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Staying home, staying safe – week 10

Smelly Socks and Garden Peas

This is a little diary of our tenth week in social isolation, school half term at home, and with both himself and me working from home. I’m going to just talk about the highlights and low lights.

See what happened in week 9.

What will week 11 bring?

Stay safe everyone, I hope you’re doing ok. xxx

Highlights

Sunday night counts as week 10, cos I published week 9 on Sunday afternoon. Anyway, when I went to tuck small boy in at 10pm on Sunday, I pulled up his covers and he said “boo!”, completely asleep. Made me laugh though.

After a failed outing (Bank Holiday Monday, idiots, everywhere mobbed), we had a nice walk on Monday. Then a lovely time in the garden, large boy and I played badminton and then I decided he was looking super photogenic. So I got out the big digital camera and took some lovely head shots of both boys. Need to send them to the grandparents.

Tuesday was a really good day at work. I mean, it was busy and full of crap, but there was no home learning and himself kept the boys busy all day – micro-scalextric, bike ride, outside play. I had BBC Radio6 Music on all morning and it was so relaxing to just get on and plough through my to do list without interruption. After tea I had a nice quiet walk on my own, lovely to get some space since I’ve not been able to run for 4 weeks now.

One of my friends organized a Facebook video chat on Wednesday night. Such a lovely hour catching up and just seeing some different faces. I felt like I’d forgotten how to have a conversation though.

Thursday was almost a 12 hour work day. Ought to be a low point? No, it was really productive and I quite enjoyed it – more like the old days when the house wasn’t full of kids and a husband. Then himself provided a big bowl of salmon pasta that we all ate happily.

We experienced some sort of bliss on Friday. Himself did the shopping, the boys and I fetched school work. I had my morning coffee, lunch and tea all on the patio. We had an almost-normal trip to a nature reserve 4 miles away that we never knew was there until this week. Large boy and I started reading The Secret Garden together, he’s so excited about me reading with him. Small boy started to get his first chapter book read to him by himself – the marvellous Flying Fergus by Chris Hoy.

We had another discovery adventure on Saturday afternoon, a different Wildlife Trust nature reserve with nettles galore and some good grazes for small boy. Gloriously sunny again we ate every meal outside.

A chat with the lovely Tee from Google support sorted my disaster with large boy’s account first thing on Sunday morning. We got his account unlocked and reconnected to mine and back under supervision. After a morning playing on Roblox and Lego Jurassic Park (the boys), resourcing Scalextric (himself) and reading in the garden (me) we had a “picker” lunch (bread with cheese, pate, other bits laid out to pick from). Then himself and I got out our newly acquired OS map and planned another discovery walk. We walked about 4.5 miles down footpaths, round a reservoir, and through fields, over styals with an ice cream reward at the end. After we got home the boys and I had cups of tea and read, then after dinner they ran around under the sprinklers watering the parched lawn.

Lowlights

Large boy seemed to have hit some sort of lockdown personal limit at the beginning of the week. He was super grumpy and monosyllabic, really disappointed about all the plans that aren’t happening after all. We can’t make it better, so its a learning curve for everyone.

We decided to try and go for a walk somewhere else on Monday. After passing two country parks and a lakeside path we gave up and came home, too many people everywhere.

Bollocks! Tuesday morning revealed an IT update that screwed all the drivers for my docking station so none of the USB ports worked.

The boys finally got their game of Pie Face on Wednesday. As predicted it ended in tears, small boy got squirty cream in his eye.

On Wednesday afternoon I was interrupted while presenting training, by large boy who needed help Zooming his friends and who had forgotten that his father was both in the house and not working!

Thursday and Friday were pretty good days. A late Thursday meeting meant I worked a 12 hour day and left me with a super headache on Friday morning. Other than that and a catch-related tantrum from small boy, there’s not much else to report.

I faced technology hell on Saturday, first I tried to update large boy’s date of birth on his Google account but when it went to parental permission it crashed and he got locked out. Nothing I did would unlock it and then the Family Link to my supervising account disappeared so he’s lost everything until I can get their support to help me. Then it was a huge rigmorole doing a parental email address verification for the Roblox account we were setting up.

My mortification at having ruined large boy’s email account gave me a terrible night’s sleep, further disturbed by himself’s toilet trip and small boys silly early wake up. Then small boy shouted that there was a spider in the bathroom at 7.17am and I was awake for the day.

Our Sunday walk may have been a bit too much for my knee, by the end it was a bit twingey again.

Things I wrote

What a Noise! My first ever little story, I’m so proud.

Considering a Return to School

Published by Smelly Socks and Garden Peas

Rants, rambles, loss, gin, guests, recipes, funny kids, occasional poems, and a bit of running.

31 thoughts on “Staying home, staying safe – week 10”

  1. Pingback: Staying home, staying safe in review – Smelly Socks and Garden Peas
  2. Pingback: Staying home, staying safe – week 11 – Smelly Socks and Garden Peas

  3. Lockdowns can definitely be hard on one’s mental state. Plans ruined or postponed indefinitely. I appreciate reading about how you’re coping. I think it’s interesting to find out how people are doing during this pandemic.

    Liked by 1 person

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      1. I have two laptops – my work one won’t access the internet or my work folders and my own one doesn’t have Office and seems to just pick and choose when it wants to bother with the internet! So frustrating!

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Oh fun! Ethernet drivers are real buggers. I’m running 2 work laptops and a VM, plus a home laptop for the kids to take turns on for school work. The old work laptop is standing in for YouTube occasionally.

        Liked by 1 person

  5. Grandson is an only child. Really suffering from this loneliness. It stinks. Parks are closed. Bike rides help but I’m so over it all. It makes me sad.

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    1. It’s so hard when they’re lonely. When they’re old enough, group video chats seem really good but my 4 yr old isn’t interested really and hadn’t made close friends at school yet. I’m so grateful my boys have each other. I hope your grandson finds a way of feeling less lonely, books or video calls or even writing letters maybe. I bet phone calls with his Gran help loads.

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      2. Aww poor wee mite. My younger one doesn’t get video chat either. My one reassurance for him is that he’s so young that he won’t really remember and hopefully they’ll readjust well when they go back.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. It certainly has it’s ups and downs. I think there are a lot of people all over the country who haven’t stuck with the rules as such. It has been difficult to watch I think. You are doing great and the boys are thriving. We will see what the next few weeks bring. Hugs and here for you xx

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  10. I think this week has had a lot of people hitting their personal lockdown limits, I know my nan’s hit hers this week and all she wants to do is go shopping (not for essentials). I’ve really enjoyed keeping up with these weekly updates!

    Hope you’re all keeping well.
    James.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. I spoke to my mum tonight. She’s going to sit in my 95 year old grandma’s garden tomorrow for the first time in almost 3 months. She usually goes once a week as it’s an hour’s drive each way. My mum’s like a giddy school girl excited for a trip. I’m so jealous of them both, I miss them both loads.
      In some ways I’m enjoying not having any commitments, it’s kind of freeing. But at the same time worrying about both my grandmas and my parents and in laws.
      You take care too, hope everyone stays safe.

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  12. Like the name for lowlights. I think it’s been one of those weeks with ups and downs. Sounds like you have had a great week work wise getting on top of things and even getting out to the nature reserves for walks.

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  14. Pingback: Staying home, staying safe – week 9 – Smelly Socks and Garden Peas

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