• Feeling: Glad to have tomorrow off work
• Listening to: Lily Allen
• Watching: Taskmaster PG edition

Another slow start to the day for me, but B flew through his school work for the day (although that meant he could then spend far too long dealing with the one problem piece of work from earlier in the week).

F was eager to do her work (create a Roman centurions shield) once D suggested she could use the spray paints she got for her birthday – she has been so looking forward to trying these out (and of course didn’t want to restrict herself to just the shield once she got going!)

As he’d planned yesterday, B setup a maths “escape room” for F (one he found online rather than created himself) and although she occasionally got frustrated, I think F enjoyed the challenge overall.

D has been doing more linocuts in her series about the favourite items in her wardrobe with a scarf yesterday and pyjamas today…

View this post on Instagram

#linocut #selfportrait homage to my multitude of scarves, mainly worn in an attempt to look smarter & hide whatever dull outfit I have on

A post shared by Damyanti (@patel.damyanti) on May 6, 2020 at 3:55pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

#linocut #selfportrait paying homage to the comfiest clothing & best start to long weekend, pyjamas! enjoyed doing these #linoprints although may need to stock up at @handprinteduk as running low on supplies

A post shared by Damyanti (@patel.damyanti) on May 7, 2020 at 1:33pm PDT

D and I have loved Taskmaster since it started and UKTV have recently created a “PG” version with all the swearing bleeped out so we decided to introduce the kids to it this week – to much excitement and hilarity on their part. Apparently tomorrow evening we are going to have a “games night” and I’m half expecting to be set a taskmaster style challenge!

Tomorrow we are all taking the day off – woo! (although when asked F still wanted to do her hour tutoring with Liz) – not sure what we’ll do but I’ll try not to get involved in any work for the day. In anticipation I’m sitting sipping some Makers Mark this evening (I was going to have a rum, but somehow have none in the house).

Stay safe, stay strong.

• Feeling: OK
• Listening to: Lily Allen
• Watching: The Great British Sewing Bee

Today is a bit of a blur – seems to have gone very quickly. I woke at a reasonable time but didn’t exactly leap out of bed. B was obviously feeling the same as he didn’t get up until 9 this morning which isn’t like him.

After breakfast it was into our usual routine – everyone at work this morning. F wasn’t that keen on doing anything to be honest but I managed to persuade her to do some VE Day comprehension that the school had sent as a special for this week and later found her a nice “maths mystery”. She’s been doing a lot of these recently (thanks to Mrs C) – you start with a list of suspects and solve maths puzzles (“clues”) to find out which ones to eliminate at each stage of your enquiry – and eventually get down to just one suspect. The crimes involved are usually pretty tame, so F was particularly pleased that the one I found involved an actual murder!

D and the kids went for a walk during the afternoon while I was on an endless procession of calls, and later F decided to create her own maths murder mystery (complete with dead body in her room made from her clothes and a polystyrene skull) for us to solve. B wants to set a puzzle around the house for F tomorrow.

D cooked tea (sausages and cauliflower cheese) and in the evening the kids and D had their weekly quiz call with aunts, uncles and cousins on D’s side of the family, while I had virtual choir. I’m hoping that I’m going to be able to share the video of the virtual choir performance we’ve been working on soon – it was in the final stages of production this evening!

During the day my family were sharing pictures of their respective gardens to each other via WhatsApp – all looking great – I’m particularly excited about our strawberry plants coming into blossom (even though I’m not particularly keen on strawberries).

Stay safe, stay strong.

• Feeling: OK
• Listening to: Nothing today
• Watching: Parks and Recreation

Woke about 5am, came downstairs and tried to doze on the sofa for a bit – eventually went back to sleep and woke again at 7:30 and went back up to bed, D made tea and I didn’t manage to actually get down to breakfast until about 8:45 and started work late as a result.

Mid-morning I went to the supermarket – finding that stressful every time. It was definitely busier than my previous trips since lockdown started and it felt like people were being less careful in terms of keeping 2m distance. I think I’ve become slightly more neurotic about it as well which isn’t great! I tried the ‘scan as you go’ app which Sainsbury’s have been encouraging to help with the queue management – but I’m not convinced it’s a great idea at the moment as it meant I spent longer on each aisle scanning everything. I also missed several items on the list and had to go back at the end which was also stressful.

Anyway, once that was done with we had lunch and I had a work call. F seemed tired this morning and not really interested in doing much work, but she wrote a lovely poem for her grandma. B seemed to have a better day and got on with his school work, and wrote a poem for the milkman(!) to go out in our empties tonight.

D setup a camera to try to capture birds as they collect nesting materials from the garden, and got a pretty good shot of a blackbird.

