• Feeling: Surprised how well today went
• Listening to: Nothing today
• Watching: The Mandalorian

Got up about 8am, D was already downstairs working and B was having breakfast. It was the first day “back to school” (at home) following 2 weeks Easter holidays, and I was really worried that the kids, especially F, would find it difficult to be told they needed to do school work again.

B decided to get dressed in his school uniform as a way of getting into the school mindset – which I think was a great idea and worked well for him. He seemed pretty focussed all morning and relaxed about his work – which was nice.

By the time F came down at 8:30, B was already working, and F had breakfast then got ready to do PE with Joe Wicks before starting some work. She did a little bit, but I’m not sure was very focussed, and then D persuaded her to give the BBC Bytesize material a go. I was teaching my online course at 10am, so not sure exactly what this was like, but D said it involved Dick & Dom reading George’s Marvellous Medicine and then F spent time going through various Bytesize resources on the BBC website – so I think positive although it sounded like it lacked any structure – so F presumably just picking the things she’s interested in (which is a win I think!).

F also did some work on her website during the day, adding a place where people can post ideas of things to do while in lockdown and was delighted when B left a comment for her 🙂

I was on calls for much of the rest of the day – teaching 10-11, quick break for coffee and then a meeting, a break for lunch and another meeting, with a final hour from 6-7pm on another call. The online teaching seemed to go well and I’ve got two further sessions this week to the same group. I was a bit stressed with the other work today but only because I feel like I’ve fallen a bit behind (having focussed on preparing for the teaching last week).

B & F had online Art class after lunch (which again left F upset unfortunately – she gets very frustrated and sad when what she is doing doesn’t turn out as she wants / thinks it should – I really relate to this as I feel the same often with artistic endeavours – the visions in my head are always so much better than what I seem to be capable of realising). After that they both had online tutoring with Explore Learning – which went well – they always seems to enjoy this and I think the 1-to-1 aspects are a huge benefit especially at the moment – it gives a focus on the kids which they don’t get from anywhere else right now.

I’ve got a plan to try to fix some electronics to the wooden automaton I built yesterday to get sound played as the guitarist moves – hopefully something I can work on with the kids.

So a good first day “back” after the Easter holidays. I suspect it won’t all be plain sailing this week, but I’ll take that for a Monday.

Stay safe, stay strong

• Feeling: Glad it’s Friday
• Listening to: Nothing today
• Watching: Friday Night Dinner

Managed to get up a bit earlier this morning (closer to 7 than 8), and got on with some work first thing, then went to the supermarket to do the weekly shop. Sainsbury’s seemed reasonably busy but I was able to get in and out in around an hour which seemed pretty good going.

The rest of the day seemed to go pretty quickly with work, lunch, work calls 1:30-3 then 4:15-17:15, then tea and more work. Next week I’m delivering what was originally intended as a face-to-face course as an online course, and I’m not yet finished writing it. Instead of a one-day course this has become a mixture of 3 Zoom sessions (one hour each on Monday, Wednesday and Friday), plus self-paced exercises for participants to do themselves with me offering support through Slack (an online chat application). It’s definitely an experiment, but one I’m quite excited about – just hoping the participants get good value from it. Anyway, I’m still not finished writing all the material and so I think I’ll have to spend some time tomorrow finishing that off (to avoid ending up working on my Birthday on Sunday).

We had a Zoom call/family quiz with some of Ds side of the family this evening and then I spoke to my Mum while D put the kids to bed, before we sat down to watch some TV together.

Feeling a bit zonked now and don’t feel like I’ve really achieved much today (apart from coining the word “non-versation” to describe pointless chatter between B & F). Not even got any interesting photos to share 🙁

Stay safe, stay strong

• Feeling: More relaxed
• Listening to: Laundry Service by Shakira
• Watching: Breeders

Another later start, but thankfully this morning I woke up in time to drink my tea while it was still warm. D was already up and working. Surprisingly the kids both slept in and I had to actually get them to get up at 10am – Fs reaction was “I’m already up” (she was reading Harry Potter in bed) while B immediately got upset because he felt he’d wasted the day already (not sure B has quite got the hang of holidays).

I had a good morning work-wise and had a couple of calls over lunch lasting until 3, when I decided to take a break and spend some time with the rest of the family. I had a meeting at 7pm so I wasn’t entirely done with work for the day, but it was really good to spend some time with F, B and D.

We watched the Lego Ninjago movie (our second movie featuring Jackie Chan this week!), and I tried to help B with some code he was struggling with (I say “trying” in that I fixed the problem but it turned out that this made the code work in a way he didn’t want).

K from choir had posted on Fb about making paratha and I thought I’d give it a go as D was making us paneer & cauliflower curry for tea. I watched a load of videos for hints, but broadly followed the recipe and technique in this YouTube video.

The result wasn’t as flaky as I was hoping – but I think I can see room for some improvements (slightly different coiling technique, thinner roll before cooking and cooking slower & longer).

Stopping work at 3 was so much more relaxing and pleasant even though I did another hour later on. I really need to find a way to work this into my day while we are all stuck at home (for at least another 3 weeks based on an announcement today – and lets face it that’s going to be an absolute minimum).

Didn’t go to the shops today – so that’s a treat (not) for tomorrow. But on the up side I’ve just placed an order for lots of delicious pastries with Haddie and Trilby for Saturday morning as an early birthday celebration!

