• Feeling: Tired out, glad it’s Friday
• Listening to: Hamilton soundtrack
• Watching: QI

Woke early this morning (between 5 and 5:30) and went downstairs to listen to a podcast without disturbing D and to try to get back to sleep. Dozed off on the sofa after a while and woke up again when D came down around 8am.

Spent the rest of the day feeling tired out, and fell asleep for a bit during the afternoon. Luckily my usual Friday meetings had been cancelled so I was able to take it easy work-wise, but I felt a bit guilty by the end of the day that I hadn’t been more productive.

We realised yesterday that B had never had the chance to bring his PE kit home from school, and so got in touch with the school who said we could pick it up today. I drove B over and he went to pick up the kit from his locker – he was a bit surprised to see the school busier than he expected and also he saw some of the measures they’d put in place (distance markers in corridors) and what they hadn’t (he said there didn’t seem to be a one-way system in place for the main corridors).

F had her lesson with Liz and shared a slidedeck she’d done on her recent school topic – and then afterwards was inspired to re-write every slide as a poem – which I thought was great.

That’s it for school for both B and F until September, although F has said she’d like to keep having the sessions with Liz if possible and they both have their Explore sessions which I think we’ll keep doing online even though the centre at Sainsbury is going to re-open now.

This evening I put an extension on the garden hose so we can keep it off the deck (unfortunately the outdoor tap is where I’ve put the deck, and leaks when you use the hose – which won’t be great for the wooden deck unless I can find a way to catch the drips! I also started just sanding down places on the deck where the drill or screws created some splinters – more to do on that tomorrow, along with fitting the side boards and then applying some stain before declaring the decking finished!

Stay safe, stay strong

• Feeling: Bit tired but OK
• Listening to: Nothing today
• Watching: Bake off: The professionals

Really didn’t want to wake up this morning. I was still feeling down after the upset with F last night and just felt completely drained of energy and not ready to face the day.

D let me sleep in until 9am (getting F up, fed and to school) and B (who didn’t get to sleep until late) slept in as well (not like him). Even after getting up (and walking to school to drop off F’s water bottle) I still felt quite down but gradually through the morning as I worked the bad feelings drained away and by lunch time I felt more like myself.

It was F’s last day at school before the summer break today – so now 6 weeks of finding ways of keeping her (and B to some extent) occupied at home – I think it’s going to be a real challenge to be honest.

We also got a letter from F’s school about arrangements for September – which is clearly still going to be quite different to normal – with staggered start and finish times, keeping children with their own “bubbles” (but it looks like the “bubbles” will be the whole class – so twice the current size), and of course plenty of handwashing.

We also got F’s school report yesterday which I couldn’t properly celebrate after our falling out, but it is a delight to read: “she is inquisitive and witty and shows a love of learning in every aspect of her life … she is a great inspiration to others”. We’re so proud of her.

In the afternoon I was helping deliver an online course which took up most of the afternoon, and then cooked some Yorkshire puddings, sausages and onion gravy for tea.

A good end to the day (especially as it’s one of F’s favourites)

Stay safe, stay strong

• Feeling: Lucky / Sad
• Listening to: Nothing today
• Watching: Lucifer

I’ve been married for 15 years to D today and feel very lucky.

We’re not exactly big on celebrating our wedding anniversary and some years we’ve both forgotten about it only to be reminded by friends. But this year we both remembered it, but didn’t really have any way to celebrate.

We decided we’d have a nice meal (lemon sole baked with tomatoes and olives) and a bottle of bubbly and enjoy it.

F got home from school with her report which was excellent, but unfortunately I then told her off about something and she exploded with rage – upsetting herself and me. Even though later we did make up it really spoilt my evening and left me feeling really down – which rather took the shine off the dinner and anniversary celebrations, such as they were.

So feeling rather sad now and not exactly in the anniversary mood, even though I know I’m so lucky to be married to D.

