Day 12

Here we are on Day 12, the start of the working week.

I am very lucky to only work four days a week and Monday is my usual day off and like last week I am trying to stick to my routine of work days and non-work days.

Today has been an extremely lazy day. Simon has been sanding and filling his R2D2 model for most of the day and apart from sorting a few bits and bobs I have spent most of the day completing my jigsaw.

We took a walk out just after lunch and completed another couple of miles in about 50 minutes. It was quite a hilly walk today and thankfully the rain stayed away but it was a lot colder than of late. We still saw lots of people out and about; lots of dog walkers and an odd runner and yet again it was Simon and I that found ourselves walking off the path and into the ploughed fields to ensure that distance was kept.

My jigsaw is almost complete and it was only the failing light that meant I stopped today...although I did manage to get roped into Molly's online karate lesson to help her stretch!!

But that really is my day today...not a lot to report and that kind of sums up how I've been feeling. I had a pretty naff nights sleep a mixture of hot flushes (yes I am at that age!) and then a brain that wouldn't switch off. I think I am worrying (no I know I am!) about the food shopping that I will be collecting tomorrow; will I get everything that I've ordered? If I don't get things then I'm going to need to do a physical in-store shop and how is that going to work? I find myself feeling quite anxious about going out into the world and seeing others and having to maintain social distancing and then worrying about everything that I've touched.

Paranoia and anxiety are not good friends and I worry that these will start to define who I am; will they stay with me once all this is over with?; how will we all assimilate back into society when we get to the other side? Listening to the government briefings and hearing them acknowledge that this could go on for months and months in some shape or form is a very weird concept to get our heads around. I think it is going to be really interesting in years to come to look back at this and discover what actually happened and how it all unravelled and how it got to be as bad as it is now.

See you tomorrow
xx

Day 11

Day 11 and we have a lazy Sunday.

We have now entered British Summer Time officially by putting the clocks an hour forward and the weather is now the coldest it's been all week - oh the irony!

Initially we had a grey overcast start to the day with the weather trying to actually snow! But by midday everything had started to brighten up and whilst still cold and windy we had bright blue skies and sunshine.

We took, what is now our usual, walk out over the fields. It was cold and very blustery at times and it even tried to snow or hail at one point but we still managed a couple of miles in about 45 minutes. But yet again we were surprised by the number of people out walking and running; in fact we changed our intended direction a couple of times just to avoid people. And yet again why was it that it was me and Simon that had to leave the footpath and walk into fresh ploughed fields to ensure sufficient space between us and other walkers?!

I did pass comment though that whilst I will freely admit that we don't go out walking that often, despite being blessed with countryside on our doorstep, we have been out for a walk at the height of Summer and been able to walk these exact same routes and see no-one! So whilst it is great that people are recognising the need for exercise and fresh air it is equally as annoying when they choose to do it at the same time as us!

The rest of the day has been very much your quintessential lazy Sunday...an afternoon of doing some jigsaw (Disney themed of course) while Simon did some digital artwork.  Molly and Simon then 'went down the gym'...at the very on trend location of...'our garage' - lol!

From this...

...to this - pretty decent progress made

Simon's artwork - simonphipps.com

Ordinarily on a lazy day like this I would be worrying that I'd been wasting time and not getting enough out of my down time but whilst I suppose I could have found things to do it's not like anything that I need to get done is going anywhere any time soon. So whereas ordinarily I have a hard time of stopping and of just doing something that I want to do, and take time for myself, this Sunday I have been able to do just that and not feel guilty about it.

Oh and to round out my day and put a big smile on my face I was able to watch a premiere on YouTube from my favourite band White Lies, of a concert of theirs from 2009...and it was brilliant, so uplifting and reminded me how fortunate I was to get to see them live last year - twice! See my post from the beginning of this year to see photos of me with the band!!

And on that bright note I will say goodnight and see you tomorrow,
xx

Day 10

Day 10 and welcome to the weekend!

Yay it's Saturday so what shall we do today?...Oh I don't know shall we just have a day at home and chill? Sorry a little bit of sarcasm to start off my post today.

But yes that's just what me and my family and everyone else will be doing today...staying home and chilling.

Our day had a little rude awakening with the doorbell and a parcel delivery before 8am on a Saturday. Thankfully our postman did as he was supposed to and rang the bell, put the parcel in front of the door and left. Is it just me or is everyone else getting a little paranoid about things coming into the home from outside...when you don't know where something has been, how its been handled or who has handled it and never mind cleaning door handles, doorbells and being weary of refuse bins. I wonder if after all of this we are all going to turn into germaphobes?? So I will confess that the parcel did get wiped down with anti-bacterial wipes before it was opened!

