Honestly, who thought we’d still be here, in lockdown, as we hit the tail end of April? Well, have you got your drink ready? I know we’re on lockdown, and the days and times are just blurring, but no, I’m not suggesting anything stronger than a coffee, or my choice of Chai, unless, of course you are reading this later in the day!
- Monday arrived, and another morning in school.We’ve got to grips with the planning we need to do for the next few weeks, so my team teach and I set about spending the morning formulating more plans. It is really hard, as we can only choose activities that require minimal ‘teaching’ as such, so no real new topics, but things that parents will be able to access with the children. Remember, they are 4-5 years old, so it’s not like they can do remote learning in the same way as older children. That was probably the toughest part of the planning. But we got it done, thankfully. Only thing was, we decided. against reading the stories and recording them, as it would be quite time consuming… I was a bit gutted to be honest. I was looking forward to it!
- I was rather excited as the folding desk I ordered got delivered early too! Everyone else has a place to sit and work; Hubby Dearest has taken over the dining table with his millions of monitors (okay, there are two, and a laptop) and the kids both have desks in their rooms. But I have nowhere proper. I can sit on my bed, or downstairs on the sofa, though neither of these places have scope for me to sit with a notebook beside my laptop. So the next best thing was a folding desk. And it arrived! I am very happy with it. Just needed to order a better chair, as the folding one I had was okay for short periods, but not really a good office style chair, and that came on Saturday too, so I am already looking forward to sitting properly to do my online learning, and writing! The only annoying thing is having to put it all away every night, so I got a lovey desk tidy into which I can slip everything I use reguarly.
- Tuesday was Asda day, as usual, and I got all I needed, but flour and eggs are the main things that are hard to find at the moment. I think I am okay for both at the moment, but I hope these things get sorted sooner, rather than later!
- I was in school on Wednesday with the children, and there were literally TWO kids! So we had a child each to look after. It was still fun, we did lots of little things, like play board games, and gardening in the allotment, but time went really slowly…
- Thursday and friday were spent using my lovely new desk doing online courses that we have been suggested to try and do on days we are not in school. It all counts for CPD, or continuous professional development, so I am happy to do it, but that does mean less mental energy and time to actually write.
- Talking of writing, I have been in a real creative dip again. I opened my manuscript several times, but shut it down, just as many, because I wasn’t inspired, and what was coming out (which wasn’t much at all) was pure rubbish. Instead, I concentrated on reading, some arcs, and some books that have been on my kindle for a while, asking to be read. Something good came out of the reading though. I read books by authors I admire and respect, with extremely high readership levels, and as I read some of the books, I realised that there are times when these established authors don’t actually write fantastically, just okay. They don’t always have these fully developed character arcs, or they don’t explore certain situations in the detail that I have come to think we should do. Sometimes vocabulary is lazy, or repetitive. Yet their books still sell. I came away from one book feeling like I was, possibly, doing a better job… Maybe I need to get back to it…
- On Friday, as I mentioned in my Spidey post, yesterday, I managed to fall over pretty spectacularly in Lil. Man’s bedroom, while fixing his curtains… I fell backwards from his bed, flat on my back, with him and Sonu, the cat, watching. Avoiding his laptop was luck, but my shoulder struck his dumbells. I’m okay, but I think there was a little delayed reaction to it, from my body. It seems to have triggered a wave of exhaustion in me, and more ovbiously, the aches and pains that were caused by the fall. So that meant I was knocked for. six all weekend. my get up and go totally disappeared… but I still managed a few silly TikToks 😜I’ll share my two favourites for this week.
- And on Sunday, I finally caved and got Disney+ so we watched the new Lady and the Tramp (I loved it!) and the live action Aladdin (for the second time. Watched it in the cinema before, and loved it!)
Yet another week with days blending into one another. It breaks it up to speak to both sets of parents every night, but the conversations are very samey, because none of us have done anything different. We may get excited to share that we went grocery shopping, but that’s about it! Still, thank goodness for video calls. It is always great to catch up with my Finndian family too. I hate that I am not able to be there physically, but at least the video calling means that we can see our nephews growing up, and build a relationship with them, despite being in a different country.
And now, here we are back to Monday. I am not planning on going into school until Wednesday. So there will be online learning hapenning, and hopefully, writing too! And though I didn’t record stories for our school, I might still do it for my nephews!
How has your week been?
But I Smile Anyway... 