But I Smile Anyway…

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?

I swear I should be writing week fifteen by now…

• The week was not only another week in this Lockdown, but the apparent Easter Holidays for the kids, so for the first four days of this week, I had to make sure they were sensible and quiet, for their daddy, who was still working from home. To be honest, it was much easier than I thought, because they were still in bed until past eleven am every morning, and if I hadn’t woken them, they probably would have spent all day in bed! Hubby Dearest would get up, and start working. I would make teas and coffees, and do a little exercise after reading for a bit, before finally waking the kids up. During my reading sessions, my faithful Sonu Singh would accompany me, and sometimes, take control of my Kindle too!

• We received a lovely parcel as well, one day, from my sister in law at the other house, that had been ordered from Cadbury’s… a huge box filled with Easter treats for the children! How kind! And she told me that they had waited for over an hour and a half, in a virtual queue, on the Cadbury’s website, to get a chance to browse the online store, before being able to place the order… see, these queues are stretching to the World Wide Web too, not just Asda! (Don’t worry, I shall share a picture of all the lovely chocolate, a little while later!
• I’ve been writing too, which has been amazing! Using both Lizzie Chantree’s writing hour in the mornings, via her Facebook group, and Sacha Black’s Rebel Author live writing sprints, I have managed to add around 5k more words to book two, and done some research, as well as write an article for cysters.org, a charity, who in their words, do this…

Cysters is a grassroots charity, dedicated to supporting individuals & improving the health, education & welfare of those with reproductive & mental health issues. We aim to educate the public about reproductive health & education so that they can make informed choices around their treatment options & challenge the cultural misogyny behind reproductive health.

Cysters.org

• Then, after a particularly fun, productive evening writing session, labelled Poison and Prose (you guessed it, Sacha invited us to bring along our poison of choice; be it a drink, or a naughty snack!) I ended up downloading Scrivener. If you don’t know what Scrivener is, it is a software to help you with not only the writing of your projects, but enabling you to compile all your research for that project, into one place too. It is so much more than that too, but I am still learning… Still, one great feature is the wordcounter which can be a real help to reach your goals.

• We’ve also spent plenty of time in the garden, as we were blessed with beautiful weather last week. Along with our daily walks in the gurdwara sports ground. Though, I have to mention that I was a tad vigilante this week. In the grounds we have one of those outdoor gyms. It has been cordonned off, as have all areas like this, because of the risk of contamination. Earlier in the week, as I was walking around, a mother shooed her child into it. He was wearing goalie gloves, but swinging on the bars. As I walked past, I asked him to get off and leave the area as it was closed. He looked at me, ran to his mother and burst into tears! I hastily explained to the mother, who was of Eastern European descent, that the place was closed for health reasons. She mentioned that other people were using it the day before, but understood, and explained to her child. The next day, she was there again, but this time there was a rather muscly man who had gone in to do his ‘training’. I wondered whether I should say anything, then someone behind me, a turbanned man, said something a little loudly, to his own friend, about people taking the mick, and getting the place closed down. In Punjabi, I asked him if he would back me up, if I went and asked the man to go. So I shouted over to the guy. Muscle head ignored me at first, but I carried on (I can be quite persistant when I want) and in the end, he left. The day after, I was on my walk, and there were two more. Really? And this time they were Indian, Sikh, so they should have. been much more respectful, knowing the Gurdwara stance on this issue. As I geared up to say something (A bit nervously,) someone else, from the actual sports club did! Thank goodness. On Sunday, we went as a family, and guess what. There were more people in there. I can’t understand why they don’t understand that if they don’t follow the rules, this one luxury we have of being able to go out once daily, for exercise, will be taken from us too. I made my own comments as I walked past, but these guys weren’t listening. They told another person to s*d off when asked to move. So, I wasn’t successful there, but my blood simmered…

• In other news, Lil Princess has been very creative, with her drawing, and impressed me with her skills again. What do you think?

• I’ve cooked plenty, from Shahi Paneer, to chicken soup, to lasagne, and pastry puffs… I can feel weight creeping up, but at least I am being active too! That Fifteen Minute Mile workout has been used many times!
• Then we get to Easter. The family rose late, as usual, and were extremely happy with their collection of eggs!

So… that has been pretty much this week, in a nutshell. This week, school will reopen again, and we will need to be present, on a rota basis, so I’ll find out soon, which days I am meant to be in.

Oh, and it’s Vaisakhi today… It will be strange this year, not being able to go to the Gurdwara to pay our respects, as it would have been strange for all the Christians yesterday, not to attend church. And the big parade will obviously not happen, though they are live streaming the prayers that will still continue.

How has your week been? Did you have a good, calm Easter?

Another week passes by… is it just me or did it seem to go on for about five months? Anyway, enough pondering… let me tell you about my week!

