Lockdown Home-schooling - What Have We Learned?

(Before I start, apologies for the ENORMOUS text.  I'm not trying to shout - this post's settings are just screwed up...)

So.  Here we are in Week 14 of Home Learning.  (Well - Wk 12 if you deduct the two week holiday in the middle.  I don't.  Because it didn't really seem like a holiday, what with all the fretting and worrying etc).  What have we learned, parents?

• Back at the start of this, you may have set up work stations to help everyone get their work done in peace.  Cue hollow laughter.  We've always known it, and Lockdown has confirmed it; the kitchen table is magnetic. It draws in people, pencil cases, clutter, bowls of fruit, old receipts, unread books and laptops like some kind of domestic Death Star.  To top this off, the chairs around it will be festooned with charging cables, earphone cords, dog leads, cardigans and sweatshirts like the cobwebs in the cave of Shelob the spider in The Lord of Rings, and all of them - ALL of them - are directly in the dog's path when the doorbell rings and he goes from snoring noisily in the corner to a one hundred mile an hour dash though the house. And as he races, barking crazily, towards the front door to defend his territory from the evil postman, you and your kids will have to throw yourselves across the whole set of wire spaghetti to stop your precious electronics crashing to the floor like a sea captain and her crew trying to protect their charts in a heavy squall.
  
  

• And whilst we're on the subject of the kitchen table (that you and your children sit at all day, every day, Every. Ruddy. Day.  FOR EVER.), sooner or later books will be lost, pens mislaid, cups of tea and glasses of water knocked over and you - YOU - will have to a) clear it up and b) not lose your shit about this because c) this whole situation is ridiculous and frankly, not your childrens' fault and d) if you don't it's your phone that will get soaked (because your kids' phones are, of course, in their hands).
  
  
• Speaking of your phone, it goes missing, about twenty times a day... 
  
  
•  ... and it's always exactly where you left it, in the first place you looked but couldn't find it, as if some malicious house elf has been messing with your mind.
  
  
• You can never find though, until you ask one of your kids to call it for you and it reveals itself nestled in the leaf-litter on the kitchen table, tucked safely between a Domino's pizza flyer and the text book one of your children last opened on Lockdown Week 2 and which - despite repeated requests it be put away - has somehow mysteriously made it's way from table to counter and back again every day for the last 12 weeks 
  
  
• Breathe.  Deeply.
  
  
• Furthermore, and I can't believe this will come as a surprise to most parents, children can be impressively sneaky when it comes to online learning.  (MY children, at any rate).  They will wait until your attention is directed elsewhere and then toggle across from whatever they are supposed to be looking at online to something way more entertaining.  And should you dare ask questions about what exactly they've been working on, or ask to see the work they need to submit, you may be treated to an Oscar-winning performance of hurt and disappointed indignation that you could ever doubt their actions.  (This is usually where I point out that they're not fooling me - I was once a child, too).
  
  
• I don't blame them, having been known to flip my screen from browsing through holiday porn to that VERY IMPORTANT E-MAIL when I hear them about to enter the room...
  
  
• Last, but most definitely not least, time spent alone outside for odd huff, puff and - possibly - scream is an underrated form of therapy.

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Things that no longer happen in Lockdown

A more reflective post today.  

Things I have let slide since Lockdown started:

Wearing earrings.  In fact I'm not wearing much jewellery at all.  Why is that?  It's not as if I'm usually blinged up to the max, but right now most days even putting on my engagement ring seems a bit over the top.  Unless I'm off to the supermarket, of course - well, one has to keep up appearances. Note to self, however; it's no big deal if you don't wear rings from one week to the next, you just slide them on when you want.  Earrings, though.  Ouch.  OUCH.

Wearing make-up.  There have been a few evenings recently when I've begun to take off my mascara only to realise that I never put it on in the first place. Not quite there with the keeping up appearances, then.

Doing laundry every day.  I have no idea how this one's working, but somehow there is less laundry to be done.  I don't THINK my sons are re-wearing dirty-clothes - with the exception of the shorts I mentioned in my last post - but somehow there just don't seem to be as much to wash.  Maybe I've gone noseblind?

