Category: Uncategorized

The supermarket is one of the strangest places to be at the moment. A place where it’s harder to maintain the sense that life is going on as usual. The most peculiar thing was that at first sight only the rather fraught shoppers signal that anything is wrong. Buckets of flowers, baskets full of fresh fruit and vegetables. Nutritionally this will be fine if it continues as it is now. We may have to install a bidet but personally, I feel this if I can buy avocados but not toilet paper I can’t view this as very straitened.

The woman with purple-red hair scraped back into a high ponytail couldn’t keep her hysteria in check when she came to the aisle where the tampons should have been. Perhaps she isn’t aware of the women for whom that is the norm across the UK and the world. Maybe it’s a good thing she hasn’t read about menstrual rags. The victims of Jack the Ripper had their possessions itemized and recorded. They were typically carrying menstrual rags. Use, rinse, repeat.

For today at least, I’ve devised a list of jobs to get the children to clean the house. So far today they have vacuumed the kitchen, the lounge and the hall (twice, the first time wasn’t good enough), cleaned the sinks and the bath, emptied the dishwasher and written cards to 2 friends. Even if (when) the novelty wears off, at least we’re starting this time with a clean house.

So here we are, late afternoon with a roast dinner roasting, sitting together at the dining table, writing. If this never happens again at least for a few minutes today my parental ambitions have been fulfilled.

And if we really can’t get by without loo rolls the Fair Price Supermarket is selling a pack of 24 for £30.

I don’t suppose we will be able to have a funeral for my Nan. A quiet burial with just her children, not her grandchildren. Perhaps a get-together in the future when we’re allowed to get together. It feels strange; to defer grief is not really possible but not to have the opportunity to come together as a family to share, not just the sorrow but also the joys and memories leaves a gap. I have shed most of my tears, perhaps. It would be good to talk together about the good things. There were so many good things.

That’s an only slightly unsymmetrical date for a day that had a strange, somewhat unwelcome symmetry.

Myrtle came home from her residential, but rather than rushing to greet her family she was ushered into the hall to be told by tearful teachers that this was probably her last day in Year 3.

Red’s last day in Primary School.

And then, at last, my Nan died. She was the kind of person who had such an enormity of character that it wasn’t a great surprise that it took 5 full days of unconsciousness before her body gave up. She didn’t die of coronavirus. She was just really, really old. We’ve thought she might die for quite a few years. Today, finally she did.

I’m still quite looking forward to months of family time, as though our little house is on the prairie. Already we’ve had conversations about “being nice to each other”. Clearly I am naive and deluded.

Whilst Nan’s death was expected, peaceful, a merciful release, still I feel really sad. Sad for myself – in her arms, I am a small child, inhaling her sweet, lavender smell and her overwhelming love. Sad for my Mum, knowing something of what she has lost. Seeing that more clearly in Myrtle’s love for me and her ever-present fear, that she will one day go through such a loss.

This is what those people are afraid of, this, before the time. The odd thing is that this lurks in more ways than Coronavirus. That’s still the more unlikely way to go.

The tears of the teachers, the male senior management, they were a surprise. Not quite so funny after all, all this. How much they care. For my children. My precious, beautiful, infuriating children. I didn’t realise they cared so very much. That they are losing something they feel so much for. What a privilege to have my children taught by people who care so much about them.

Red seems a bit confused. The last day of primary school, rather sooner than he was expecting. My memories of my last day of primary school were mostly feelings of excitement, growing up, a new adventure. It’s a long wait for him, for an adventure which will start..sometime. Probably. No wonder he feels confused.

I would imagine we won’t be able to have the funeral I had been imagining. Now I don’t even know if I can be with my Mum to try to provide some comfort.

I am beginning to understand what isolation means. The removal of the opportunity to be together and to feel the same thing, together. That is what we are missing. What we have is the sense that there are others, somewhere else, feeling the same things we are feeling, but instead of the comfort of sharing those feelings they are magnified by being apart from one another.

