Pie in the Ground

Early on in lockdown, on one of those warm, sunny spring days, we were all sitting together in the garden having lunch. 

I can't remember who first looked over to the tumbledown shed in the corner (I had earmarked the space for my shepherd's hut when we first viewed the house, but David Cameron got there first and he doesn't appear on the list of people who I would want to share dreams with) but someone remarked on it. 

The idea of a replacing a leaky building that even the cat shunned on a wet day was born.

'I could have a dance studio!' cried Gertie.

'No - it would have to be a gaming room with a PlayStation.'

'And a chumfy sofa.'

'It would definitely be a spare room for when guests come to stay,' I said firmly - not realising then that people would not be 'staying' anywhere but at home for the forseeable future.

'A bar!' said Hearth Father, with a resounding lip smack, eyes alight.

It seemed that we all had a plan. Except that none of us did. Not really. It was all pie in the sky. (An expression, the origin of which incidentally, I had to look up: From the lyrics of a song called The Preacher and the Slave by Joe Hill in 1911, itself parodying a hymn promising heavenly reward after death. Now used to refer to something pleasant to contemplate but unattainable or unrealistically Utopian.)

And there were so may things in the way of it ever happening. Actual, big things - like an enormous beech tree, a brick wall and the aforementioned dilapidated shed. 

Yet somehow, from those idle words, seven months later 'Saplings' has risen from the ground. It comes complete with dance floor, games console and sofa (that becomes a bed for guests, when at some still far distant point in the future we are able to have such things again).

Tree surgeons, diggers, accidents with ancient walls - all are now a distant memory. 

Hours of impressive work from Hearth Father - groundwork, carpentry, building, roofing, landscaping - with much-welcomed support from good friends have helped the project come to fruition in late Autumn.

He just forgot one thing - his bar.

Cheers!

Currently Reading: A Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Post Lockdown Birthday

Eddie turned nine last weekend and deciding on a way of marking the moment was trickier than usual. Everyone else in the family had their birthday this year in 'actual' lockdown so there was no question beyond how to make it special at home together. 

Not so for Eddie.

To him, the world appears pretty much back to normal now. He's been back at school since early September, and the classroom seems similar to what he knew before. The teachers are not required to wear masks, nor are the students (unlike at secondary school where they seem to have become something of a fashion accessory). Changes are subtle. Things look much as they ever did. 

His football team are training and playing matches against rivals home and away; social distancing is encouraged, but you can't put a decent socially-distanced tackle in, and it goes out of the window if a goal is scored, in the natural joy and exuberance of that moment. Swimming classes are back on, though he isn't allowed to shower afterwards - an irrelevance to a 9-year-old.

So why wouldn't a party or a sleepover be possible?

It must seem ludicrous to him that he can be in close proximity to his friends during the school day, play on a football team with seven other players, be in a swimming lesson of a different eight kids, travel to school in a car with two classmates - and yet, because we are a family of five, only have one additional person in the house because of the Rule of Six.

It's difficult to make sense of - especially given that as a secondary school teacher I come into contact with between 150 and 200 students on an average seven period day. 

He has been on a fantasy-kick for the last few months, and so in the end we chose to do the Harry Potter  Studio Tour and experience the 'film-making magic'. Eddie was allowed to bring one friend so that we would be a legal party of six amidst the hundreds of other visitors.

In the end it was a fun day out, completed by a wand-fighting lesson, a broomstick ride, a trainride to Hogwarts and lashings of butter beer (well, one serving to share, since the purchase required remortgaging the house. Actually, the whole thing pretty much cost the price of a week's holiday in Spain, but whose counting in these strange times?