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    Originally posted by Balderdasha View Post
    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.

    That's one of the high points of the film, if memory serves. There's loads of substitutions and the orcs kick off big time.

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      Day 102. Monday 29th June. Entering week 15 of home schooling.

      Apparently the Peter Rabbit activities that were sent last week were a "home learning project" that was meant to last the whole of the remainder of term for my son i.e. 4 weeks. I thought it was the usual weekly plan so did all the activities with my son last week. Now the school is unwilling to provide any more activities for the last three weeks of term. Are they insane? What child wants to learn about Peter Rabbit for 4 solid weeks? What parent could do that without going loopy?

      Fortunately my daughter's school is still providing activities so we watched a story about lots of different dragons and she wrote about her favourite one while me and my son made ice dragons and fire dragons out of Duplo. Daughter also did some pictogram maths and some root word investigations, words that start with "tele" or "ex" or "astro".

      My excavation of the home office has turned up some old cheques from various governmental organisations that were never paid in. So I spent plenty of time on hold today phoning the various organisations. At least one has agreed to reissue a cheque so that's a boon.

      We accidentally left some garlic dough balls out of the fridge yesterday so the kids had those and pizza for lunch, and then hotdogs for tea. Husband and I had nice big salads instead.

      Got a phonecall in the afternoon to say I've got through to the interview stage of one of the women returner schemes (the email saying the same had ended up in spam). Which is great news, but now I have to prep and sort my hair out and get myself in the right head space, when frankly at the moment I'm just exhausted and want to sleep for a week.

      Watched the rest of the first Lord of the Rings film. Kids are enjoying it, but they have to watch it with an adult cuddling them and pausing it to explain every so often. It would be too intense for them otherwise.


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        It's not really a Lockdown Diaries thing, but I'll write it here so that the person who traipses around after me knows where to excrete:

        Today was the first official day of the summer holidays. Experience has shown that that's the day on which children who are looked after by state-employed carers turn up here.

        And so it was. A carer with six kids turned up an hour before opening time and wanted crazy golf, now, immediately. One of the kids was bearing a stick and beating the shit out of everything with it.

        I asked her whether it would be a good idea to let the kid with the stick play crazy golf - with a club, i.e. weapon, and that. She assured me it would be, and claimed he wasn't always like that.

        Half an hour later - 30 minutes before opening time - , I let them loose. I had to; the kid with the stick had already broken two ashtrays and upturned all the chairs. Bad.

        I deliberately gave the kid with the stick a golf club before the other five had received theirs. And what did he do? Whack another kid in the back with it, repeatedly, that's what he did. So repeatedly that an ambulance, and the police, came. Then the group fucked off. All 20 minutes before the official opening time.

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          Horrible. One question: do you yourself have to be there an hour before opening time?

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            Originally posted by Sporting View Post
            Horrible. One question: do you yourself have to be there an hour before opening time?
            No. I have to be there two hours before opening time in the week and three hours before opening time at the weekend.

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              Balderdasha if the kids want to know more about dragons then find the Ivor the Engine episode with the dragon in. It's really cool.

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                How hard is it to emigrate to New Zealand?
                I ask because it's a good 20 hours from my effing mother-in-law and the government doesn't seem especially eager to kill its citizens there.

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                  "Got a phonecall in the afternoon to say I've got through to the interview stage of one of the women returner schemes (the email saying the same had ended up in spam). Which is great news, but now I have to prep and sort my hair out and get myself in the right head space, when frankly at the moment I'm just exhausted and want to sleep for a week."
                  Balderdasha just tell us who the company is - I reckon every OTF-er would give you a reference based on your ability to write alone.

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                    I certainly would be thrilled to write one.

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                      Cheers guys, though I'm not entirely sure how I would word "and here are my references from Uncle Ethan and ursus arctos, no I don't know their real names, no I've never actually met them, but I write in a football forum they frequent, no not actually about football, I have no interest in football, sorry, which part do you find confusing?"

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                        I ventured over to the East Side yesterday to see how things were going in "Phase 2" (more retail establishments allowed to open, outdoor dining allowed, etc.)

                        I was surprised at some of the retail openings. There was actually a queue to get into the Lululemon (women's yoga and workout wear) shop and people in all of the mobile phone stores. Masks (now required for public transport and in shops) are just about universal, one now is jarred when you encounter someone above the age of 5 without one, as opposed to them being quite novel early on.

