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?

Tortoise Tales

 There is another new arrival in the household. Meet Blanchefleur:

Blanche is a 10 week old Hermann's Tortoise, though I prefer the sound of her Latin name: Testudo hermanni.  Life expectancy is seventy-five years, though many live beyond this. All things being equal, she's going to outlive me.

I'd like to say that this is a pet for the children, but really, I have a fascination with reptiles - so this is actually one for Hearth Mother. I could watch her for hours as she goes about her tortoise business. She is very cute, and has plenty of growing to do.

Given Blanche's preferred Mediterranean climate, she comes, understandably, with a few housing requirements. I have purchased tortoise 'substrata' and a heat/UVB lamp for her tortoise table. My proliferation of spider plants have been put to good use to decorate her new environment, along with some wooden hiding places and rocks: a mixture of pet-shop purchases and garden finds. Dandelion and coriander are her favourite foods so far, but I have plenty to learn about her diet and caring for her. This is really new territory for me.

That takes the household tally to nine animals. I've been told, in no uncertain terms, to stop there.

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

Bubbled School Days

Life has returned to normal, somewhat, for Gilby and for Hearth Father. Gilby is back at school for four days a week, and Hearth Father back at work full-time after being furloughed in April and May. 

The rest of us are still, for the most part, stuck at home. 

Gertie goes out occasionally to meet one friend. Eddie is too little, still, to be able to do this. Excitement for him comes in the form of being able to go to the shop once a week, alone, to buy some sweets or chocolate. On his last visit a man 'was quite old and a bit confused and wasn't able to properly socially-distance,' he explained. Given that the pubs have only just reopened and the local is next door to the shop, I expect I know the reason for his confusion. Football training returned last week for both boys. In 'bubbles' of five, maintaining two metres distance at all times, each child with their own ball.

Socially-distanced football training

I escape into school occasionally for a meeting with parents - in the open air - or a meeting with teachers. I have not been assigned to operate a bubble at school because I have two children of my own at home. My teaching is all online - through a blog and Google Classroom, with a few 'live interactions' via Google Meet or Teachstream through the week. The days beat out to a different rhythm, punctuated now by the additional demands of  'staggered' drop-off and pick-up times for Gilby. 

As a Year 6 student Gilby could have returned on the 1st June. We waited a couple of weeks and sent him on the 15th June - time for the dust to settle on new systems.  As well as the variations to the start and end of the school day, I have to wash his uniform every night to 'decontaminate'. He has had his leavers' assembly - split into three celebrations with the maximum fifteen students spread out on chairs two metres apart in the hall - where he received a dedicated copy of the Bible along with a virtual handshake. This was videoed for parents and sent out as a YouTube link. The moments of Gilby holding the candle and doing a reading didn't make the final cut.  Fridays are reserved for teachers to make their Zoom calls to other students and set on-line work, so it is a four-day week in school.

A new suit for the Year 6 prom

A socially-distanced 'prom' has been organised for the Year 6s for next week. Pupils must bring their own food and drink, and only one parent is able to drop them off. At the suggestion of the school, Gilby has also taken in a polo shirt for his fellow students to sign - in a sealed bag that can only be opened after seventy-two hours.

They play cricket each day, with two balls; one dropped into a bucket of disinfectant each time it is played - touched by the bowler and a single fielder before being thrown to the teacher and cleaned while the other ball goes into play. 

There is no interaction with anyone outside of Gilby's bubble. It seems a strange way to end primary school, but perhaps better than no ending at all, which is what it looked like back on Friday 20th March when they were sent home for what we thought might be the final time this academic year.

Currently reading: The Illustrated Pepys From the Diary, Edited by Robert Latham

New Adventures at Layalot Castle

Layalot Castle has been fully renovated since and security stepped up since we were unfortunately visited by Mr Fox back in March.

I have missed the antics of the hens, especially first thing in the morning, but it has been very difficult to track down a supply of new ones during lockdown. Apparently, everyone in Sussex decided that they wanted to keep chickens when the pandemic began, and there was something of a shortage. I had planned to go for chicks and raise them, but we couldn't get hold of any.

So back to rescues. We were hoping for six, but only three arrived: Blanche, Nessie - short for Lyonesse - and Lynette (to continue the Arthurian theme).

Eddie was a little disappointed that they wouldn't eat sweetcorn straight from his hand.

But, aside from being a little timid they seem quite happy so far -and in far better condition than rescues we have had in the past. They have plenty of feathers for one thing. Nessie laid an egg within ten minutes of moving in. But Blanche is the early front runner for ruling the roost. I found her eight feet up on top of our garden wall when I went to put them to bed.

And Gilby made for an excellent hen-whisperer when the girls had no idea how to get back into their coop.

Mispronunciation Megaboosts

Everyone has a story about the kind of mispronunciation that happens because you have only seen a word in print, never heard it spoken out loud. I can remember reading a Catherine Cookson novel (when I was way too young to be reading Catherine Cookson) and stopping to ask my mum what a w-horror was (whore). She burst out laughing when she realised what I was referring to. I'm not sure I got an adequate explanation.

Eddie, this morning, told his sister that she smelt of 'co-lodge-knee'. It took us a while to work out that he was referring to her perfume as 'cologne'.

Gilby wanted to know what people did to get sent to 'gayol' and why it was so bad.

While both caused some amusement, they get me back by uttering utterly incomprehensible game-related statements such as 'It's a nightmare because I always need to megaboost by stage four when I run out of flying monkeys.'

Or something like that.

Increasingly I find that I have nothing to contribute to mealtime conversation.

I wonder if the flying monkeys smell of colodgeknee before they megaboost, and whether that gets them out of gayol.





Currently reading: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo