What to do now? Lockdown week 1
Well....that's the end of week one under "lockdown conditions". The kids are relatively happy, having the luxury of being insulated from the tough realities of the economic drought. Home schooling however, is proving to be a tale of two children with entirely different outlooks.
Our Sparkles has about 4 hours worth of formal secondary school project work and testing in all subjects on a daily basis via the Google Classroom portal. She checks in with her form tutor at 8.30am, and gets on happily with all the set activities, invoking an inner motivation beyond her years. Breaks involving messing about in the garden, and lunch keep things manageable, much like a normal school day. When it's completed, she does what most kids do - logs onto some sort of video game with her pals, Facetimes others, and keeps in touch with various friends and peers via WhatsApp group chats
Our Chuckles, on the other hand is finding the process completely bewildering. His psyche demands that if he's at home, he's on holiday. All nippers with special educational needs require almost military levels of routine, and the smallest of deviances can unsettle an already-precarious process of learning. Cajoling a nine year old into an hour of maths, no matter how gently, seems to result in sulking, frustrated tears, and negative outcomes as he's simply not built for sitting still at a dining room table with a workbook full of boring shit while the sun is out, the garden is empty, the TV is within sight, and the parents are at home...... and it's only week one! It got way better by the end of the week though, and striking a balance between getting the essentials done, and letting go of the perceived obligation to enforce strict educational standards seemed to be the common sense solution.
The pressure of maintaining a degree of normality while stuck together in the house 24hrs a day, plus the guilt of failing to look after your own children properly, the endless social media postings of middle-class wankers and their fun, perfect isolation techniques all add up to create a feeling of total inadequacy. I'm know it's nothing compared to the misery and potential for absolute ruin created by millions of other people's circumstances, and I'm sure that we'll manage, but that's how our personal universe seems at the moment.
The government's proposals to assist the self employed announced yesterday would have been a lifesaver if not for a perfect storm of completely coincidental circumstances which have resulted in me being one of the millions who will receive very little help. The benefits system isn't open to me unfortunately, and the promise of a 3 month grant of 80% of average monthly profits over the last 3 tax years is paltry due to the fact that I made losses over 2 of those years after having to close the studio down. The saving grace is that we're all stuck at home so outgoings are limited to the bare essentials. Friday was my day to venture out into the world to get the weekly shopping in, and to get the car's MOT done. The dudes at the garage were completely underemployed, so my 1pm test was done in 45 minutes without any issues. Almost everyone has elected to delay their testing for months as per government allowances, but it's going to create a bottleneck when restrictions begin to ease. There was no physical contact at all, and any surfaces touched were disinfected by alcohol wipes, and with a bleach solution by myself also. Aldi in Alnwick was my next point of call. I was expecting trolley handle wipe downs, queuing outside, social distancing within, and glass screens at the till. There was none of that however, and I was surprised to see business as usual. There were people with kids (touching everything, and running around without constraint), a woman sneezing into her hands, folk picking up veg to inspect it, before putting it back down and choosing other pieces, pretty much everyone shopping as couples, and queues at the tills not keeping their distance. Fucking amazing......as if any instructions given out to ultimately help us didn't apply to the "bumpkin folk" of NE66. Some middle aged prick in shorts even pushed past the queue to get 6 inches from my face to ask if he could go in front of me to buy the litre bottle of vodka in his hands. The poor cashier had to suspend my conveyor belt of essentials just to comply with his demand so that they could get him out of the store. We haven't got a chance of containing this thing unless everybody stays apart for as long as possible. I left there with my weekly shopping, headed to the car, took the trolley back after washing the handles down, and scrubbed myself clean using the soap and water tank in the boot. The streets and roads on the journey home were deserted bar a few pensioners on bikes, and the odd police car. My home was a welcome sanctuary, and we relaxed as schooling was brought to a close for the week.
My heart goes out to those who are facing poverty, instant hardship, and an uncertain future. My thanks goes out to those who are able to continue working, and who are maintaining the very core of our society - shop workers, drivers, call centre handlers, and obviously the unstoppable members of our NHS, and emergency services who are simply the best. Everybody stay safe, stay at home, and stay in touch. Love to you all.