                        Our firm is reopening our NYC office on 13 July, but continuing to encourage everyone to work from home. Only 40 people at a time will be allowed in (we usually have more than 1000 people here), masks are required and the entry protocols are significant. We have already told everyone that there is no way we will be asking anyone to come in before the first week in September and may not do so even then.

                        The sense here is very much that white collar work in this city will never be the same as it was pre-pandemic.

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                          Day 103. Tuesday 30th June. Mid-point of the year. Tomorrow will be day 183 of the year with another 183 days to go.

                          Not one of our best days. I woke up early for a telephone appointment with the physiotherapist about my shoulder. Essentially I did all the exercises I was supposed to before lockdown and then they got swept aside in the car crash of home schooling so my shoulder hasn't really improved. Daughter kept interrupting me during the phone call to say she felt sick. She spent the whole morning languishing on the sofa and then vomited violently mid-afternoon. I'm not really sure what causes this. When she was at school I could think that she was catching bugs from the other little disgustoids or maybe that she was anxious about going to school, but given that this still happens about once a month or two when she has no contact with school it must be something else. I wonder if she has some sort of dietary intolerance.

                          Combination of daughter being sick and me not being in the right mood meant that no home school was even attempted today. I walked into town to collect my son's stuff from his nursery (spare clothes, wellies, his learning journal) and spent a bit of time sorting my head out. Looked around a local fancy house with nice grounds which has opened up for free, might take the kids there for a picnic another day. Town was much busier than previously, with only a smattering of people wearing masks. Some older people were making exaggerated comical pretences of keeping their distance while elbow bumping each other and giggling. I also chatted to a couple of friends on the phone and bought myself a meal deal and sat on a grassy bank eating it alone in peace. Sometimes it's important to skive a bit from parenting.

                          Back at home, I ministered to my sick daughter, played some Animal Crossing, made a Quorn spaghetti bolognese with tomato passata, onions, garlic, mushrooms and carrots blitzed into the sauce, did a load of laundry and started a painting project in the back garden.

                          We're on season 4 of The Expanse and it's still good.

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                            Originally posted by Balderdasha View Post
                            Cheers guys, though I'm not entirely sure how I would word "and here are my references from Uncle Ethan and ursus arctos, no I don't know their real names, no I've never actually met them, but I write in a football forum they frequent, no not actually about football, I have no interest in football, sorry, which part do you find confusing?"
                            Pah, small issues we'd easily overcome.

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                              Day 104. Wednesday 1st July.

                              New month, new creatures on Animal Crossing. So far we've caught quite a few new stag beetles and cicadas.

                              I spent a lot of today preparing for tomorrow's video interview. Part of it is researching stuff about the company and the job role I'm applying for, but part of it was also rehearsing trying to look presentable. I generally don't wear any make up and I haven't had a haircut in over four months so I'm not looking very professional. Putting on make up stresses me out, so I wanted to practice today. I managed to find all the good quality make up that I bought for my own wedding and have only used a handful of times since then. Fortunately because it's good quality, it's still ok 7 years later, and it's a variety that doesn't run down your face and make your eyes sting. I managed to get myself looking half presentable and it only took me two hours, so at least I know how much time I need to leave for that tomorrow.

                              Husband did home schooling while I did this. I did take the kids out litter picking for an hour in the afternoon. We now have a child's size litter picker as well as my adult one. Weirdest find today was a fishing net with an elongated handle (someone had taped long sticks to the original handle). We also saw another family we know and fed the ducks. There are at least two families with different aged ducklings on our local river. The older ducklings were learning how to dive for food, sticking their cute little bottoms up into the air.

                              Diet had to go out of the window a bit today due to time constraints so we had sandwiches and pancakes for lunch and husband made egg fried rice for dinner.

                              We've started The Two Towers now. Got as far as the first ent.
                              Last edited by Balderdasha; 01-07-2020, 20:28.

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                                When do English schools break up (virtually)? Our son finished last week.

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                                  Mid July usually

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                                    Originally posted by Sporting View Post
                                    When do English schools break up (virtually)? Our son finished last week.
                                    Friday 17th July

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                                      Good luck tomorrow Balderdasha

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                                        Saw my neighbour for the first time in ages. Apparently he and his wife had been indoors for sixteen weeks.

