Stop Working! I'm O.F.F

I've now reached the stage where all this feels normal. Like it's my new normal (what an annoying term that is). At some point during the past couple of months, my new normal has crept up on me and I suppose I've got used to it. In all the initial panic, I have adjusted. The weather has been tan-tastic which has helped. We had our first trip to the beach since lock down. And it was amazing! We are lucky that not only do we live quite close to the coast, my mum lives by the beach, so we get to go quite a lot through the year. We've even made snow castles in the past! But that morning felt like life was momentarily put on hold or something. "Momma's Beach" as we call it, is a beautiful sandy beach. So clean and so deserted. It was the hottest day of the year, and yet just us three and a surfer shared the whole beach, the two either side of us and the one past that to the right (I didn't bother checking any further up the coast line). So it mean...

This week I've decided I'm going to try and celebrate the silver linings of life in lockdown. I understand the severity of the what's happening - it's affecting us all in some way after all, and I'm certainly not becoming complacent, but it's also really important to me to be positive. Although the crisis has claimed our homes, and with it bought an ever increasing load of chores, life has some how become a lot more relaxed in lock down. No longer are we rushing to get the kids to school, get to work, get to meetings, get to the supermarket, get back in time to pick the kids up from school, before getting them to swimming lessons, karate classes or Beavers - all (i might add) whilst ramming a mayonaise layden floppy bought sandwich down our necks. The kid's school packed lunches have always been perfectly prepped in segmented tupperware boxes, with fancy trimmed crudites and hummus, bananas with drawings or heart felt messages on their skins (d...

Following a week of decorating, baking and excitement in anticipation of V E Day (which was glorious by the way), I suppose this week was always going to feel rather flat. I'm tired. Exhausted. Exhausted of not having a proper routine or purpose. Tired of literally having no time to myself. Tired of thinking what do to, when to do it, and what to do after that's finished. And tired of (and this is the worst one) thinking what to have for tea. No matter how many back to back activities you plan for the kids - they've done them. They're finished in ten minutes. It's like trying to organise some one's "fun filled 40th week end" every single day. No let up. It is becoming increasingly more important that whilst lock down continues, so does life - with all its ups and downs. It's important to let people talk about their emotions. To open up. Especially whilst hugs, cuddles and shoulders to cry on are in such short supply. And that...

This week 'RAF Grandad' (as my children distinguish him as from their other grandad), did a whatsapp video call home learning lesson on Dunkirk. Many of us know the story. In May 1940 hundreds of thousands of Allied troops, stood shoulder to shoulder in the water waiting for hours, stranded in Dunkirk - were rescued by a ramshackled fleet of fishing boats, life boats, yachts and other civilian boats from Britain. The detail of this story that RAF Grandad told, had my boys mesmerized. But, on the birthday of Captain (now Colonel) Tom's 100th, it got me thinking too. As many of us battle the boredom of the indefinite Coronavirus lockdown, we find ourselves reaching for a glass of 'something something' (medicinal purposes only of course) But as well as finding the odd crusty necked bottle of Cinzano from Christmas 1991, behind the 7 or 8 bottles of partially drunk 'happenin' versions of Gin (from Christmas 2019) - there's another spirit we...