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

Lockdown Letter

One of Eddie's homeschooling activities this week was to write a letter. He will be heading into Year 4 in September, and the idea was to introduce himself to his new new teachers.

He carefully drafted the letter in his notebook, then borrowed my typewriter to type it up. He seems fascinated by the 'instant' nature of the typewriter, in comparison to the laboriousness of having to wait until the end of wordprocessing something to print it off and get the hard copy in your hands.It's an interesting perspective.

Anyway, here's the finished version.

Now, as an English teacher I'm very happy with the layout and paragraphing. Nice work there, on the whole.

I'm less excited by the unintentionally ironic misspelling of 'literacy' in identifying it as his favourite subject.

Then there is the gradual fading out of capital letters and punctuation (some of which can be blamed on the typewriter - it's a temperamental old thing) and the allergy to spaces between words at times.

But I can let those go. 

I'm more bothered by the fact the implicit suggestion that his mother is weird, he's being 'left behind' at school and that he has the onerous task of feeding the cat and dog, as though he lives in some form of Victorian workhouse. The idea that sleeping on a sofa is a particularly human characteristic that the dog has adopted is also a tad troublesome. 

For the record, the chicken run is now a peaceful, harmonious - it just took a few days for the pecking order to be established! (Blanche is in charge, in case you were wondering.)

Currently reading: A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe

The Lowdown On Lockdown Birthdays

We've had three, so far: Hearthfather's, mine and Gertie's. That would be Gertie, who somehow while I wasn't looking, has just become a teenager.

So we are getting quite good at lockdown celebrations as we have had quite a bit of practice. There are a few rules:

• The birthday girl or boy gets to choose the structure of the day and everyone has to go along with it. 
• Lockdown birthdays really ought to last for two days rather than one
• There are more family presents than usual.

So, inevitably, we each went for something different in terms of the 'structure of the day'.

Hearthfather went for

• a lunchtime beer 
• a family Zoom quiz (he won on a bonus question, supplied at the last minute, to ensure that result)
• a takeaway curry.

His was quite early on in lockdown days, and the Indian restaurant (that we are relatively frequent patrons of ordinarily) actually let us have a beer while we waited to collect the curry. And brought some poppadoms to the table. It almost felt like going out. As in olden days. But not quite. Because it also felt quite naughty. But nice.

Mine involved

• no Zooms whatsoever, on pain of death
• a cycle ride 
• a disco. 

I realise that final bullet point requires some explanation. It was a disco for five people. At home. (With rather excellent disco lighting that we have now permanently installed in the sitting room.)

I have decided that this is by far and away the best format for a disco. I could dance like nobody was watching, because, really - they weren't. We went beyond 'air guitar' and mimed with actual guitars. And it was actually enormous fun - we partied until after 10pm. Yes, 10pm. Gilby took himself off to bed just before and Eddie had to be carried up, floppy and exhausted, like back when he was a toddler. Even Gertie got involved. (It was before she became a teenager though.)

Gertie chose

• a family Zoom quiz (which she won by a country mile, not needing the bonus question)
• separate social distanced doorstep deliveries from friends who had baked cookies and a cake
• a takeaway pizza

And what a cake!  We are still eating it. Apparently it feed 30-35. It's not really helping the lockdown diet terribly much.

Gilby is eleven in July and Eddie's is not until September, so there is a bit of a lull now. Eddie has his heart set on Harry Potter World. Fingers crossed.



Currently reading: The London Train by Tessa Hadley

Unexpected Benefits of Lockdown #23

I don't know if it is 'number 23', but there have definitely been plenty of unexpected benefits to the strange state of affairs that Covid19 has brought about.

Until this afternoon, we had a bright pink carpet in the dining room.

I hate it.

I have hated it since we first viewed the house. I have no idea what might have compelled anyone not on drugs to make this choice in their actual home. In a bedroom of an elderly aunt, maybe, thirty years ago. Certainly not in a DINING ROOM where actual people might actually see it.