View this post on Instagram

When you film hours of video footage for 2 pics of garden birds, that

A post shared by Damyanti (@patel.damyanti) on May 5, 2020 at 5:20am PDT

Thanks to her cousin and Bryn playing with the new Google 3D animals, Freya found some more exotic wildlife in the garden:

I was pretty tired by 4pm and during the last zoom call of the day I did some hard concentrating with my eyes shut…

We went for a walk after tea (which we also ate in the garden) and the front garden is looking great

Stay safe, stay strong x

• Feeling: OK
• Listening to: Nothing today
• Watching: The Mandalorian

Feeling a bit better / less sorry for myself today. Lots of nice messages from people yesterday and a good nights sleep has done me some good.

B had a tough day today, as he struggled with some (in my opinion) poorly set school work. By the end of the day he was a bit more relaxed, but all in all a stressful day for him.

F and D both had OK days I think, and D has been doing some cute lino cuts in the evenings.

View this post on Instagram

#linocut #selfportrait paying homage to my current fave wardrobe choice, the humble dungarees , next up should be dress with pockets

A post shared by Damyanti (@patel.damyanti) on May 3, 2020 at 3:33pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

#linocut #selfportrait homage to dresses with pockets the best kind of dress

A post shared by Damyanti (@patel.damyanti) on May 4, 2020 at 2:41pm PDT

I spent most of the day on calls, and helping the kids. D got on with her work, kept the kids on track and fed us. More parcels – one for the kids from Auntie P full of goodies, and I got a new toolbox and a replacement light switch which I need to fit. In the evening the kids talked to B & Z in Chicago and showed off their new climbing frame (of which F said: “imagine your favourite food in your favourite place to eat – it’s better than that!”)

I’m still tired, still stressed, and still not feeling 100%, but today was a better day than yesterday, thankful for all my friends and family, and tomorrow should be an easier day work wise – so hopefully all on the up.

Stay safe, stay strong.

• Feeling: Tired but slightly better than yesterday
• Listening to: 1989 (Taylor Swift) and White on Blonde (Texas)
• Watching: Men in Black: International (but not really paying attention to it)

Still not 100% today, although better than yesterday. Woke up early (for me) and got a hot cup of tea from D as a reward. Didn’t get up until after 8 though. B didn’t sleep well last night and slept in this morning. I could tell he was really tired because when I told him to stay in bed and not worry about school he said “OK, if you say so”.

The struggle to get F to have a reasonable breakfast continued and she had frozen raspberries this morning. Later in the day when we were discussing lunch and dinner plans she said “I’ve had frozen raspberries for breakfast, I’m having pizza for lunch and lamb burgers for tea. Who could want more than that?”. Who indeed!?

My sourdough from yesterday was the accompaniment for the lamb burgers. It turned out quite close textured – much more so than usual think. I’m not sure exactly what was different although I proved it longer than usual (because I’d had to go to bed yesterday feeling unwell when it should have gone in the oven), and I also went for a long loaf rather than round and not sure I got the shaping stage right – but it tastes good all the same.

View this post on Instagram

Close textured sourdough

A post shared by Owen Stephens (@ostephens72) on May 1, 2020 at 3:16pm PDT

I worked hard today until about 3:30, and then watched some TV with the kids (Great British Menu – very exciting this year as B and D actually went to the series finale banquet in Oxford earlier this year!), and did a bit more work before and after tea. Lamb burgers (with rosemary chopped through) were delicious for tea if I do say so myself. We also watched the Disney “Family sing-a-long” (on Disney+) which was quite fun, although F only really liked it at the very end when Zac Efron turned up to introduce “We’re all in this together” from High School Musical.

F was a bit reluctant to tackle school work this morning, but eventually was persuaded to do some “exciting writing” (free writing) and then had another good session with Liz/Mrs C in the afternoon. B got through all his school work and seems on top of things, although he was disappointed not to get to do any extra computer coding today (although he had already done a computing lesson for school).

Tomorrow I’ve ordered some breakfast treats from Haddie and Trilby, so an early start to collect those, and then the main plan for the day is to construct the new climbing/trapeze set in the garden – alongside a choir committee meeting, quiz, and in the evening the premier of a virtual choir project we’ve been working on – because tomorrow would have been our concert – more on that tomorrow.

Stay safe, stay strong.

• Feeling: Tired and under the weather
• Listening to: Pentatonix
• Watching: Stumptown

Not feeling so great today – sneezing lots, sore throat and headache, and feeling tired – some kind of infection I think. I had to take some time off work to have a rest this afternoon. I did manage to bake some bread, but not much else.

View this post on Instagram

My new bread in my new bread bag!

A post shared by Owen Stephens (@ostephens72) on Apr 30, 2020 at 12:19pm PDT

This evening we treated ourselves to a pizza delivery from NYC Pizza (a new delivery we hadn’t tried before – it was OK but I prefer Basement Browns.)

