Bribing My Way Through Lockdown Days

Half term is always expensive, and turns out it still was, even in lockdown during a global pandemic when we can't really live the house, and certainly not the village. 

How, you ask? 

Well, we have a 'rule' in our household of no devices before 3pm. Mornings, without the discipline of homeschooling, became long voids of time. Gertie met a friend to walk around with for an hour each day. Gilby managed a socially-distanced morning of fishing with a schoolfriend, and Eddie, too young to meet up with a friend independently, read quite a lot of Beano. (A subscription has been his lockdown treat.) What we really needed was structure and purpose. 

So I resorted to bribery - always a parenting win - and came up with a series of half-term 'challenges' with a heirarchy of financial reward. (And before I am judged too harshly, they don't yet get pocket money.) 

The list included poetry and Shakespeare by heart, cooking, DIY, writing, music and sport. 

Gertie learned the prologue to Romeo and Juliet. Eddie learned the first part of Hamlet's 'To Be Or Not To Be' soliloquy - though it sounds funny coming from the mouth of a 9-year-old. We had two three-course-meals cooked for the entire family, and the boys collaborated on writing and recording a song about the foibles of various family members. Several 5km runs were completed in increasingly competitive times, and I got a new birdtable. (To be fair, that birdtable required some intervention from Hearth Father as it was a little more complex than I originally envisioned, but still.)

I am now skint. 

The littler people have decided that challenges are an easier way to earn money than chores. It's a crying shame that they require the extrinsic motivation of a financial incentive to do this sort of stuff. I seem to have created some sort of monster. Easter is only three weeks away. Let's hope we have a few more freedoms. It would be cheaper to go to a theme park or eat out every day. And it might have been cheaper to buy a handcrafted birdtable from an artisan online shop, but never mind. 

Currently reading: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders

Cereals with Podkin

Lockdown 3 through winter is tedious. None of the novelty of the first one, less of the fear now that we've all had covid, and very little outside play because of the cold. It has, though, led to an increase in reading in our house - particularly for Eddie.

Breakfast with Frodo in December

With his Christmas money he chose to invest in a selection of Beano annuals that he reads over and over again. 

After zipping through The Hobbit last year, we are still reading Lord of the Rings together by night. I have a feeling that will go on for many months. We have only read about two hundred pages so far - no need to even bend the spine of the book yet.

Cereals with Podkin

But is a fantasy series by Kieran Larwood that has really captivated him. They are his 'favourite series of books ever in the world.' He read the first book, about a character called 'Podkin', three times in a row. It was the least I could do to secretly order the next story in the series. 

When the second book arrived he threw his arms around me in a spontaneous demonstration of happiness. Yesterday he spent a solid three hours reading it in the morning and then wouldn't come and eat his lunch until he had finished the final seven pages of book two. When he eventually did come and sit down he was very quiet. He told me afterwards that it was because he nearly cried at the end so he couldn't really talk. 

This morning he skipped cheerfully down to breakfast with book three. 'Cereals with Podkin are a great combination, aren't they?' he said.

Now, in fairness, the weather is rubbish so he can't go outside, and he is too young to meet a friend outdoors as his siblings are able to do from time to time. 'Screentime' doesn't begin until 3pm in the afternoon and all devices are banned until then, so there really is very little to 'do' but read, write or draw. 

Still. His writer-English teacher mum is very happy. Especially since he now wants to be a 'bard' when he grows up. Cheers, Podkin!

Currently Reading: A Promised Land by Barack Obama (but should probably switch to The Legend of Podkin One Ear :o)

Singled Out

It has been a while since we have had any linguistic funnies. Now that the little people are all growed up, those little language slips and mishaps get fewer and further between. 

There was Eddie pronouncing the character of 'Ginny' in Harry Potter as though it was 'Guinea' - which was mildly amusing, but also heartwarming. One of those moments when someone is reading beyond things that have appeared in their spoken vocabulary, and therefore don't deserve to be laughed at.

We did have an entertaining moment the other evening, though, in a music discussion. Gertie was talking, as she mostly does these days, about One Direction. She described one of the album tracks that Eddie knew well, and explained that he was familiar with it because it was a 'single'. Eddie was absolutely adamant that it wasn't. He got crosser and crosser at Gertie's use of the word, claiming that it most definitely wasn't a single. His explanation?

'Because the whole band sang.'

Poor Eddie got most upset as we collapsed in helpless laughter. But it's not terribly surprising that a 9-year-old doesn't know what a single is. I suspect it is a term that might fall out of use entirely before too long. I'd better not get started on spiders - or the vinyl single middles spindle jukebox adapters that I used to have to buy in order to play my records.

Currently reading: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Different Colour Pens

 Eddie has just revealed a secret about his homework.

I don't know whether to be shocked by his deception or admiring of his ingenuity.

Before I explain, I need you to know that this confession has an important caveat: Eddie is, without question, a bookworm - and in any hours where he is not allowed on his tablet or the PlayStation he will be found with his head in a book.  I'm just saying...

So, he is required to complete his reading journal each week, updating it with the titles of books he is reading, perhaps the number of pages, and some comment about the book.

As third child, he is often left to fend for himself and doesn't have quite the level of attention that his siblings might have done, but for once I remembered to check up on the reading journal.

'Have you filled it in for this week?  Your teacher would like to see them on Monday.'

'Yes, don't worry, it's all up to date.'

'Oh, good.'

'Yeah, once a week I just fill it up with random titles that I've been reading. I put lots of entries and use different colour pens so that she thinks I've done it on different days.'

Help. I now can't unhear that disclosure.

Currently reading: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

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.