But, worse, this was evidently relatively recently fitted. It was in 'good' condition. Like new, in fact. There were more urgent jobs when we moved in. I am famous for my big plans and shallow pockets. Other things had to come first.

And so the pink carpet remained.

For THREE YEARS.

It has tormented me at least daily. Mostly early mornings, when I come down before everyone else is up and rage at it, silently. Sometimes, when it is covered in Kempton hair when she is being particularly moulty, and I have to vacuum three times a day, then I rage out loud.

We have talked occasionally about putting some tiles down. And now seemed like a good time. Hearth-Father has plenty of time on his hands, for once. (At least three more weeks of lockdown, as was announced today.) So he spent a good four hours measuring up, researching tiles and grout, comparing prices. The time really had come. We had made a decision on the very tiles (or at least narrowed it down to three), when he pulled up a corner of the carpet to see what lay beneath...

...to discover the most glorious, perfectly intact parquet flooring.

Look at it!  Just look at it. Why would anyone cover that up? And why would they cover it with pink?

It rather changed the whole complexion of an otherwise quiet afternoon. Suddenly it was all hands to the deck, so to speak: now the dining room gets a spring clean, we get a new floor, and it hasn't cost a penny.

Gertie, Gilby and Eddie are providing the labour.

Well, mostly Gilby and Eddie, to be fair. Gertie is 'a bit busy', and (evidently practising for becoming a teenager next month), now sees 12pm as an outrageously early time to be out of bed.

As you were.




Currently reading: The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather

Unexpected Benefits of Lockdown

Like most families we have had to quickly establish a home-working routine that suits everyone, and thereby create some structure to our locked-down days.

Last week I managed at home by myself and had to multi-task my way through teaching my students alongside my own children, while Hearth-Father tied up things at the garage.

There were some noteworthy achievements during that time, though. I finally rediscovered what the bottom of the laundry basket looks like. It isn't a black hole, after all, though most reports put its last sighting back in 2006, before the advent of children.

My brother-in-law was rude enough to suggest that the image had been photoshopped. As though my photoshopping skills were superior to my laundry ability. In true, Hollywood ending, socks long consigned to the 'odds' basket have been happily reunited with their once forlorn partners.

Not that there is anywhere to put all this newly laundered stuff. Turns out, if it's all done at once then it doesn't actually fit into the available wardrobes and drawers. Who knew?

We have managed two family facetime calls in the last fortnight, with four households tuned in simultaneously, joining Sussex, Surrey and Dorset. We didn't quite get the Isle of Man contingent online at the same time, but will try again with that next week.

Another highlight was that Gertie and Gilby baked bread. Together. Unprompted. Almost harmoniously. Or at least as if they quite liked each other. Ok, so it didn't quite rise as they might have hoped, but still. We chewed gratefully, if for longer than expected.

And brand new horizons have been reached today; while I merrily created resources for several different year groups for home learning this morning, half the lawn was dug up ready for reseeding. Oh yes. Hearth-Father has been very busy indeed. I shall have to get over myself and forgive the radio blaring all day long that has accompanied his labours.

Currently reading: The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer

Homeless Half Term

When we moved in to our house nearly eight years ago, the bathroom was top of the list for things that needed to be done. It was an abomination; there was no way I was going to be able to live with it; and how many years ago was peach 'in' as a bathroom colour anyway?

Yet somehow those first few weeks went by and I managed to bath and shower in the room of hideousness, then, gradually, the urgency wore off and I stopped noticing that I didn't like it.

Until a hole formed in the kitchen ceiling as a result of the rotten floorboard exacerbated by three children regularly and merrily splashing their bathwater onto the floor. This rather forced our hand a little, and the bathroom is now in the 'destruction' stage of completion. i.e. it is entirely empty of all of the things that a bathroom should contain.