4 days before lockdown. Or is it 2? It’s hard to be sure. Either way, I’m finding it hard to suppress my excitement. Staying home with a 2-year-old does somewhat magnify the mundane.

Trying to home educate Red (11) and Myrtle (8) might be rather less mundane. We’ll sit around the family dining table being creative. Even the 2-year-old. I’ll suddenly be the mother-of-all that I’ve always imagined I’d be. We’ll emerge into a ravaged landscape as lights in a dark world, blinking in the sun and basking in our own productivity.

A lovely moment this, when the vision has been not yet been sullied. We’re even all healthy. Apart from Ben’s persistent cough. Maybe this did not all start in China after all. Perhaps it started in a Staffordshire village in a family not overly concerned about hygiene and a mother who really, really doesn’t like being told what to do. That’s what happens when you have an absurdly capable older sister who is supremely good at bossing and, unfortunately, turns out to be (usually) right.

We’ll just have to keep the fact that maybe coronavirus originated with us quiet, whilst we demonstrate to the world how lockdown is done.

As an introvert married to an extrovert I’m thrilled that I’m not the reason we’re not meeting up with all our friends. Coronavirus is my saviour. Weeks at home with my family and no need to say yes to any invitations. We’d love to, but you know, for the greater good….

Just try to avoid thinking about the people worrying about making ends meet. Worrying about dying.

Not to worry, I have a plan. Mainly that the children can do my household jobs in order to earn very small amounts of screentime. It’s so hard to get the cleaning done, and they do so love screentime. And isn’t that what home education is all about? Sure, you need maths, but you need to know how to do the washing too.

There’s so little opportunity for creativity within the National Curriculum, isn’t there? And boredom is the progenitor of creativity, so we’re good to go. Congratulations kids, this is going to be fun.

And in the meantime, we will sit by the fire playing scrabble and drinking wine. Perhaps I’ve already died of something like flu and gone to heaven. Hang on, I don’t believe in that so this must be how the future looks. For some people, it might be a hideous nightmare. For me, it’s all I ever dreamed of. And in my online scrabble games I have had 2 seventy-pointers in 2 days. They have no chance.

Probably worth pouring another glass of wine. Tomorrow’s Friday, after all.

We moved in to Rose Cottage on the 1st July. We’ve been here nearly half a year. We didn’t build it ourselves, that dream is on the shelf for now. In fact it’s a while since this house was built and it has a tangled history of being two homes, then one and finally (for now), our home. Ben is building a studio /office in the garden. We’ve just sourced the straw bales. It’s enough of a project.

So why not Ivy House Cottage? We were close. But we couldn’t get a resolution on the overage clause that said that we might have to pay ten of thousands of pounds on receipt of planning permission. There was no way we were going to go to court to fight that battle. In the end it wasn’t worth it. We began to wonder if it wasn’t worth it in other ways too. It’s a pretty big deal, building a house. Red turned 11 this autumn. We don’t have time to spare, as far as our kids are concerned.

And we saw Rose Cottage and the estate agents told the vendors to go with our offer because we were renting and ready to go. And suddenly here we are. With a green woodpecker in the garden and a neighbour who feeds the foxes. We intend to feed the hedgehogs.

We are very thankful for what we have. It is more than we ever thought of. What we have learned is that a house is a place for people. We have had opportunity to fill this house with people and it something from which we all benefit. When a house is full of people, then it is a home; then it becomes alive. That’s the best kind of building.

For Christmas we were 19, including some of the most inspirational people I have ever met. They are also refugees. It is a privilege and a pleasure to have our home made full and complete by so many. We hope this is only the beginning.

This has been an exciting year for us. In between our old house and our new one I’ve started to get paid for writing, and I’ve started writing stories for which I doubt I will ever get paid. It’s good, I’m enjoying it.

Maybe one day, when we are grey and our children our grown we will build a tiny woodman’s hut. Or perhaps we will live in a campervan. We may not get that far; one of us might have to go on alone, or not.

There’s no need to look too far ahead. There’s plenty to be getting on with now.