It’s been a “nothing really” sort of day. I got the lie in I wanted this morning and didn’t get up until 10am. D and F had been up a while but B also got up late and wasn’t much ahead of me.
Unfortunately it wasn’t a great morning – despite (or because of?) the lie in I was tired and had a headache. F got frustrated with the lack of action and company in the morning and I got frustrated with F, and we fell out. I also upset B as he embarked on making granola by himself (which was admirable) but without actually checking what ingredients we had or really thinking about the recipe before he started – which again left me frustrated. What we are learning here is I’m really not great company when I’m tired.
D stepped in and worked with B on the cooking and tried to cheer up F. Eventually we had lunch and I made up with the kids, and the day perked up a bit.
In the afternoon I made bagels with some help from B, and then D, B and F watched The Force Awakens. I sort of half watched, tried to do a puzzle on my phone, and tried (but failed) to read my book, and rest.
Overall I’m feeling a bit down this evening – I’m tired, behind with work and not really looking forward to Monday. I feel like I’ve wasted the day a bit and not been great company for D or a great parent for B or F and I’m generally feeling quite sorry for myself. Looking for something to treat myself with this evening to cheer myself up. Hopefully a good nights sleep will sort me out.
Today would have been spring/summer concert for the choir I sing in. Instead we decided to have a virtual event, remembering some highlights of Sing it Loud and premiering our “virtual choir” video – although that didn’t go quite as planned!
My day started last night when Seb (the musical director) got in touch about midnight to see if I had a computer that might render the virtual choir video more quickly than his (as his was not going fast enough) – and so we spent the next two hours getting me setup with the right software and files to give it a go. We set the job going, and it looked like it might work – and around 2:30 I went to sleep with the plan to wake up at 7 and hopefully see a finished video – however when I woke it was still predicting 6+ hours to finish the job – and it remained at “6 hours to go” for the rest of the day.
Happily Seb was able to put something together for the evening, and the whole event went off really well and we had a lovely time – what was meant to be just 45 minutes of memories, turned into a couple of hours of reminiscing and watching old performances, and eventually the virtual choir – the proper version will be made available on YouTube once its done, but for this evening we all enjoyed watching Seb’s “early draft” together.
Apart from choir, it was a busy day – we got pastries from Haddie & Trilby for breakfast.
Then I spent most of the day building the new trapeze and climbing frame set for the kids. We’d decided that the old swing (which was secondhand when we got) really was past it, and given the current circumstances we should get the kids something they could really play on in the garden. And so last week I ordered a single swing/trapeze frame plus a rope ladder/platform & pole from Brave Toys. While the process wasn’t entirely stress free (I didn’t always deal with the kids “helping” so well) the result was a great new garden toy and two very happy kids.
In the evening, before choir, we had the usual Saturday quiz, and F had been very keen for the dress-up theme to be books – she dressed as “Prince Johnathon” from the Song of the Lioness series, while B wanted to be the steam punk traction city of London from the Mortal Engines series.
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.
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.
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.
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 🙁
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.
It’s been a sad day. It was my aunt’s funeral today, and of course I couldn’t be there. Instead I sat and listened to the music that was to be played and remembered her. The music choices were beautiful and fitting, and I found Bach’s Cello Suite No 1 and this rendition of Crossing the Bar by the Longest Johns particularly moving and left me in tears.
I spoke to ____ this evening, but we had difficulty lifting ourselves out of our stress about the general situation, our concern about how long it will last and what our lives will be like over the next weeks, months and years, probably not helped by our respective grief.
The rest of the day was work mainly. I think the day went reasonably well, and feel we are getting a bit better at knowing how to react when F gets fed up or frustrated (and when I say ‘we’ I mean all of us including F).
I baked some soda bread, and tried my latest batch of kiwi & gin jam – which I rather over “jammed” so it’s more like a kiwi caramel than jam!
Singing usually helps me cheer up, so I decided to record the latest song I’ve been working on. I love this song, so I hope I’ve done it justice.
Going to try to keep this short. A pretty relaxed day as I determined not to stress myself out with a list of things to do. I made bread (focaccia – but far too wet and not my best effort – but tasted fine all the same), jam (kiwi & gin) and broke down a pallet that we had a delivery on in the hope that at some point I might make something out of the wood.
I did some more electronics with B and some programming – we got the light dependent resistor working and connected to the Raspberry Pi – so a step closer to my project to integrate this with my wooden guitar player automaton.
F played in the garden and on the computer and watched Hairspray in the afternoon.
I helped D conceal her phone in the hedge so that she could film the birds (hopefully some footage forthcoming).
I failed to read my book (which was about the one thing I’d wanted to do), but did manage to finish the arrangement for my latest looping project – so hopefully I’ll be able to record that in the next few days.
In the evening B and F FaceTimed with their US cousins, and F got to say thank you for the very smart laptop case she got from them for her birthday.
All in all a successful Sunday, but now its Monday (twenty past midnight) and I need some sleep.
Its been a slightly unsatisfactory day. I’ve been a bit out of sorts all day, and I think others have been have well – F certainly seemed to be (maybe picking up on my mood) and maybe D.
We had a nice laid back start to the day. I woke at the same time as D and so managed to make a cup of tea for her for once (scant repayment for the cup she makes me pretty much every other day). We got up slowly and after we’d had breakfast, and I had coffee, I worked with the kids on a little project with a Raspberry Pi – this is a mini computer (a footprint slightly larger than a credit card) and can be used to control electronics. I’d originally intended to use it to add some fun interactivity to the wooden automaton I got for my birthday, but I’d encountered some problems so I decided to take it back to basics and do a simple project to just turn an LED on and off. The kids were interested in helping, so we worked on it together, wiring up the very simple circuit, connecting it up to the Raspberry Pi and copying a programme to turn it on & off – and then playing around with extending the program to do other things.
