

[Balderdasha]

Day 99. Friday 26th June.

Made Peter Rabbit paper dolls. Husband mowed the lawn and taught daughter how to make a PowerPoint presentation. Cheese ploughman's for lunch. Made kale and pearl barley tabbouleh for dinner (time intensive, very health freakish, but tasty). Watched the first hour of the first Lord of the Rings film with the kids with popcorn and mini marshmallows.

[Balderdasha]

Day 100. Saturday 27th June. Stupid enough this may sound, even though I tried to psyche myself up for six months of home schooling, I wasn't actually expecting to reach day 100. But here we are.

We let the kids loose with a giant box of Lego in the lounge today (all the pieces from various sets, they're just about old enough to trust them not to eat it or stick it up their noses). They played really nicely with it for hours. There was also a bug catching competition on Animal Crossing which was fun for a little while. We won a ladybird rug and a butterfly backpack, and various other insect themed fripperies.

Meanwhile, I tackled the home office. I've shredded multiple bags of paper, binned bags of rubbish, sorted endless odds and ends.

I made a sausage pasta dish for lunch (Quorn sausages, red onion, garlic, passata) with a fennel, beetroot, apple and walnut salad. Husband made soba noodles with tofu, courgette and peas in a soya and ginger sauce for dinner.

We've watched another hour of The Lord of the Rings. They've just left Rivendell.

[Patrick Thistle]

The mines of Moria is the best bit in the whole film trilogy. It's the second best bit in the book trilogy after the Ride of the Rohirrim.

"Rohan! Rohan has come!"

Hairs on the back of the neck stuff. Eowyn versus the Nazgul.

[Balderdasha]

Day 101. Sunday 28th June.

Lots of cooking. Banana and chocolate soya milk porridge for breakfast (running low on cow's milk). Veggie roast lunch (details on cooking thread). Chinese for dinner (steamed rice, edamame beans, veggie spring rolls, stir fry Quorn, red onion, bamboo shoots and water chestnuts in hoisin and garlic sauce, stir-fried Chinese scrambled egg and tomatoes, which I had forgotten about the existence of, until a friend reminded me the other day. I love Chinese scrambled eggs and tomatoes).

More sorting out of the home office, more shredding and binning things. Husband took the kids to the park for a couple of hours to play frisbee and longboard. Took some time for self care, relaxing shower, waxing legs, moisturising. Went for a walk on my own in the park and chatted to a friend and my mum.

Watched another 45 mins of Lord of the Rings. We've made it out of the mines of Moria.

Waiting for a Morrison's delivery now.