This is my current bathroom:

Which is quite far removed from the bathroom of my dreams (but, sadly, not my finances) that looks a little bit like this:

And, it is half term.  Brilliant timing. The drilling and general smashing about means that we need to be out of the house as much as possible. It's February so it's freezing and being in the garden is not an option for sustained periods of time. My capacity for doing free stuff (in places that have a toilet and somewhere to brush your teeth) has just about been stretched to its limits.

Still, it will all be worth it in the end, I tell myself through gritted (and not so minty-fresh) teeth.




Currently reading:

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

For Sale Signs and Errant Pants

So we've made the decision to try and sell the house.  Again.

There is no more money in the pot, but we need more room.  When we moved here, Gertie was just a few months old, not yet on the move.  For two adults and a tiny baby it was positively palatial.  We bounced around in our big house, and once she did start crawling, I might even lose Gertie for a few moments. These days finding five minutes alone in the bathroom is an unlikely proposition.  Now there are the three little people.  And they are not so little.  They have this habit of just growing bigger.  And bigger.  By the day. Moving towards a time when they will want to spend increasingly long times alone in the one bathroom.

I can remember all the empty rooms when we first moved in and wondering how I'd ever have enough furniture to fill them.  Ha. Now every corner is crammed full of stuff.  Each inch of wall space is covered in pictures and photographs.  There are thousands of books.  Everywhere.  And that count might go up to tens of thousands if you include the boxes in the loft. There are plastic toys in places where toys simply shouldn't be. Like in my shoes. And behind the washing machine. It is impossible to keep tidy. And therein lies the first paradox.  Because in order to sell your house you need to be able to keep it very tidy.  So that it can be viewed at a moment's notice.  Well, we had our first viewing today.  It took me four hours to get things straight.  That's not happening every time, I can tell you. And when we came home there was a pair of toddler pants smiling up welcomingly from the utility room floor, that I must have missed in my final tidy-check.  That subsequently looked like they'd just walked there themselves.  Which I guess they might have done, being Eddie's.

So now I follow the children around hawk-like, beady eyes scanning for any potential mess-making hazard. They will be the first to tell you that this is not fun.

And the house we have our eye on is...'in need of modernisation'.  In other words, a wreck.  And a smaller wreck than our current abode at that.  And it costs more money.  But it is a wreck with the potential to be bigger.  At some point, when the childcare costs stop sucking the lifeblood from our very veins.

We tried to do a similar thing a few years ago, but the wreck of a house we wanted then sold almost before we'd got ours on the market and it felt like a blessing in disguise.

So I've got my eye on the estate agents' window these days.  Today I was drawn to an attractive property in the top right hand corner.  It took me a second to register that it was the one I already own. ( I say 'own'.  I think we might own approximately a square metre of the floor space, by now.  But another paradox:  It looks lovely in the pictures, all tidied up and de-cluttered.  Like somewhere I might actually want to live.

Gilby the Boring and Gina the Cleaner

Today we were heading off to a birthday party late-morning, so I negotiated a 'deal' with Gertie and Gilby. They had to tidy their rooms and play 'nicely' for an hour, enabling me to get all the housework done. We could then all troop off happily to the party.

I should point out that since my return to work last month we have employed a cleaner - Gina - who is a marvel. She comes on a Wednesday and my house is beautiful for an entire evening. We usually return home late on a Wednesday because Gertie goes Irish dancing after school, so there is no chance to mess it up. Of course, by Saturday, especially in a 'holiday' week, it is its usual chaotic self again, requiring significant intervention on my part.

After briefly offering to help with the vacuuming, which he enjoys for all of about ten seconds, Gilby starting huffing unhelpfully around the place. "I am so boring," he kept repeating, clearly not realising the implications of his words. I chose not to correct him because it made me laugh.

Gertie the Good sat quietly reading in her bedroom, whilst Eddie helpfully took a nap, and all was well. We duly went off to the party, returning three hours later to an exceptionally clean and tidy house (even if I do say so myself.)

"Oh look, Mummy, Gina must have been while we were out!" observed Gertie, cheerfully, as we came through the front door.

Grrrr....