The parcel was actually a bit of a treat I'd sorted for my kids; I know they're not kids but young adults now but hey I'm their mum and I can treat them if I want to. This was a little care package from Hotel Chocolat with some Easter themed treats and I'd also arranged for another package to go to my dad which he'd actually received yesterday.

So once the day was up and going Simon decided to spend a little time sanding the main body of the R2D2 that he is building which then meant it needed washing down afterwards which is easiest to do in our shower and that led to today's phrase of the day 'I'm just going to bathe my droid'!

We then had the joy of clearing out a blocked drain - whoop! Just a big dose of normality that somethings will still need sorting no matter what else is going off in the world.

This afternoon we had our daily walk out only today it was much colder and greyer than the rest of the week so much so my woolly hat was back on and we left armed with an umbrella. Thankfully it didn't rain but we managed 2.5 miles in just under 55 minutes and that included a stop by my dads house. Luckily my dad lives about a mile away so we were able to walk to his house and then be able to chat to him through his living room window. It was just nice to be able to see him and know that he's doing okay.

On our walk back we decided that rather than walk the main road route that we had taken to get to my dads we would walk back the 'scenic' route over the fields. We had met a few people on our walk to my dads but everyone had kept their distance, everyone smiled and acknowledged each other and we had only needed to cross to the other side of the road once when the pathway got too narrow for us to pass safely. In fact I had commented that not only was the main road so quiet that we could cross without any wait but also how other people out and about were acknowledging one another something that wouldn't generally happen as much in more 'normal' times.

So Simon said 'if we go over the field we will see less people'...okay that didn't really work out. Just as we started to head towards the first public pathway we met a gentleman walking his dog, now I don't want to sound mean but I think the term walk is a bit over energetic this very old looking dog was doing more of a waddle! So we gave space and passed each other before seeing a family cross over the road in front of us and head down the same pathway we were heading...so we stopped and gave them a little head start before following along. When we emerged into the field we found that there was another family ahead of us as well with two small children; we then began a very leisurely walk to make sure the gap between all of us was more than sufficient. As we emerged from the field and were about to head along the second footpath we noticed that the family with young children were exactly where we wanted to go and moving at a slow pace (as you would expect with young children) so we decided to follow an alternate pathway which took us back to the main road we had been trying to avoid! It's great to see people out and about getting exercise and fresh air but it does feel like a game of dodgeball at times!!

We decided a few walks back that we would start using the 'Strava' app to record where we walked and how long it took us, we have recorded 5 walks so far, walked a total of 10 miles and had 4 hours of activity - that's not too shabby.

Saturday has been a day of chilling and taking things at a steady pace; I have done a bit more on my current jigsaw, Molly has watched the complete series of High School Musical The Musical The Series and Simon has watched the follow up movie to Pacific Rim and we are now going to have an evening of RuPauls Drag Race and perhaps Frozen 2!

But in amongst all this 'chilling' we still can't escape from what's going on around us, the news and social media is still there and I find myself caught in the middle of wanting to know what's happening and at the same time not wanting to hear about it over and over. I saw a photo of my aunty this evening who works for the NHS in the North East all gowned up in the full protective gear and marvelled at her smiling face and simultaneously felt proud and worried. I then saw a quote a friend had posted on Facebook which resonated 'You're not stuck at home, you're safe at home'...by staying home we make the lives of all those working so hard within the NHS and elsewhere a darn sight easier it's not hard, it's really quite simple and it's our way of helping out in a horrid situation.

I am out of my usual red wine so tonight I have opened a bottle of champagne...or more likely a bubbly wine...so I will raise a glass to all of us that are doing our bit even if that is just staying at home.

xx

Day 9

Hello Day 9 and the last day of a working week!

Friday for me always signifies the end of the working week and time to get ready for a weekend off; of plans for going places, doing things or simply relaxing. So whilst this is all very different at the moment I think it's important to try and stick to that mindset and make the distinction between work days and days off.

In our house we have three of us that have been 'working from home'. Now Simon does this anyway as he has been very lucky to work from home for a number of years now, much preferable to the working away from home that we had to contend with for about 15 years or the long commutes 'down South'. Ethan is all set up now and seems to be getting on and managing his workload pretty well. I still have the admin side of pre-school work to keep me occupied and so that has helped to give an amount of focus to the day; my challenge has been to find moments to step away every now and then as I know I can easily get sucked into too much laptop time and the rabbit hole of social media!!

My morning consisted with the very important task of paying my team of girls at pre-school followed by some emails as I try and plan ahead for the coming weeks as I need to ensure that we can follow our governments guidelines for retaining staff and paying them while they are unable to work.

I then did some online food shopping...exciting stuff I know...actually ordering meat from an online butchers as an alternative to using my local supermarket. I can't get delivery until early May but thought you know what let's give this a go and who knows it may be a new way forward once all this current malarkey is sorted. Perhaps this may be one good thing to come out of all this, we may appreciate the smaller and independent businesses more and choose to go on supporting them after all of this.

