Family time – The Jolly Jaunts of Sarah Kooky Cook

You are never too old to enjoy the fun of a large box!

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….

I am recording diary entries to share how we are coping and spending our time at home. I may not write every day, but hope to do this quite frequently.

First of all, in my Pollyanna way, I have to count our blessings, and we have those in plenty:

There are three of us in the household so we have human company and people to laugh and be sad with. We can play games together and share our highs and lows. Let’s not forget that Tigger is part of our family, and Tibbs, who lives next door, would like to feel he is part of the family too!

Paul and I are still in gainful employment and being paid. I am a school librarian and can work remotely as well as being required to go into school to support vulnerable students. Paul is self-employed and can organise conference calls and remote working. He is based at home anyway, so it is not a big change for him. Jess is being treated very fairly by the owners of the pub where she works.

We have a big garden for exercising and never-ending gardening projects. We are also on the edge of woods, fields and National Trust land. We can exercise and walk with no fear of meeting too many people.

We have a huge network of friends and family with whom we can keep in touch by phone, e-mail and social media. I run an amazing facebook group called Archers Chit-Chat which is just the best support network ever!

We are healthy with no underlying health issues. We have always preferred eating at home and cooking from scratch to eating out.

We live in a rather remote location with very few neighbours. It is quirky and delightful and makes self-isolation easier!

I shall actually have to maintain social interaction because of working in a school. I feel privileged to be working in such an important sector and to make a difference to the lives of young people. At the moment there are very few children attending school because they are vulnerable or have parents who are key-workers. I think that my time in school will be very special and I have so much I want to do in terms of reading, playing board games, walking round our beautiful school grounds (33 acres in total) and perhaps taking photos of the scenery in the sunshine.

So, how did we spend our first day at home in isolation? Well I spent a large part of the day in touch with school, checking the rotas for the in-school provision and planning some activities. I also have all of the Year 7s as classroom groups, as I run library lessons with them. I have been sharing with them some of the many free resources available in terms of e-books, audio books and other sites where they can find out more about books, authors and mental well-being. My lessons are not compulsory, unlike the work set by teachers. However, it is great when the students respond with their thanks or send me work that they have done. I can share pictures and happy stories on our school library Twitter account. I am also a member of some other social networks and facebook groups in which we share ideas and resources.

Jess my daughter decided that she would like to do some painting projects – house and furniture painting rather than works of art (although that may be another idea for later on). She is better than I am at preparing with masking tape and not dripping paint everywhere! I am only allowed to paint outside because of my messy habits. Paul thought it would be a great idea to brighten up the insides of our front and back doors. You can see here what a fantastic job she made of the front door. Most of the paint we had already. You will see from pictures to follow that we like definite, bold colours, although the front door is actually quite subtle!

Jess also started re-painting our garden chairs, which is something that we do every year. She also painted two smaller chairs in a lovely sunny shade of yellow. These chairs were left behind by guests some years ago and never collected.

Other activities included eating lunch altogether in the garden. I somehow failed to take a photo of this, or lost it, but here is the loaf of bread I made:

Ploughman’s Ale Loaf (recipe courtesy of Delicious Magazine)

We decided that as we have a big garden and Jess and I usually go to the gym, we should set up some improvised gym equipment outside. There will be photos to follow when we have completed this project, but to start with Paul and Jess repaired our home-made swing in the trees and we all had a go on it. You should soon be able to see a video on facebook of me giving it a go!

After lunch we had a message from my mother that the new SIM card had arrived. This was a purchase to set our uncle up with a mobile phone, which he has resisted for many years. He finally agreed recently that he should be in proper communication with the family, as going out to use a phone box is no longer sensible and does not allow us to contact him. Jess and I went round to the house and sat in the garden (complication is that mother is paying for the contract so the SIM arrived at her house) setting up the phone with all the contacts that Geoff could possibly need. We then drove over to Burnham to deliver the phone to Geoff and give him a quick lesson in using a smart phone. He tried out texting, phoning people and navigating the screen. Of course we also had to make sure he could find the keypad for ringing other numbers such as the emergency services. So to anyone who is saying, ‘was it a good idea to go and visit your uncle, a vulnerable, older person?’ my response is that giving him a phone lifeline was at that moment more important than social isolation!

So that was Tuesday 24th March, a day well spent. How did you spend your day?

Tag: Family time

Boredom in Lockdown? Not in our household!

Isolation in the Seddon/Roberts Household Tuesday 24th March