F especially enjoyed modifying the program and with help from me and B got it to do a countdown with the light switching on and off more and more rapidly as it reached the zero – and then printing ‘blast off to the moon’ on the screen!
After we’d got this working (which also told me that my earlier problems trying to get the Pi working were not due to defective hardware – so one potential issue ruled out) I wanted to tackle trying to breakdown the branches I removed from the hedge into small, bits that I could stack and so regain the bottom end of the garden. Unfortunately this didn’t go to plan.
I got my big electric mitre saw out thinking I’d go through the wood really quickly, but after only cutting a few branches, I somehow managed to blow the extension cable and, not having a spare, the whole project ground to a halt. This left me in a pretty bad mood – not sure why I let it upset me so much, but sometimes these things do. Later I worked out the problem was the fuse in the extension cable plug – so a simple fix (except I don’t have any 10amp fuses in the house, so have had to order some).
After lunch (throughout which I maintained my bad news), I joined a virtual session from Seb, our choir musical director, about how he records the guide tracks for us to practice from (we were originally meant to have a choir rehearsal today in advance of our now cancelled concert next weekend). I found it really interesting and it me geek out and be a bit jealous of his setup and mastery of various software packages – but it was quite long and I’d been on the ‘seb-inar’ for over 2 hours when F and B fell out and decided I better see if I could help rather than leaving it to D (who was out in the garden drawing).
We decided we should all get out of the house and went for a short walk in the local park. F cheered up a bit, but still wasn’t in the best of moods. She told me she was frustrated with not being able to go anywhere or do anything. I asked her what she where she’d go if we could go anywhere – and she said she’d go to a shop and buy “wires and electronics and metal and stuff to make things”. It turns out she wants to build a robot.
I know F misses being able to play in the park and so I’m wondering if we can do anything in the garden to give her something to play on (we only have a very old and battered swing which really is far too small for both F and B now).
After the walk the kids both did some music practice, and I browsed online and ended up ordering a random selection of electronics and accessories for the Raspberry Pi, a pack of 10amp fuses (for the extension cord) and a billhook (which I’m hoping might offer a manual alternative for breaking down the hedge trimmings). I also looked at (but have so far resisted) more audio kit for my computer (because I was jealous of Seb’s setup – but then he’s a professional musician while I just potter around occasionally with recording myself) and buying a huge playground set for the garden (they are quite expensive!)
As we got tea ready the kids watched some videos of the Mischief Theatre cast (of the “The play that goes wrong”) watching back and commenting on episodes of their recent BBC series (The Goes Wrong Show). We were meant to see their latest show (Magic goes wrong) for Fs birthday and all loved The Goes Wrong Show, so it was nice to see them talking about it (“like Gogglebox but more interesting” said B).
After tea we had the weekly choir quiz organised by C, and then bedtime – which didn’t go completely smoothly with F being alternatively obstinate and sweet, but not going to sleep.
Finally D and I sat down and watched Knives Out on the big screen – which we really enjoyed. I finally opened and sampled the whisky that D got me for my birthday – and very nice it was too. The colour is a deep amber, and its very smooth with a subtle woody/smoky finish.
I don’t feel I made the best use of today – I wanted to make bread, jam, get the wood chopped, and generally “get stuff done” – and I failed at all that. I did enjoy doing the project with the kids in the morning, and didn’t have a terrible day overall – I think maybe I worry about time wasted at the weekend because work dominates the week so much. I need to find a better way of balancing this, and also making sure I enjoy the things that do go well and don’t let the setbacks dominate my mood.
But ending the day safe, with a good film and a nice glass of whisky (or two), with D next to me is a pretty solid win – I’ll take that and try to be in a better headspace tomorrow.
I woke even later today, and only managed to get downstairs by ten to nine, by which time everyone else was already up, although the kids hadn’t had breakfast. After I’d had breakfast and two lots of coffee I had the last session in my online course to deliver – although I didn’t get much else done in the morning.
The kids both had good days with F doing a lot of reading, writing a poem about sheep in a play park based on a video of sheep playing on a roundabout, did some school work and watched the Rotten Roman movie for the second time in two days (which happily links into her school work!). B got on with his school work with minimal fuss covering Geography, English and getting a head start on some Art for next week.
D had her 6 month probation meeting for work (which went well), did her Davina exercise video and encouraged B to make a cake – which he did. It was a recipe which used biscuits, milk and baking powder to make the cake – so good if you have no proper ingredients to hand. Then you cover the whole thing in chocolate ganache – so perhaps the base doesn’t matter so much!
I’d mentioned during our virtual choir rehearsal & social on Wednesday that we were finding it hard to keep F occupied with school work. Liz, one of the choir members and a teacher, recently (before the pandemic) set up a business offering online learning for kids (Mrs C Teaches Me), and she offered to do a session with F and they had their first session today and it was a great success. F really enjoyed it and afterwards was all smiles and chat about it – it was really nice to see her enjoying herself. You can find resources from Liz / Mrs C on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook – especially lots of KS1 resources if you have young children.
F finished the day with more reading “Three pickled herrings” by Sally Gardner (reading it well after she was meant to be asleep).
After a trip to the supermarket, and then a glass of wine this evening I’m completely exhausted and glad its Saturday tomorrow.