Both Molly's karate and guitar lessons have now swapped to online and video versions and I think it's important for people to carry on supporting these types of small businesses wherever they can to try to ensure that businesses like this still have a future in a few months time.

It was another beautiful day again today, if a little chillier compared to the last couple of days, but we were able to get out for our usual walk over the fields next to where we live. A few other individuals were out and about but all at a good distance and on the way back we stopped in at the farm across from us to buy a dozen eggs.

I had great fun this afternoon doing a bit of Facebook Live for the Disney Dream Girls talking about some of my Disney collection and life in general. It was a very nice half hour of light relief and made me smile.

It is a weird situation that we all find ourselves in, we know that we are doing the right thing by staying home and not going out but at the same time that fights against everything we are used to do doing. We are only a few days into this and we need to find ways to cope with what whatever comes our way from the practicalities of shopping to simply getting through the days. Every part of me just wants to keep everyone safe and not have to venture out into the world but I know that over the next few days I will have to step out and that's going to be strange in itself; queuing to get into shops, keeping my distance from others, actually seeing other people, worrying that I 'might pick something up'...it is all rather unnerving and makes me wonder how we are all going to cope getting through this and how it will affect us all when we get to the other side!

Night all, see you tomorrow,
xx

Day 8

Day 8 and another bright and sunny day, if a little frosty first thing this morning.

Today has been a very quiet sort of day and has pretty much followed what is turning out to be our usual routine.

The morning was spent working; fielding emails and chasing emails as we now have to start thinking about the way forward with pre-school. How are we paying staff? What income will we have coming in over the next few weeks and months? What can we do to protect the pre-school and ensure it can re-open successfully after all this is over?

I have a great team of eight of us and we were all chatting this morning via WhatsApp; it is this team and the pre-school that I want to look out for at the moment, to ensure that we can return as strong as ever once all this is over.

I think I have the tendency to err on the side of caution and am just presuming that whatever it is that we are going through at the moment is going to go on for a fair few months if not longer. I'm not letting myself think too far ahead as I don't want to start making plans or dreaming about something for it to only get squashed.

We had tickets to go see a band called Boniface, tickets for The Gilded Merkin (burlesque show) and tickets to see Nick Offerman but all these have been cancelled or postponed. We should be going to a life drawing event called Dr Sketchy's in April and another burlesque show in May and I was supposed to be having some more Disney ink in April and all of these are either cancelled or moved. We won't even mention getting to the hairdresser...I might actually find out what my natural colour is!! We even have a hotel booked for July and I'm really not holding out much hope. I know people who have had to cancel weddings or not been able to attend funerals and I know friends who have plans over the coming months that may never come to pass. But I also know that in the grand scheme of things these are just 'stuff' and that we have to think of the bigger picture here; it's the ultimate short term pain long term gain.

Yesterday I was feeling quite anxious but today I have felt a lot calmer; I have had moments where my brain decides to go off on some random and usually bleak path but I have managed to either reign it back in or distract myself.

After our usual lunchtime walk I decided to tackle the ironing pile...I know this was very brave of me but there really was no excuse not to get it sorted - LOL! I got to see my good friend and fellow Disney Dream Girl Michelle this afternoon by the way of Facebook Live and tomorrow I think I shall do my own bit of 'going live'! I even got a little progress made with my current jigsaw.

So that's day 8, another day of staying home and getting used to a new way of living,

xx

Day 7

Here we are on day 7 and we have another bright, beautiful, blue sky and sunny day...the world is smiling while the human race doesn't quite know what to do with itself.

Mental health gets talked about a lot at the moment along with speculation of what it will be like when we get to the other side of 'all of this'. We can only take one day at a time, tackle the challenges that each day brings and recognise that we are all different, that we will all handle this in different ways and that is okay...there is no instruction manual and we are all making this up as we go along. It's okay to be busy, it's okay to be lazy, it's okay to set yourself new challenges, it's okay to binge watch that TV show you've never gotten around to watching, it's okay to stay in your PJ's, it's okay to dress up smart, it's okay to let the kids watch more TV than normal, it's okay to talk openly to each other...whatever you do each day it's okay!

A good part of today was spent doing some more pre-school work and fielding some emails and phone calls. But I have found my brain wandering a bit today and wrestling with the enormity of what we are all going through. I am normally logged into Facebook most of the day and will dip into Twitter and probably get a news website up at some point or other but I can feel myself actively drawing away from these today. Today I just feel overwhelmed by it all and am trying to keep the noise out of my head but it's pretty hard to do.

