Lockdown week 1

A week ago today the UK went into lockdown, although we are allowed out to shop for bare essentials or pick up medicine (as infrequently as possible), go to work if we’re essential workers, and go out once a day for exercise alone or with members of our household. So we’ve been settling into a new routine, which looks a bit like this.

As the Ladies Pond shut 10 days ago, I felt I had to create a similar morning routine, the best that I can. I start my day in the garden with a cup of tea (to replace that warming cup I used to have post swim - and I do it every day, regardless of the weather and temperature,) and last week the weather was amazing, so I had breakfast on my own out there too. After a couple of mornings I remembered that we have a pair of binoculars, and seeing as there are plenty of birds to look at, I’ve now become a novice bird watcher. There’s a great spotted woodpecker that I see most mornings, who always makes me smile, but one morning I saw two blue tits starting to build a nest in our neighbour’s tree and I started crying. I thought that it’s crazy that it has taken a worldwide pandemic to make me sit down and properly observe the wildlife in our garden, and that it’s always been there, but it’s never occurred to me to grab the binoculars and just pay attention.

I didn’t make it to the garden centre before the lockdown as the queues were ridiculous, so this flower bed won’t get the spring care that it deserves, but, you know, whatever. We are so lucky to have this space - especially now.

There is someone in the household who wants to go out in the garden too, but he’ll have to wait until we spend more time there. Sorry Budbud.

At 8.30 in the mornings we train with Joe Wicks; we can’t do it live at 9, as Oomoo’s class has its daily online morning meeting then. We’ve always had a preconceived idea about Joe Wicks, but after seeing him launch his daily PE (physical education) lessons for kids and their families, and his enthusiasm to get kids moving and especially now, we’ve come to like him. After the workout I have a cold shower with the window open as my body and mind is craving the cold waters of the Ladies Pond, and it works rather well.

Mr Famapa has taken on the role as Oomoo’s teacher, and he is also teaching one of O’s class mates via FaceTime, so they have daily maths classes together, and they also read to each other. They fortunately both had a book at home that neither of them had read, which they read alternate pages of out loud.

Oomoo is also teaching himself the theme tune to Gravity Falls on the guitar, which he does sporadically throughout the day.

In the afternoons, when the day’s home schooling ends, we all go out on a bike ride, for our daily quota of outdoor exercise. The empty roads is a cyclist’s dream, and we always come home feeling amazing.

I should make a little series of the rainbows that I see in the neighbourhood windows. I toyed with the idea of cycling into town to take pictures, but I want to be responsible and stay local, and you can always get pictures of empty streets if you get up early enough on any Sunday morning anyway, lockdown or not.

While Mr Famapa has taken on the role as teacher at home, I’m the cook/house keeper/janitor/groundskeeper (believe me, I have the easier job!), and I’m the one who ventures out and makes sure that we have what we need. Last time I went to the local big supermarket I had to stand in this queue for ten minutes before being let into the store. We all made sure we stood 2 metres apart, and waited patiently for our turn to go up to the shelves inside without breaking the distancing rules.

This is where pasta used to be. There still isn’t any to be seen, nor tinned or frozen foods, toilet paper or wine in this particular supermarket, but this time round the fresh foods section was full to the brim, which made me well up, as there hadn't been any the previous week. These are such strange times, and my emotions pops up in unexpected places.

At one end of our street (the more social one) they’ve put these chairs out, so neighbours can come out twice a week and have a chat, while keeping their distance. We cycled past them on Friday afternoon, and a few of them were out with a beer in hand, chatting to each other across the street.

On Saturday morning I met up with M, my pond swimming partner, who lives just a couple of streets away. We walked in our local park, two metres apart, and sat on separate benches, drinking our tea from thermoses, catching up.

The park was surprisingly busy at 8.15am in the morning, but this pic doesn’t reflect that.

Later the same day, back home, The Famapas finally watched one of my favourite films from my childhood - ‘Adventures in babysitting’. Did you see it back then? I LOVED that movie, and it was such a joy to watch it again with my guys, with all of us laughing together, especially at this dubbed sanitised Disney + version (“Don’t fool with the Lords of Hell! Don’t fool with the baby-sitter!” See? It’s rated 12 for a reason!).

There’s been games of Uno, Exploding Kittens and the like, as well as a couple of puzzles solved in the past week. I gave this puzzle to Mr Famapa a while back to slightly mess with him, thinking that it would be an impossible task. Yesterday the guys opened the box and sat down for what we all thought was going to be a very frustrating exercise, but it turned out the puzzle only had 100 big pieces, which we thought hilarious. It was over in 10 minutes.

And finally, Buddy, with his tail, catching the light rather nicely.

Hope you’re holding up OK, wherever you are. If you get a moment I’d love to hear what life is like for you right now. I’m fully aware of how idyllic this post makes the lockdown look (and it’s only week 1 - so let’s see where we’re at in week 6 or 7), and although our everyday life is continuing on rather well, we are as a family, as are everyone, facing uncertain times ahead. But there’s nothing that can be done about it now, so for our sanity’s sake we’re living in the here and now, and making the most of it.