• Monday was my first full day in school with the keyworker children. It’s strange, a different sort of latchkey kids, you know. These children who have nowhere else to go, because their parents are at work… Sorry, I digress… So we had 8 children in, and I had a few things planned for them. We started off with some Easter crafts, then went on to do a bit of PE, following the live PE lessons by Britain’s PE teacher, Joe Wicks. Always a good workout, but I feel it for days after! Then we came back, and I told the kids we were going to do some writing. There were moans, but, hey, writing can be fun, can’t it? And who better to teach them that, than a writer? Well, I had a chat with them about all the people they weren’t able to see at the moment, and we all wrote letters, together to someone they were missing at the moment. It was a touching moment when even the least likely to put pen to paper child, by choice, wrote a page long letter to his great gran who had been admitted to hospital two days previously. Then we had a short story time, where I read Fantastic Mr Fox to them. After that, they had lunch, and then we concentrated on some structured art, with me teaching them to draw three different types of flowers, with they then collaged in rainbow colours, so they could take them home to put up in their windows. A short film time at the end then they went home. Or the last four went home, as others had been picked up as the day progressed. My day at school was finished, and I went home, tired. Jumped in the shower, and got fresh, ready for my own family. Until the Easter break is over, that is my lot for school ❤ Thank goodness. I can devote time to my own family, and observe the social distancing properly.
• On Tuesday, it was time to get ready for food shopping. I have been very strict with the family, and made them aware that we will be eating whatever we have at home, and I will only go out once a week, or even less, if possible. But today, we needed fresh fruit and veg, and bread. i jumped up out of bed early, knowing there would be queues, and there were, but sensible, socially distanced queues, that went down pretty quickly. Everything I needed was in stock, and it was a genuine pleasure to see most stock actually available!

• I tried my hand at making chickpea curry today too, after a long time, and thankfully it wend down a treat! Lil Man even asked for seconds! I count that as a compilment!

• The rest of the day was pretty smooth sailing. Kids worked hard at their school work, and Hubby was busy in his makeshift office. I even got another module completed on the writing course!
• On Wednesday, I had a live webinar to attend for school. I sat there, all ready, and we started… but the whole thing messed up so that went out of the window. Oh, well, back to it tomorrow, apparently! The kids officially finished school at lunchtime, so that was it, they were not interested in doing anything after that! It’s been fun, though. Every evening, I have been taking one, or both of them to the Gurdwara playing field which is a short walk from our house, to get some exercise. Not many others are using the place, so it is perfect for social distancing. I have managed to work up to walking a good 7 laps of the track while we are there.

• Thurdsay saw a lazy bunch of kids who didn’t eve surface unitl 12pm! But that suited me as I had to attend the webinar again! Once that was done, and all were fed and watered, I took part in a live writing sprint with Sacha Black, in her Facebook group, Rebel Authors. It was quite productive, as even though I didn’t write, I got a lot of planning done for book two’s structure, as I have started writing it, but I am floundering at the moment. Every little helps! Talking of Sacha’s group, we even had a Google Hangouts meet on Wednesday evening, where we just chatted together, with the videos on. It was like being at a local pub with your mates! Such fun! We talked productivity, as well as how we are getting through this crazy period. It’s going to be a regular thing, as far as I know, so I look forward to the next one.
• Friday was a pretty quiet day too. I read lots. The kids woke late again. But before I started my reading, I cleaned the house from top to bottom, bleaching everything I could. All the bedsheets were changed and the house properly aired. I felt I had accomplished something!
• On Saturday, Hubby started tidying the garden up. It was meant to be a glorious weekend, and what better way to spend it, than in the garden, epecially as we aren’t meant to be going out? And I also discovered TikTok! I apologise in advance, but you may end up seeing silly videos of me if I decide to post them on here! If you follow my Insta, you might have already seen a couple on my stories! My nerves were all over the show, because I knew I had my radio interview. I busied myself with cooking, laundry and reading, then as the dreaded hour approached, I had to keep stopping myself from be ing convinced that the next call would be to tell me that it had been cancelled again… But it wasn’t! In fact the fifteen minutes sped by and I had a lovely but rather fast chat with Harriet Minter about the book, as well as being a teacher in this time. So, is that it? My fifteen minutes of fame? Who knows!
• Sunday was another beautiful day. They all got up late AGAIN! But I was good. I don’t stay in bed unnecessarily, and I have even been doing a 15 minute workout video on YouTube every day, to make sure I don’t get too lazy during this time, as well as that daily walk. So, workout done, I had a cuppa, and then woke the masses up. We breakfasted (brunched) and then off to the garden for more business!

• Hubby Dearest started trimming the hedge, until he trimmed right through the wire… well, that was the end of that… until I found a pair of shears and managed to finish the end off. I even ended up hanging out of the bedroom window to do part of it, as the hedge is huge and keeps banging on the window in the wind! Then we went to jetwash the patio, but about a quarter of the way in, the hose snapped so that was the end of that… until I grabbed the broom and physically scrubbed the patio! It’s not sparkling, as it would have been, but it’s cleaner! The rest of the day was spent lazing about outside, on the lounger, as the kids played water fights. We had the music on, and enjoyed a real family afternoon/early evening, which finished with video call to the rest of the family, and a film together!

It wasn’t as bad a week as I thought it was going to be!

• We listened to the Queen give her speech to the nation in the evening too. She is a wonderful lady, give her her dues. And as I pack up for this week, we just found out that Boris Johnson, the PM, has been taken into hospital as the symptoms he has been experiencing, with COVID-19 have not subsided in ten days. Wish him well, this illness is awful, and has touched everyone. I lost an aunt this week to it, and another of my aunts has been in hospital for a week, so far, battling it. She was actually taken in with Pneumonia, and a first swab test came back negative. But the results took four days. In that time, it is likely she picked it up and a scan of her lungs showed that she did indeed have the virus. Thoughts and prayers for them.

Let’s see what this week holds, as the kids are on holiday, Hubby Dearest is still working for four days, and I really want to try and get writing for a couple of hours a day!

Sacha has a couple of live writing sprints planned again, including an evening, bring a drink one, which should be ‘interesting’, and another Google Hangouts meet up has also been scheduled.

The weather is meant to be good too, so hopefully that means more outside time for the kids as well, as us.

The strrangeness of this new normal is so surreal…

How has your week been? Any signs of settling into this new life?