Congratulating myself on keeping a lid on the amount I spend on supermarket shopping.  As in, I don't congratulate myself any more.  Because it's gone through the roof.  With a husband home full time (he usually travels 4-5 days a week) at home and two teenage boys eating lunch and snacks here rather than in school will do that.  Every time I open the kitchen bin there's yet another empty digestive biscuit wrapper in there.  (And yes, they eat fruit too.  Particularly the fruit that I've bought thinking I will eat that instead of the biscuits.  So when I reach for the fruit and there's none there, guess what's left?  You got it.  Biscuits.  Oh well. Elasticated waists rule).

Planning a trip abroad.  Oh, alright - I AM planning.  Just not expecting to actually be allowed to go.  

Sigh.


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Clothes shopping for teens in Lockdown

Boy #1 has grown - they do that, I'm told.  This is a problem; he's grown so much that none of last year's shorts fit.  Well, I say 'none'; what I actually mean is that only one pair fits - and they are of the quick-dry sports-related variety.  He loves them, obviously.  I detest them, but have been putting up with them because there's no alternative until the two pairs of replacements ordered online reach us.

The new ones arrive, and he tries them on.

Boy #1: 'Oh.'

Me:  'Quite.'  

We watch them slide off his hips and onto the floor.

Me:  'So when you said you wanted that size, what were you basing it on?'

Boy #1: 'The trousers I have upstairs.  You know, the only trousers that are long enough.'

Me:  'The ones with the elastic adjuster in the waistline?'

He nods.

We send them back.

Three pairs of new shorts in a smaller size arrive 5 days later.  I have grown heartily sick of his wash & wear shorts in the meantime, in the main because he refuses to hand them over for the wash part.  Even though the weather has now changed and he could be wearing trousers instead, still the shorts make a daily appearance.

At my insistence Boy #1 tries the new shorts on soon after they arrive (if it was left to him they would stay in the bag for the next week).  Much to both our relief, they more or less fit (although he's still able to slide them down off his hips without undoing them, I note.  Obviously, for a teen-aged boy that's a bonus, but I make a mental note to suggest he wears a belt.  I am a mum, after all).  

Me: 'Why don't you change into one of the new pairs now, and put your old ones in the wash?'

Boy #1:  'No.'

I'm taken aback.  'No?  Why on earth not?  They're disgusting!'

'Because I want to go for a run later, and if I put a new pair on now then two pairs of shorts will need to be washed, when I only really need to sort one. '

I'm speechless (and not because the incidences of him doing his own washing are less regular than I might like).  He has managed to come up with just about the ONLY reason I would let him get away with continuing to wear his quite frankly filthy shorts.

He knows it, too:  'Yeah, Mum.  Boom. Mic drop.'

We leave it there.  I know when I'm beaten.

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Lockdown Stretches

We do a stretch every school day at 10.00am, my sons and I.  We put aside whatever we're working on, get up from the kitchen table, and spend five minutes jumping around.  The dog tries to join in, we all bumble around in an effort to escape him (shorts weather offers no protection from his too-sharp claws), and we finish by properly Shaking It Out.  It lifts our spirits, wakes us up. It helps.  Then we make ourselves a cup of tea, sit down, and get back to whatever we were working on before.

When I started The 10.00am Stretch (yes, more capitals.  Get over it) back in the dark days of the third week of March, we were new to homeschooling.  We were also new, like everyone else, to Lockdown, and the whole complex combination of awfulness, relief, dread and - dare I say it - spasmodic sense of peacefulness that comprise it.  We - or I - hadn't yet realised how much it was going to mess with our heads.  The constant low-level fear of what might happen next seemed likely to be a temporary condition.

Well, it's now Lockdown - or a version of it - Week 11.  I wish I could say that the cocktail of feelings I described above has changed significantly but it hasn't, not really.  Of course, boredom has been thrown into the mix, along with frustration and despair at how badly the response to Covid19 has been managed in the UK, and a guarded sense of acceptance that other than by wearing a mask whilst shopping, I can make very little difference to that.  And obviously there's yet more fear.  Not for me personally, but for my children; what will this mean for them, long term?  For my parents; will they have to stay in isolation forever?  For the world at large; for those still unable to venture out due to health conditions and who consequently can't support themselves and their families, and finally yes, I'm going to say it, the horror of being a distant witness to the unrest - and the causes of it - in the US and elsewhere. 

