I cannot understand the concept of being bored at home. I just love my home and my family and am in danger of getting too used to not having to go to work. I am very fortunate in having a job as a school librarian. This means that I am able to work from home, albeit in a limited way. I am also on the rota to go into school and support our vulnerable students; this happens once a fortnight. I was able to help with our school holiday club too.
I am very lucky in being so close to my immediate family. For Paul and me this is our second marriage and I was very careful not to make a mistake the second time round. We have always spent a lot of time together during the week. Paul works from home; he has not done anything but work from home in all the time I have known him. With my driving phobia, he has often had to take me to work or to the railway station. Then there have been times when I have worked from home or taken time off, for instance on both of the occasions on which I was made redundant. So being together for much of the time during lockdown has not been a big change for us. My work in recent years has been part-time, albeit nearly full time in my current post. Jess and I have always been close, partly because, well that is just the way we are; we are lucky in having some similar interests. In addition, I think an only child naturally spends more time with parents than children in bigger families. I was close to my parents, but grew up as one of three, so spent much time playing games with my brothers. Add to that the fact that Jess’ father is not with us as part of the family and it all adds up to many hours and indeed years of doing craft activities and playing board games together. I am by nature, I like to think, a fairly creative person and did not need much excuse when Jess was younger, to buy craft kits, science experiment sets and fun toys such as a rocket operated with a bicycle pump! In this time of lockdown, it has been very therapeutic to do more of these activities together. Before lockdown, Jess and I used to enjoy shopping together; she came to love Henley, the beautiful town where I work, and we often went to the shops after she had collected me from work. We also made many trips to the cinema and theatre as a a family. Another interest we all have in common is a love of walking and the countryside; it was inevitable that Jess would come to love walking, as although over the years she has lived in quite a large number of houses, for the past 15 years (so since she was 7) we have lived in our little rented cottage in the woods.
So now we spend time together playing games, painting furniture, clearing cupboards and walking along our many local footpaths. Cooking is another interest that Jess and I share; she works as a chef in normal times, so that is something else that we can enjoy together. These activities have to some extent replaced the shopping and visits to the cinema and theatre, as well as our trips to the leisure centre in Henley. We also just enjoy eating meals together and sometimes just having a laugh. Witness the climbing into boxes episode in the above pictures. Today Jess received a parcel; she had ordered an Oodie online! An oodie is a bit like a hoodie and, to my mind, much nicer than a onesie. You can see us both modelling this in the following pictures:
Does the sloth oodie suit me?
I think that really I just manage to fill the time that is available with activities, and that I don’t always want excitement in my life. I love looking out of the window whilst I am writing; the trees change their colours with the seasons and I can see the results of all that hard labour in the garden, mainly Paul’s hard labour. I have never watched daytime television, although I can quite happily put off a task which requires complete concentration and no background noise by saying to myself: ‘I’ll just listen to 2 hours on the radio and then I’l make that phone call or write that article that I need to do.’ I also love doing domestic tasks such as hanging out the washing and watering the pots in the garden. At the moment I also have to do a certain amount of cleaning in the house, as we have paid our cleaners not to come for the forseeable future.
We do have a new weekly event in the household, which is Friday film night. Each week one of us will select a film and we all settle down to watch it at about 7:30pm, accompanied by whatever dinner I have decided to cook. Friday is usually fish night, but there are endless variations on that theme. The first week, I did make a selection of tasty snacks and canapes, but it was hard work clearing it all up and having everything safely back in the fridge afterwards (I always cook too much when it comes to snacks!) so now I just make a regular meal such as fish pie or fish cakes.
Although I always do a lot of cooking, I can happily do more when I have more time. This inevitably means more washing up of course. Jess says I bake too much. I like making cups of tea for everyone in the afternoon and asking what kind of cake or biscuits they would like with their cuppa. I have always made our own bread, but somehow we are eating more at the moment with us all being at home. I have finally perfected the art of sourdough bread, having run out of yeast recently. I shall tell you more about that in my next blog piece! For the moment, I am a little apprehensive about the announcements to be made on Sunday. There is bound to be some news about schools and what will be happening for the rest of the term. Much as I love my job, I also love being a domestic goddess and am wondering how I shall readjust to this next phase….