,

New Year, New Title

First day back at school today, and a chance for me to attempt to return the house to some sort of order after the glorious chaos of the Christmas holidays. By the time I came to collect Gertie, things were ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Ish.

She had a friend round to play after school, and in their excitement they ran in, dumping coats and shoes on the floor in the kitchen. I had to trip over them whilst carrying baby in car-seat and was not best pleased, so I called them back to tidy up.

Gertie picked up both coats and handed them to me.

"That's not quite what I meant. Why don't you hang them up?"

"Because I can't reach. And anyway, you're the hooker-up of coats. Hooker-Mummy, Hooker-Mummy," she called as she ran back up the stairs.

Just hoping she doesn't remember to call me that whilst in the supermarket. I suspect it could be misinterpreted.

Testing Times

Six months pregnant with number three and we have put our house on the market. What have we done?!

With the prospect of a lean maternity leave ahead, do we really need to increase the size of our mortgage? With two pre-schoolers running around, can I really keep this place in a fit state to be viewed by prospective buyers? In the current economic climate, isn't the housing market still decidedly dodgy?

Memories of moving house when Gertie was just six weeks old are surfacing regularly. And did I mention that we actually love the house we are living in? Umm...I ask again, what have we done?

Still, life is always chaotic; just excuse me whilst I try to embrace the madness...

Order! Order!

Gertie has an obsession with organisation and cleanliness. I am a fan of order myself, though this luxury has been removed by the arrival of my children; it must be genetic though, because my classification-conscious daughter notices immediately if anything is out of place in the house, and becomes quite disturbed if I have rearranged furniture or just had a move around of things in the kitchen.

At breakfast time she is physically unable to eat her cereal if I have inadvertently left the cupboard door open, and will burst into tears until the crisis is addressed.

She is dreadfully offended if anyone dares to walk into the sitting room with their shoes on, and is obsessed by what belongs to whom and where things have come from. She is quite happy to 'help' with housework, takes delight in pointing out where I have 'missed a bit' and is highly critical if any area of the house is particularly 'messy'.

If she spills food down her clothes, a complete change of outfit is required immediately, and she is fixated by her various aprons. She has a 'cooking apron' and a 'painting and colouring apron'. Woe betide me for suggesting that the wrong apron be used for a particular activity.

They even commented on it at nursery when we went for parents evening a few weeks ago. They noticed that she is not happy to do finger painting or anything likely to get her really messy. She does like painting but will always ask for a brush and is fastidious about removing all the paint afterwards.

I am not unduly worried by this behaviour. I see it as her trying to make sense of the world around her.

My question is simply this: why do the same rules clearly not apply in her bedroom????

Home Alone (For Forty Minutes)

I experienced a small and totally unexpected and ever-so-slightly-guilty pleasure today.

I have been back at work for two months now, and Brenda, the wonder from Down Under has been living with us for about the same length of time. (She is amazing, but doesn't look after the children all the time as they are still attending nursery for a couple of days a week; she has just begun another part time job at a local adventure farm park.)

Anyway, she was working at the farm this afternoon and I had to do the nursery run. I also, happily, finished work a little early today. Usually I have to pick up in a mad dash on my way home, but today I just went home first to get everything ready. I could turn lights on, have supper all prepared and then just hop into the car and get the kids.

I couldn't work out was odd as I came into the house. Everything was as it should be. Except that it felt different. And sort of smelled different. And definitely sounded a bit different. And suddenly it dawned on me: this was the first time I had been 'home alone' in nearly eight months. Ever since Gilby was born, in fact.

And I had a whole forty minutes there - in my own house - with only my self for company. I had completely forgotten what it was like. There was just silence and everything was tidy and I was in control. It was really, truly odd. I sort of savoured it, but then it was over oh-so-quickly and once again the house was filled with noise and colour and mess and 'hecticity'. I'm sure that's not a word but it features regularly in my vocabulary.

So now I can't wait until the next time I am able to sneak home alone. Why didn't anyone tell me how great it was?