But, we have to keep on keeping on.  Time and tide wait for no man and all that, so we need to push through this the best we can and hope it all comes out alright in the end.

For me and my boys, keeping on means jumping around the kitchen for The 10.00am Stretch, even when we (or, increasingly, I) don't particularly feel like it.  Because, even if the dog's claws are sharp, and my shoulder hurts, and we're feeling a bit meh, we're doing it together and it makes us feel better.  

It helps.

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Lockdown Laundry. Or, I'm Spartacus.

Husband and I are on our way to a socially-distanced drink with good friends when he glances down and tuts.

'My shorts are a bit mucky.  I need to get them washed.'

I blink.  This is too good.  'Get them washed?'

Husband realises his mistake and tries to backtrack.  'I only meant-'

'Get them washed?  You make it sound as if you're planning to send them out to the laundry.'

'I didn't-'

I'm laughing and so is he. 'That's very grand.  Are we people who send our washing out now?  To a laundry?  You do know that the laundry is standing next to you.  I'm the laundry.'

He's apologetic.  'Yes.  I know.  Sorry.   God, I'm not going to live this one down, am I?'

'I don't know what you mean...'

When we reach our friends, I am proud to say that I manage to keep the above conversation to myself for all of fifteen minutes.


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Lockdown Creativity #5

So here we still are in Lockdown - sort of.  Being stuck in something of a perpetual Groundhog Day can get a bit wearing, so here are a few links to lift your spirits.

First off, Sam Neill has kept busy making a series of shorts from home.  Covering everything from learning the ukulele to feeling inadequate, this gentle humour is a great antidote to what can sometimes seem like the all-pervading grimness surrounding us.  Here he is with Helena Bonham Carter in Das Fone Hell:

https://youtu.be/yOWoHPpQv1M

Then, for something completely different, take a look at this.  An archeologist (Dr Jean-Loup Ringot) demonstrates a prehistoric lithophone.  Our ancestors would have listened to this music - astonishing.

https://youtu.be/PZ4hEubvWE4

And finally, in case you missed it, here's a link to the trailer for Taika Waititi's reading of James & The Giant Peach - with friends - to raise money for Partners in Health.  Friends, in this case, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett, Sarah Paulson, Nick Kroll and Chris & Liam Hemsworth (I thought that might get your attention).

https://youtu.be/PZ4hEubvWE4

Happy weekend everyone!

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Lockdown Admin

'Are you going to return that?'

Husband gestures at the cardboard sleeve on the table.  It contains a mobile phone case that was too large and which needs to go back to the vendor.

I nod, irked that he's reminding me.  I'll get round to it - sometime.  'Yes.  Of course.'

'Because if you don't do it soon, you won't be able to.'

'I know.  I've got until July to send it back - it'll be fine.'

'Well, just so you know....'

We stand in silence for a moment, then Husband grins.  'You hate me sometimes, don't you?'

After a pregnant pause I say 'Of course I don't.'

'But you paused.'

'No, I didn't.  I was just thinking.'  (Specifically, I was thinking; 'Oh it has to be returned?  No shit, Sherlock... ' but that doesn't seem a helpful thing to say out loud.  Particularly because I've already had it a week and haven't yet got around to it.)

'Thinking what?'

I turn away so he can't see me smirk.  'I was just wondering if you can read my mind.'

Husband considers this, perhaps trying out his - thankfully - non-existent telepathic skills.  'No.  No, I have to say I can't.'

'Huh.  Well, that's probably for the best.'

We snort companionably at the horrific thought of being able to read each others' minds, and the cardboard sleeve remains on the kitchen table.

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Lockdown Life Skills

I'm trying to take advantage of this prolonged period of Lockdown Togetherness with my kids (yay!) to teach them life-skills.  Nothing extraordinary, just how to make a bolognese sauce, pick things up from where they dropped them, putting the breakfast bowl inside the dishwasher instead of on the worktop above it.  So yesterday, after one of the boys had (on request) put a load of clothes in the wash...

Me: Can you empty the washing machine, please?