Kids both had music lessons (keyboard for B, drums for F) which seemed to go well – and the new iPad stand worked really well!

Apart from that just feeling really tired, so going to go to bed now.

Stay safe, stay strong.

• Feeling: OK
• Listening to: Pentatonix
• Watching: The Great British Sewing Bee

Thought I woke up reasonably early (well – before 8!) this morning, but D had been up long enough for the cup of tea she’d made me to be only luke warm.

The kids did some cooking today – bacon sandwiches for lunch and then B made macaroni cheese for tea (with a little help from me). Wednesday is a busy work day for me so didn’t see as much of everyone else today, especially during the afternoon, but F did some school work (although with less enthusiasm today) and B seems to have settled into a reasonable rhythm with his school work and is getting on with things and keeping on top of everything as far as we can tell.

Both D and I got deliveries today relating to our respective obsessions (I can’t have enough electronic bits and pieces, and she can’t have enough stationery). I also got what I assume will be my last birthday present of the year – a linen bread basket/keeper from M, L, B & Z – I just need to bake some bread to put in it (so I’ve just mixed up some sourdough starter now – I’ll bake tomorrow).

There was also a delivery for the kids today – we ordered a new swing & climbing set for the library garden (as the swing we have is really a bit tired and too small for both of them). I’m know F will love it and I hope it will be big enough for B as well. I think it might have to wait until the weekend to put it up though (although not sure F can wait that long).

In the evening choir for me and D & the kids did a quiz with some of the family on Zoom – although our kids are obviously hard quiz masters since the top score was 16 out of 30! After the quiz finished both the kids got a bit upset (for no real reason as far as we could make out) – I guess just the excitement combined with disappointment when it finished perhaps tinged with sadness at not seeing their cousins, aunts and uncles in real life. F got upset again later when it was time to sleep and worked herself into a real state taking ages to get to sleep 🙁

Polly Faber and Clara Vuillamy’s stories about Mango and Bambang (a little girl and her tapir) have long been a favourite in our house and a few days ago Polly Faber published a special “lockdown” story about the characters on her website. F was inspired to draw some illustrations and Polly added them into the story which is lovely.

Stay safe, stay strong.

• Feeling: Tired
• Listening to: Pentatonix
• Watching: Hawaii 5-0

Went to sleep around 2am, so very tired this morning. Got up at about 9am, B was stressing that he wasn’t up yet and claimed he absolutely had to be “at school” by 9:15. Happily he did eventually calm down – although not until he was actually working. I’m ashamed to say I was pretty grumpy all round, and perhaps especially with B, in the morning due to tiredness and that having a knock-on effect on my own work.

Both kids seemed to have a pretty good day school work-wise, and B had to watch an Alice in Wonderland adaptation (the Tim Burton film) for Drama, which F was very happy to watch with him. F did some great writing (with a bit of moral support and encouragement from us) for her English, and did some drumming practice very happily (which doesn’t always happen even though she loves drumming).

One of the excitements of lockdown is when we get deliveries – and I seem to be ordering enough things that this is a regular, if not quite daily, occurrence. This morning’s treat was an iPad stand (well, actually a microphone stand with an iPad adapter) which I’m hoping will be the solution to having the iPad in a good position while the kids have drumming/piano lessons.

B and F go to “Explore Learning” which is an English and Maths tutoring company which have centres in various places – including our local Sainabury’s. Since their centres are all closed at the moment they’ve been doing one-to-one online sessions with the kids (1 hour a week) and these have been very successful with the kids. D and I had a “parents consultation” with one of the Explore staff today to have an update on how things were going with B & F. They are both doing really well, and working rapidly through materials – so the tutors want to move them onto more challenging materials which we are happy to see happen. Its always nice to get good feedback on the kids and how they are doing, and also to be reminded how great B & F are (which is too easy to overlook when you are dealing with day-to-day dramas and stress).

Since I cut back the hedge we’ve been able to see the birds perching, mating and collecting nesting materials really clearly from the kitchen window. At the weekend D had a plan to setup her phone to film them, and I managed to get it setup so it was concealed in the hedge. We got 90 minutes of footage, and I went through looking for some good “action shots”, and today edited the video down. The clip here is one of my favourites of a blue-tit just perched in the top right of the picture.

The kids have been watching lots of “comfort” TV over the last few weeks – re-watching (for the third time) the really great “Avatar: Last Airbender” cartoon series, and yesterday evening we watched the last episode in the new BBC Malory Towers adaptation which has been a gentle ride although with genuine emotion and tension in each episode. F is already asking if they are going to make a second series – so definite approval there.

And now time for a Parks and Recreation episode before bed – comfort TV for D and me.

Stay safe, stay strong.