Molly said to me earlier that she didn't know what to do today and she just wanted to be productive; it must be hard for her seeing me, her dad and brother all 'doing stuff' while she is having to occupy herself. But it's early days and I hope that as time goes by and we all start to adjust that we find ways to combat this, perhaps we will take an online course or try a new craft or read a book - the things that we ordinarily 'don't have time' to do! Let's look at the positives that could be gained out of an awful situation.

We had our usual walk out at lunchtime and yet again discovered a new path...although we did cut through a field that I'm not wholly convinced is a public footpath but as the signage is so bad we kind of made it up as we went along. We saw quite a few people out and about but everyone kept their distance, thankfully.

I am hoping that we have enough supplies to keep us going until my next shop that I have booked as a collection from my local supermarket. The collection is from lockers so should mean that I can avoid contact with others but I'm going to try and get future shops to be delivered although getting delivery slots is proving rather tricky; looking online today (25th March) the next available date was 14th April! But I really want to try and avoid physically going into a store. If I have to go out shopping I think I will try and use the smaller shops in the hope that they may not be so busy. I've heard mixed reports today with some supermarkets being really good and controlling how many people in a store at any one point and keeping everyone 2 metres apart and then other horror stories that are the complete opposite! I fear shopping bills maybe more expensive as I will not be able to go to multiple shops as I usually do to get the best deals plus the smaller shops are usually more expensive. I may also have to resort to ordering the essentials of high quality dark chocolate and red wine online!! Now that could get expensive! #realifeproblems

I know I jest but this could be highly problematic for those on low wages, self employed or whose job has just stopped and the future is so unsure. Not only are we all faced with the practicalities of getting food on the table but we are also faced with the financial impact of delayed wages or no wages or who knows what! I know the UK government are putting systems in place and I know that eventually it sounds like they may have something in the works for self employed people but all these systems need setting up and that is going to take a fair few weeks to sort and people still have to survive in the meantime.

On a more positive note while listening to Spotify today I decided to go old skool and listen to Prince...OMG I am loving listening to him everything from totally uplifting to down right sexy to heartbreaking. We have been long time Prince fans and after seeing him live back in 1988 we have seen him too many times to recall, we even took both kids to see him back in 2007 on what would turn out to be his last UK tour. In fact we saw him twice on this tour and the first time we had tickets for an after-show concert in a small club which was just astounding. So many happy memories.

Collection of tickets from all the various Prince concerts we have been to!

Souvenir from our last concer - 3121 tour

See you tomorrow

xx

Day 6

Here we are on Day 6...

Today is really a work day for three of us; Simon already works from home so it's almost business as usual for him, Ethan has his second full day working from home and seems to be getting on ok and I decided to get up straight on some administration tasks for pre-school.

Highlight of this morning was being able to login to Disney+ for the first time in the UK.

Mickey cartoons at breakfast!

Although I've not had much chance to indulge yet Molly and me did have some fun assigning avatars to our profiles and then browsed the vast library of movies and shows. Although Simon is a bit disappointed that The Mandalorian has only a couple of episodes available and not the full series as yet. Molly is equally disappointed that High School Musical - the series has only the first episode available, although she has enjoyed watching The Suite Life of Zack & Cody!

The weather here has been absolutely beautiful and Simon and I took a walk out at lunch time to enjoy the fresh air and the sunshine. I did comment that as the human race goes into lockdown nature seems to be revelling in the freedom it's being granted from all of us!

This afternoon I completed some more work but made sure to step outside for my coffee break to enjoy the sunshine, top-up my vitamin D levels and to just take 5 minutes.

 Although I do need to share this photo...on a beautiful, sunny, spring day this is the view I have of my shed...

Yes...this is where my Christmas decorations are stored

After my work was finished for the day I took advantage of the good natural daylight to start a new jigsaw; this was a Christmas present from Molly's boyfriend Dan...

As much as I could manage before the light faded today

I shared these photos on Instagram and Dan responded pretty much straight away which just made me well up inside and feel all the more for these two. They have a long distance relationship anyway, living 195 miles apart, which they are managing wonderfully and then this comes along and spoils all their plans. As a mum every ounce of me just wants to put my arms around them and make everything alright but I can't and that is a rubbish feeling.

These are strange times that we are living, that none of us could ever have anticipated and how we get through will make us stronger for it. We have to believe that by going through this we will come together better as a society and hopefully be better people for it. I just hope that those that still flaunt the lockdown soon realise just how important it is to just do as you are told for once in your life. Yes it's pretty bleak at the moment but the quicker we all act as one the quicker we will get through it and more importantly actions now may help avoid too many unnecessary deaths and support our health system that we should all be so proud of at the best of times not just now. Some of us maybe in the position to volunteer and offer their time or resources and some of us can still help by staying home and not adding to the problem. Whether you stay home, volunteer or are a key worker we are all part of the bigger picture of beating this thing as quickly as possible.

xx