Boy: Me?

Me:  Yes, you.

Five minutes later...

Me:  You know you emptied the washing machine...

Boy:  Yes?

Me:  And now the damp clothes are sitting in the laundry basket on the floor in front of the machine?

Boy: Yes?

Me: Now, you need to actually hang the clothes up to dry.

Boy:  Me?

Me:  Yes, you.

Boy:  But I put them in the machine.

I look at him blankly.

Boy:  And I took them out.

Me: And...?

Boy:  And now they need to be hung up?

Me:  Who'd have thought it?

Boy:  But why?

Me: Well, because, if laundry isn't hung up, it won't dry properly.  So the clothes will smell.

Boy:  No, I meant, why me?

I look at Boy.  He looks at me.  Luckily - for him - I don't need to say out loud what I'm thinking.  (Although, if you're interested, it involves the total number of washes I have put on, taken out of the machine, hung up to dry, and then put away since he was born.  Yes, I have done that maths.  That's what Lockdown does to a person.)

He takes the clothes basket and and goes to hang up the laundry.

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Lockdown Eating

Is it just me who's default reaction to the stress of the constant onslaught of bad news is to reach for the snacks?  For example;

The UK runs of out PPE : Oh, a second helping?  Don't mind if I do

Struggling to help my kids stay on top of their schoolwork :  That last piece of cake looks a bit lonely, doesn't it?

Infection rate climbs:   Yes, I'll have one of those biscuits please.  Oh, go on - make it two.  Dammit, pass me the packet.

Death rate continues to rise:   Pass the crisps.  And the dips.  Don't bother to put it into a bowl - we all know there's going to be nothing left in that pack in five minutes time.

US president decides to take unproven (and possibly fatal) medicine to guard against Covid19d, and to publicise that fact widely:  What the hell happened to that chocolate stash?  It was meant to be MINE.

UK's key government adviser blatantly flouts lockdown rules and appears to think he's not subject to the same restrictions as everyone else:  FFS.  No, those are not my teeth marks in that block of cheddar.

Like I said before folks; I'm only trying to fatten the curve...

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Lockdown house-elves

This is Dobby.  He is a house-elf.  (You may recognise him.)

This morning, Mum looked up from the sink where she was using her good shampoo to scrub the results of a nosebleed out of Boy #2's sheets, to ask Boy #1 to clear away his cereal bowl.  The house-elf was not working today, she said.

Boy #1 complied, muttering, before handing her a sweatshirt.

Since it was not Mum's sweatshirt, she handed it back.

Ha-ha!  said Boy #1.  I'm free!  You gave me clothing.

Mum and Dobby were confused, until they realised: Boy #1 thought she meant HE was the house-elf!

Oh, how Mum and Dobby laughed.  Dobby, perhaps, laughed harder than Mum.  He was not the house-elf, either.

For more posts on life in Lockdown, click here.

Having it all in Lockdown

There are a lot of mixed messages regarding Lockdown floating around in the UK right now.  Lockdown is over, but it's not.  You're allowed to see people, but only one at a time.  If you want to see both your parents you can, but only outside and one at a time; if you want to see both you should leave a ten minute gap in between.  We should wear masks - but only in confined spaces, not necessarily in all inside spaces, and they may not help much anyway - but they might, so you should.

Most people seem to be navigating their way through this host of confusion quite sensibly.  But if you look online - and take it seriously - there's a whole other mess of Lockdown advice, most of which seems expressly designed to make us feel bad about ourselves.

Lockdown, it seems, is a chance for us not to power-down and get through it, but rather the opposite.  Leave aside working from home and holding onto a job, we're supposed to be getting more sleep, more exercise, eating better, learning new skills (masterclasses, anyone?), and generally re-organising our lives for the better.  Our homes are supposed to be cleaner than they've ever been, the shelves tidier, the freezers organised, the annoying little rats' nests of change, clutter, keys and receipts tidied up, once and for all.  Our wardrobes are supposed to rationalised, though quite where we're supposed to take those clothes that have been outgrown etc, I'm not sure.  Oh - wait - they can be repurposed into NEW clothes, that you make on the sewing machine you've unearthed at the back of one of those cupboards you just organised.  Oh, and sourdough!  (Fabulous; sourdough starter - something else to kill.  I can't even keep a house plant alive...)

