Lockdown Diaries: May 12th – May 18th 2020

Read Time:4 Minute, 17 Second

Tuesday 12th May

The bird is dead

Wednesday 13th May

The spider we caught last week has been released….we couldn’t risk any more blood on our hands! Also try as we might we just couldn’t catch a damn fly to give the spider some live prey….

Our washing machine has broken I’ve tried fixing it, it still doesn’t work. I’ve undoubtedly made it worse so we have had to order a new one.

Thursday 14th May

We had a lovely quick visit from the London Crocker’s who out of desperation to get out of London and to also drop off a box of goodies for Darcy came and said hello. We practiced social distancing outside in the open, however, it has made me realise how kids are simply unable to judge what 2m is. It is slightly disconcerting seeing as they want to re-introduce kids at school from June 1st…I am sceptical to say the least! Can any kid do this? One of the mums at my kids school raised a good point -most parents and primary schools fail to even stop the constant spread of nits so how in the hell is maintaining social distancing possible??

I got an email saying my coveted yeast had been dispatched I can’t wait we’re suffering severe homemade pizza withdrawal….

Friday 15th May

I found a suspect mark on my eyebrow earlier and started freaking out as I couldn’t tell what it was the longer I was looking at my face the more my face just didn’t look like me, you know like when you look at the spelling of a familiar word for too long and it starts to look all wrong? I had convinced myself that my brow bone had dropped and had got all puffy….I then thought that I must have had a stroke and not realised. I was going through all the things that I would have to explain to the doctor, like how long my face had been all puffy and droopy, and how I wouldn’t have been able to answer because I have a really heavy fringe and don’t often look at that area ….(even more so in lockdown where I have neglected even plucking my eyebrows). I finally thought I’d better get Joe to check me over for suspected stroke, he took one look at me said the mark looked like a freckle and as far he could tell, I looked exactly how I always have…..My neurosis has reached peak level guys – I have resolutely made an oath to myself not to look under the fringe again.

Saturday 16th May

Washing machine should arrive today anytime from 7am – we don’t do 7am at the moment so this will be interesting.

Frank has been practicing some fighting moves – when I caught him doing the moves I asked him what he was doing. He explained that the moves just popped into his head and he wanted to perfect them in case he ever needed to fight off any baddies. The overall technique is slightly hilarious but the effort is quite outstanding!

Nancy has a goddamn verruca, there have been tears and a lot of bazuka, the whole experience has resulted in her asking me why do I use the f word so much? I honestly couldn’t fucking tell her!!!!!

Sunday 17th May

Some things I’ve overheard from the kids today:

‘Baby hedgehogs are called piglets, they look like willies with spikes to me’

‘I was trying to talk to the baby bird, but I suddenly thought, hang on, I can only talk to pigeons.’

‘Everyone knows Nancy is weird, they know me as an artist’

Caught the middle one packing her bags today because she would like to live elsewhere (I think we can all relate to that right now!) After several hours of packing she has just come and told me that she has in fact made her decision to stay here with us! We are all very relieved!

Monday 18th May

I am trying a new approach to our homeschooling instead of the maths and English sheets that seem to be boring the kids no end. I have asked them to each pick a topic and I will set them a selection of questions that they need to find the answers to. They then can use the information they learn to build up a fact finder file. I was very self congratulatory at 9:30 this morning by 10:30 it was a different story entirely! Considering they picked the bloody subjects I was expecting slightly more than 1 hours concentration….but as we approached the 45 minute mark you’d have thought I’d set them a 2,000 word essay on how Charles Dickens represents class struggles through his novels with the amount of exhaustion they were experiencing! I know everybody says the same thing but I really have so much respect for teachers and how they manage to engage my kids on a daily basis!