Stay safe, stay strong.

• Feeling: Missing people
• Listening to: Voice of the Beehive
• Watching: Nothing today

Slept much better last night and woke a bit late (D had made tea but it had gone cold by the time I got to it). Spent most of the day on Zoom calls with work calls from 1-5 and then choir 7-9:30.

I managed to get out for a walk with the kids before lunch which was nice – it was so hot and sunny! Unfortunately D had to work up to 12:30 and I had a call from 1pm – so I ended up going with just the kids.

I baked some batch buns for the kids to have burgers for tea, and was pretty pleased with how they turned out (although they got a bit darker on top than I’d intended).

Also made baba ganoush from a sole aubergine we got in our veg box – thanks to @schopflin on Twitter for the suggestion.

Not quite sure what D and the kids got up to in the afternoon – there was a lot of lego over the floor at one point. I should have asked them over tea but I’ve got out of habits that would have been more natural when everyone is out doing their own thing like asking about how their day went – I must try to start asking about their day especially as I tend to get a bit blind to everything else going on while I work.

In the evening E posted a picture of I & R looking through my mum’s window to say hello to her. It made me suddenly miss them all.

Tired all of a sudden now. Tomorrow more work and the weekly shopping trip I think.

Stay safe, stay strong.

• Feeling: OK
• Listening to: Heartbeat song
• Watching: Hypotheticals

I was aiming to get up at 6am this morning and get some work done before everyone else woke up. What actually happened was I woke at 4:20, couldn’t get back to sleep, moved downstairs to listen to the radio for a bit, started to doze off, woken by a random phone call (with seemingly no-one on the other end) at about 5:30, eventually got back to sleep and then woken by the postman knocking at 7am, then finally made tea, took it up to D and then couldn’t find the energy to get up until gone 8am. So not an unqualified success.

Once I managed to get myself working I was pretty productive for the morning and had a couple of productive (but short) Zoom calls. At around 3pm I decided to cut the day short and spend some time with the family. I helped B with a Python install issue on his computer and then watched a kids Jackie Chan movie with F (The Spy Next Door).

F was pretty flaked out today after being awake until past 10pm last night. She was very pleased to get a birthday present this morning (the 7am postal deliver that woke me).

She declared her intention to watch TV after breakfast and then “go to sleep on the sofa”. We let her do the first of these (it is the Easter holidays after all) but drew the line at the second – and she played outside and made a plaster cast volcano she got for her birthday with help from D (who is working half days again this week). Happily this evening she (F) went to bed, and then to sleep, without any drama – she must have been tired!

B spent the day playing around on the computer and reading. He was doing some machine learning tutorial and asking me random questions like “how would you model genetics in a computer game” and “what equations could you use to model the environment” (way beyond my ability to answer) and trying to tackle vector algebra (which I think I only did when I studying undergraduate mathematics) – I don’t know how much he understands (probably more than I realise and less than he thinks) but he seemed to be both engaged and happy with what he was doing.

We had roast chicken for dinner yesterday – which we very rarely do, and it was a revelation for F – she thought it was like having Christmas dinner 🙂 That meant today we had left over chicken stir fried for tea, and I made a batch of stock with the carcass.

Going to go to bed at a sensible time tonight and try to get a good nights sleep. I’ve not left the house since my shopping trip last Thursday, and I don’t think the others have been out for over a week, so it would be good to get out for a walk tomorrow.

Stay safe, stay strong.

• Feeling: Tired and full of chocolate
• Listening to: 69 Love songs by The Magnetic Fields
• Watching: Batwoman

I slept in a bit this morning, and didn’t get up until around 9:30. As she so often does, D brought me a very welcome cup of tea just as I was waking up.

Today was Easter Sunday, which for us means Easter eggs rather than anything else. Unfortunately I’d left some of the eggs (including a fancy tear-drop shaped one for D) in the car boot thinking they’d be safe there and easier than hiding them in the house – but the hot weather meant that some of them had taken on a distinctly non-ovoid shape. As well as chocolate, D had put together a bag of treats for the kids including books (natch) and some cross-stitch kits.

D hid some small eggs around the house for the kids to find, and F had written a set of clues that B and I had to follow to find more eggs + clues which eventually led us to some birds for us to colour in.

D gave me a box of small chocolate eggs from Tony’s Chocolonely (are current favourite chocolate) which are yummy although I may take issue with the label that describes them as “great big chocolate eggs”

After the chocolate was out of the way, F wanted to work on her website a bit more and setup and wrote a page linking to Bs, Ds and my websites. Later in the day she started doing a music looping project.

It was obviously a “be creative on computers” day as B spent quite a bit of time building a 3D model of a human figure in Blender with the aim of using it in a computer game he wants to build using Unity.

F also got creative with the garden Jenga set that C dropped round a few days ago.

Meanwhile I tackled the last of the hedge and I think I’ve now done everything I can do without going round into the neighbours’ garden – which for obvious reasons will have to wait.

I made some ribs in sticky sauce for tea (some passata, soy sauce, ketchup and brown sugar all mixed together, poured over the ribs, and then cooked on 140-160℃ for 2-3 hours), while D made chips. After tea and some TV the kids video called with their US cousins, then stories before bed.

Overall a quiet day without any drama and one in which a tweet reminded me of how much I love 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields.

Stay safe, stay strong.