Yes I know you've seen this image before, but let's face it, we're in groundhog day! Just a couple of days ago I said son would be going back to school later in the month etc. Well that's all changed. Kids are now homeschooling for the foreseeable future. Today is day one.
My goodness it's been stressful. I've moved from my office downstairs to be near son. I spent the morning sorting things out and walking behind his screen (camera on), with hair in disarray and wearing old sweats. Only to discover that he hadn't been able to fade out his background so now his whole class and teachers have seen me at my very best!
We've had quite a few tantrums - not son - parents! It's a lot to suddenly have thrown at you. I've had to rootle out the ear defenders we bought for son when he was 4 and couldn't take the noise of crowds and fireworks. They are squeezing my brains out of my nose they are so tight, but that's preferable to listening to Geography lessons.
That said, we're lucky his school are reasonably organised. It's all a bit up in the air today, but I'm confident it will pull together by the end of the week. Although the PE class was a joy - the PowerPoint workout the kids were instructed to do and to time was probably taken straight off the pages of preparation for the next Olympics. Totally unrealistic, causing much anguish.
They say this could go on for a while - I'm not going to lie to you - I'm in total meltdown. I start my new job imminently - I have no idea how I can do it with a child home schooling. Doubtless there are parents out there who do home schooling feeling very smug people are finding it so hard. I'd just like to point out that for them it was a choice and they are probably not trying to hold down a full time job at the same time.
I think the worst thing is that I know that I'm lucky - at least son's school is doing lessons online and they seem well planned. For many parents this simply isn't the situation.
On a brighter note - I've mentioned that my garden is falling apart and needs rebuilding and that bathroom is in bits. We simply can't get anybody in to do the work. This made me suddenly realise that our den at the front of the house - where husband plays guitar and son plays computer games is utterly disgusting. When we moved in here we'd never had such a luxury before so had no furniture.
I spent the grand total of £500 doing the room up - everything from furniture to curtains. That was 12 years ago and everything gets used daily. So I've got updated bits and bobs coming through. I'm looking forward to having one room in the house that doesn't make me roll my eyes. That said I nearly fainted when I saw the price of things and so the update is scaled back and some of the original furnishings will survive the cull. The sofa is definitely going though. Purchased for £100 12 years ago, it's utterly disgusting and falling apart - but we definitely got our monies worth.
Also purchased some blackout curtains for the room I tend to use as my study. There's only a little space there and in the afternoon it has direct sunlight right behind me. I have cream curtains that I pull, but the end effect by the time my camera picks up the outside light is that I'm floating in heaven. As I'm far from angelic I thought it best to change that pronto.
Anyway, it's home economics this afternoon. Doubtless this means that I'm going to have to find time to make some fairy cakes or similar whilst juggling preparation for a webinar about digital inclusion. Not sure how that's going to work out. Watch this space!
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