Well.  Bollocks to that lot, frankly.

If I can stay on top of my children's home learning schedules (their school is still running to time-table.  So that's fun), put a wash on and remember to take it out again, go through the surreal experience that is visiting the supermarket once a week or so, and occasionally remember to run a hoover around the place to avoid our needing to wade through drifts of spring-time moult from the dog, and still be talking to my family in complete sentences by bedtime, then the rest can go to hell.

That's my version of Lockdown having it all, anyway...

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Lockdown Ageing; Facebook, how very DARE you?

This morning Facebook decided to offer me the option to see their screen differently via a beta layout they are providing.   It was going to be easier for me to navigate, they said.  Things would be easier to find, they said.  The text would be BIGGER, they said.

I became instantly suspicious; were they making this offer because of my age?  At 53 am I now considered to be so old that I need the interweb to be made more accessible to me?  Has Lockdown impacted on me even more visibly than I previously thought?

It wouldn't be so bad if there was no merit in their suggestion, but I'm aware that the last couple of months have not been kind to me, physically.  There is the unavoidable fact of my jeans becoming noticeably tighter on the one day of the week I force myself into them - the result of too little exercise and too many fxck-it glasses of wine - and let's face it, I need a haircut.  Not tomorrow, not yesterday, but about a month ago.  Has fb been snooping and drawing it's own conclusions? 

If they have, there is the remote possibility that they may have heard me muttering about on-screen images getting harder to see.  They may have noticed I have increased the size of the font I use here, or that the best time of day for me to look at images on my phone is in the evening, just before I go to bed, when - crucially - I have taken my contact lenses out.   They may even - gasp - have seen the photo I sent to a WhatsApp group of girlfriends yesterday, showing my in-dire-need-of-attention too-long and increasingly-grey hair...

Obviously, I took a look at the new layout, and it does what it says on the tin.  Bigger text.  A simpler layout.  Easier to navigate.  You know, accessible.

But none of the above is of any interest to me because I am not old.  I have no need of this new dashboard.  I have, therefore, declined their offer and reverted to Facebook Classic (the one that has smaller text and a more complicated layout.  No, of course it isn't only because of the principle of the thing). 

Even though, deep down, I suspect I have cut off my nose to spite my own face.

'Rage, rage, against the dying of the light' and all that...

Lockdown Creativity #4

It's approaching the end of Lockdown Week 8 in the UK.  The restrictions here are easing, a little obscurely perhaps, but distance learning continues for now.  Which brings me straight to my first suggestion for a hit of Lockdown Creativity, and the reason why I'm hitting publish on this post on a Thursday rather than a Friday (as over the last three weeks).

(Note: if you can't see the embedded videos, I've attached a link at the bottom of each paragraph)

The English National Ballet have put together a temporary and free programme of online masterclasses (click here to access those) which in themselves - if dance is your thing - are worth checking out.   However, the reason I'm publishing this week's Lockdown Creativity list a day early is so that if you have the time and inclination, you can check out their Wednesday Watch Party before it is taken offline tomorrow.  Each week they are putting a performance from their archives online where it can be viewed for free for 48 hours.  This week it's the strange, other-worldly and ethereal 'Fantastic Beings'.  Well worth a watch, and if you miss this week's don't worry - there should be another performance available next Wednesday.

Click here for link if you can't see the embedded video

For something a little less highbrow, take a look at Andrew Cottar's zoom meeting with his two labradors.  If you've not already come across them Olive & Mabel have become Lockdown internet stars since this all started, due mainly to Andrew's inspired racing commentary of his dogs' behaviours.  This one's a little different, but still hilarious.

Click here for link if you can't see the embedded video

Finally, three weeks ago I mentioned ITV's series of 4 short plays 'Isolation Stories' and how much I was looking forward to them.  Whilst they can't (yet) be viewed online, if you're interested in the challenges presented by producing new tv content during Lockdown, here's a fascinating insight into that from the BFI, also filmed in isolation.  Artists commenting on art, as art imitates life...

Click here for link if you can't see the embedded video

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