Stay safe, stay strong

• Feeling: Still meh
• Listening to: Nothing today
• Watching: Warrior Nun

Woke up feeling tired and drained this morning and it took me quite a while to get going. Work seemed to fill most of the day with calls through from 12:30-5pm without a break 🙁

F got a certificate from school today for “good home working” which was great and we get her end of year report tomorrow. B has been working on machine learning program to break simple substitution ciphers – so it isn’t very successful (best performance is it guesses letters correctly only 16% of the time) – but he’s learning some code and principles which is great.

Spoke to Mum for a long time this evening, watched some TV with D, then got dragged back into some more work (by my own traitorous brain).

Time to sleep now

Stay safe, stay strong

• Feeling: Meh
• Listening to: Nothing today
• Watching: Defending the Guilty

One of those Mondays when I felt like I needed another day off to recover from the weekend. F woke up very cheerfully (not really in character) and I dropped her at school, while B, D and I settled into work at home as usual.

B got his results from the Junior Mathematical Challenge which he did online earlier this month – and got a Silver (one up on his Bronze from last year) which I think puts him in the top 20% – so very proud of that (although he was, I think, a little disappointed as he reviewed the things he’d got wrong and felt he should have got right).

D was in college later in the day, and I was delivering some online training in the afternoon – so we didn’t see much of each other after 11 until the end of the day.

D finished the latest 1000 piece jigsaw (which means she did the whole thing pretty much by herself) – a much quicker puzzle than the Discworld one!

With the deck in the final stages I’d hoped to do a little bit each evening to avoid having to put time aside this weekend – but of course it rained this evening so that nixed that plan.

Instead I made some soda bread at the end of the day (after failing to get round to baking bread at the weekend) for us to try the raspberry jam we made last week – very nice!

Stay safe, stay strong

• Feeling: TGIF
• Listening to: Apple Essential “Sing-a-long” mix
• Watching: Old Guard

Not sure I’ve been incredibly productive today – I have done stuff, and attended meetings, but really I’ve been looking forward to the weekend all day.

F was at home today as the school is currently closed for a deep-clean on a Friday (none of the communications we’ve had regarding school in September have mentioned this continuing). She had a good session with Liz (as always) and also her tuition from Explore and drum lesson later in the day and also managed to fit in watching Deathly Hallows pt 2.

B had his school work all done by 10:30 and I think was at a bit of a loose end the rest of the day – he downloaded some new visual effects software (Fusion Da Vinci Resolve) and played around with that and seemed happy.

D picked a whole load of raspberries from the garden this afternoon and so I made some jam this evening while the kids watched TV.

We had a Friday treat of pizza from Red Hot Mamma – and as a double treat ate it in front of the TV. After that I split some paving stones up ready to add the final supports to the decking frame tomorrow and then hopefully I’ll be on the final stretch and if we’re lucky we might even be able to sit on the deck by the end of the weekend!

Stay safe, stay strong.

• Feeling: Tired
• Listening to: Nothing today
• Watching: Marvellous

D was up first ready for the Sainsbury delivery, while I slept until about 8. When I got downstairs F was very upset because she felt that D had just been telling her to do stuff since she woke up. To be fair to D had only asked her to do basic things like “put your socks on” and “eat your breakfast” and I think the main issue was that F wanted to read her book rather than get up and go to school. Happily after storming off in tears F came back and apologised to D (and me) which I was really impressed by – F finds it hard to admit she’s behaved badly or unreasonably and for her to do it this morning felt like a real step forward.

I dropped F at school, picked up some purchases from Screwfix, had breakfast before I eventually got to my desk – but after that it was pretty much work all the way through the day with few breaks – and I’m still thinking about work now – it’s been one of those days.

We got a delivery today of a plant – a present from my Mum in memory of Dad. It is a Caryopteris Clandonensis (common name = Bluebeard) Sterling Silver.

It’s currently getting a good soaking in this rain which just keeps falling. It should bloom in August and I hope it will work well in a container on the decking.

After B had finished his school work (just before lunch) he decided to bake some “afghan cookies” – a Primrose Bakery recipe which is a chocolate cookies with cornflakes in them – the results were pretty good.

I had choir this evening, and then D and I watched Marvellous about Neil Baldwin – really uplifting and great performances from Toby Young (who plays Neil) and Gemma Jones (as his mother).

Stay safe, stay strong.