Project 52 2020 week 13 – collie

Week 13 has brought normal life to a halt. Like so many other countries, we’re basically now pretty much on lockdown due to coronavirus. Our weeks might be a tad monotonous at the moment, but it’s still important to document what’s been going on to read back in future.

Here’s our week 13.

Sunday was Mother’s Day and a hard one for so many families as they were meant to not be visiting each other. Mother’s Day here is quiet anyway. I thought N hadn’t got me a card, but he produced one he’d made the evening before. You can’t beat a handmade card, and he even did fancy writing inside rather than his normal style. We started one of N’s crystal science experiments (well he did, I just supervised). The father in law got out on the lawn mower so our super wet ‘jungle’ is now neat and tidy.

On Monday it was the first day of home school. N was ready to start before 8.30 and whizzed through his 3 maths things. Shame he’s less keen on english which takes a lot longer. He is very distracting though – there’s commentary and singing all day! I’d set up the year 4s with a daily zoom call at lunchtime so they can chat. Well, some chat, there’s a couple of them, N included, who don’t really speak at all. And of course there ends up being silliness.

It was another beautiful day. on Tuesday. I need to get out more during the day because now I’m working from home I’m not getting up all the time to talk to people, and it’s not as far to walk to the toilet. I did join N with a bit of skipping (needs a lot of work, my skipping skills from my childhood have disappeared!) and some tennis using the rebounder.

Wednesday was more of the same. We do keep having to put out more bird feed because they’re demolishing it within a day. So far we’ve had a robin, lots of sparrows, great tits and a couple of blue tits. Plus a fat pheasant that likes to sit on the fence most of the day.

On Thursday we nipped out to see the puppies for a bit. N goes out with his dad and walks them early morning and sometimes in the afternoon once he’s finished work. He’s generally doing all the tasks he’s been set by his teacher, but getting him to read is hard. They do seem to have a lot more English than they’d do daily at school, but N’s giving it a good go. Not to the level I would expect – maybe we need to just choose 1 english activity and get him to be more thorough in that task.

Friday I was on leave. It feels frustrating having holiday but not actually being able to do anything you want. Usually I’d go out for the day, to National Trust, or meet friends, or even just to blog in a coffee shop. Instead I helped N with his school work, did some blogging, and then we made bread rolls for the first time. In the evening we looked out for the International Space Station.

On Saturday, it was unsurprisingly another day at home. So far we’ve not needed to go out shopping since last Saturday. We are running short (ie about to start our 1 spare pack) of cheese, could do with some bread, and need some veg, but I’m hoping to have a local veg box and dairy box delivery early this week. Then I’ll need to get other basics from the local shop at some point in the week. My next supermarket delivery isn’t for another 2 weeks so I’d like to see how much we can eat from supplies before going out. It’s good because I’m now working down the food in the freezer, but it does worry me when it’s running low. Because to replace what’s come out when there are restrictions it’s pretty hard to get enough food for lunch and dinner daily for more than a week.

We didn’t do a lot. N went out on the farm for a bit, I did some of my jigsaw, did a lot of cooking and had a good dance around the kitchen. Before coronavirus I was planning to get back to dancing once I’d hit my first target weight which will hopefully be at Easter, but dancing’s obviously off. So dancing at home will have to do for the moment.

This week’s photo is of the old knackered (although she doesn’t look it here) collie. She’s a retired sheepdog who spends her time wandering around the drive or sunbathing. I got the big camera out to take some photos of the pups playing with the older dogs one day, and this was probably the best of the bunch.