Hacienda all weekender anyone?

Week three.

Jogs done- numerous at an increasingly slow speed because…

Wine drunk- at least a bottle a night due to…

Constant conversations that start with-

 ‘Can I have…?’

‘Do you know where xxx is?’

‘Have you seen….?’

‘Can you make me…?’

‘I’m vegetarian now, can I eat xxx instead of xxx?’

‘I can’t sleep in my bed, can I sleep in yours?’

‘Can I watch….?’

Child- ‘MUUUUUUUMMY!’

Me- ‘What?’

 ‘MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMY?’

 ‘Yes?’

’MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMY?’

 ‘WHAT IS IT?’

‘Just checking you could hear me.’

Beginning at approximately 6am and not stopping until bedtime.

The days feel busier than ever, but with very little achieved.

Just surviving.

The house looks like it’s been burgled.

I can’t understand how we’re generating so much washing.

No-one seems to change what they’re wearing, yet there still seems to be at least two loads of washing a day.

It’s Easter holidays, but other than a total lack of home-schooling and a daily screening of ‘Hop’, very little seems to have changed.

I’m painfully aware that we’ll never get this intense time together with the kids again.  Thank you Facebook/ instagram memes for the reminders.

I do want the kids to look back on the lockdown weeks (PLEASE LET IT BE WEEKS) as some kind of adventure, instead of one long bollocking.

But Christ on a bike, I sometime feel like my brain is going to explode if I can’t even have a wee without someone under the age of nine hammering on the door, desperate for the loo right that moment only because I’M IN THERE.

And then the kids go to bed.

The house is quiet.

And a new level of mum guilt creeps in.

How I’m one of the lucky ones.

I know that.

I know it every Thursday, when we stand outside our house clapping for those who are putting their life on the lines everyday to save lives, to make sure we’re safe when they might not be.

I know this when I queue 2 metres apart to go into ASDA and speak to the woman at the checkout, who’s being breathed on by hundreds of shoppers that day.

I know this when the guy drops off our veg box in a mask and gloves.

I know our only real challenge, right now, is to stay at home. That’s it. It’s that simple.

So the other day, we got a load of beetroot in our veg box.

I’m no chef at the best of times.

I roasted a couple.

My husband dutifully ate one, the kids were not so complementary.

I texted my neighbour to see if she’d like any, to which she responded, she loves beetroot so much she’d eat them until her wee turned pink.

So I left some outside her house.

And a day later, she left us, in return, the most delicious beetroot pie, as a thanks.

As I saw it on doorstep, I had a proper snotty nosed weep.

The complete selfless act of sharing her pie with us.

That night we all ate without complaint.

Not one ‘I don’t like this, can I have something else?’ from anyone.

Social isolation feels like a daily pendulum of frustration to guilt to gratitude and back again.

But the good bits, the bits where you find yourself laughing at some shit your child has said.

Or have a quick Facetime with an old mate.

Or someone smiles at you in the supermarket queue.

Or you have a massive fucking happy cry because the Hacienda are doing an all weekend stay at home houseparty on-line and you close your eyes and you’re back in the 90s with a tie dyed top and Shelly platform shoes.

All those moments are golden.

We’re getting through this.

We’ve done three weeks already.

Cheers to that winners.