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                                          Originally posted by Balderdasha View Post
                                          Day 104. Wednesday 1st July.

                                          New month, new creatures on Animal Crossing. So far we've caught quite a few new stag beetles and cicadas.

                                          I spent a lot of today preparing for tomorrow's video interview. Part of it is researching stuff about the company and the job role I'm applying for, but part of it was also rehearsing trying to look presentable. I generally don't wear any make up and I haven't had a haircut in over four months so I'm not looking very professional. Putting on make up stresses me out, so I wanted to practice today. I managed to find all the good quality make up that I bought for my own wedding and have only used a handful of times since then. Fortunately because it's good quality, it's still ok 7 years later, and it's a variety that doesn't run down your face and make your eyes sting. I managed to get myself looking half presentable and it only took me two hours, so at least I know how much time I need to leave for that tomorrow.

                                          Husband did home schooling while I did this. I did take the kids out litter picking for an hour in the afternoon. We now have a child's size litter picker as well as my adult one. Weirdest find today was a fishing net with an elongated handle (someone had taped long sticks to the original handle). We also saw another family we know and fed the ducks. There are at least two families with different aged ducklings on our local river. The older ducklings were learning how to dive for food, sticking their cute little bottoms up into the air.

                                          Diet had to go out of the window a bit today due to time constraints so we had sandwiches and pancakes for lunch and husband made egg fried rice for dinner.

                                          We've started The Two Towers now. Got as far as the first ent.
                                          Did you make fancy gourmet duck food again?

                                          edit: oh, and good luck!

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                                            Just dashed up to the high street between showers to post something and pick up a prescription for the missus. Some observations.

                                            Still virtually no masks to be seen (think I saw one being worn) but, frankly, given the number of people around it didn't feel like a problem. I think that the numbers on the edge of suburbia allow for a bit of flexibility but I'd feel a lot less comfortable about it if I was further in to the city.

                                            The pharmacy was selling masks and had a special offer on hand sanitiser. Hopefully that's because supply is meeting or exceeding demand rather than any great laxness on the part of the locals.

                                            I popped along to my barbers to see if there was a note or something in the window with information about their reopening plans. As it turned out, the owner was inside so I had a quick chat and discovered that they're now doing appointments rather than returning to the pre-lockdown routine where you just turned up and hoped that the queue to be seen wasn't too long. Anyway, I'm in - 12.05pm on Saturday.

                                            The smart local Italian restaurant are turning an only partially-used outside area into a socially-distanced dining space, with permanent structures. Very impressive reaction to the crisis but not one that many financially-pressed businesses would be able to consider, I suppose.

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                                              Day 105. Thursday 2nd July.

                                              The interview is done. I'm exhausted. I think it went reasonably well but it's hard to tell. I should find out more in the next couple of weeks. Might be invited to a second stage interview.

                                              I tried to take the kids out to the nature reserve in the afternoon to say thank you for managing to keep quiet in the morning. We initially put our raincoats on because there had been showers earlier, but when we stepped outside the door it was glorious sunshine and boiling hot, so we left the coats behind. Just as we made it to the nature reserve the heavens opened. We sheltered under a large tree for a bit but there was no sign of it stopping, so I fashioned raincoats for the kids out of carrier bags that I had in a rucksack for litter picking and we ran home splashing in the puddles. I got thoroughly drenched but the kids thought it was a marvellously exciting adventure. Husband greeted us at home with warm towels and hot chocolate and we watched the rest of the Two Towers while eating pizza.

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                                                Will light a candle

                                                They should be so lucky as to get you

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                                                  I had a phone call this afternoon. I've two days work next week. Fuck knows how I'm going to get up...

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                                                    Originally posted by Balderdasha View Post
                                                    I fashioned raincoats for the kids out of carrier bags that I had in a rucksack for litter picking and we ran home splashing in the puddles. I got thoroughly drenched but the kids thought it was a marvellously exciting adventure. Husband greeted us at home with warm towels and hot chocolate and we watched the rest of the Two Towers while eating pizza.
                                                    They will remember this. "Remember the day we had to run home in litter bags, mummy, do you remember?"

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