Thoughts on Life Lately – June 2020

I’m sure you’ve heard that saying about brains having too many tabs open, well that is an accurate description of my brain recently. There is so much going on in the world right now, I’ve felt a whole range of emotions (anyone else on the Corona coaster?) It’s been quite a few months with the Covid-19 pandemic ongoing and I wanted to write some stuff down as my brain needs a rest.

Thoughts on Coronavirus

To date over 40,000 people have died in the UK because they caught coronavirus and it has killed them. It is a horrifying statistic. Although we may be coming down from the first wave, people are still dying. People are still in hospital and people are still catching the virus and passing it on, with or without symptoms. We have seen our family from a distance. We haven’t been closer than 2 metres to any of them and it breaks my heart that my children can’t hug their grandparents, like we can’t hug our parents. My own parents are vulnerable and I’m keeping my distance to protect them.

It really irritates me that so many are no longer social distancing as if the virus has just gone away. The lockdown measures, in my opinion, were relaxed far quicker than in other countries were, the UK government have got this SO wrong and they have the blood of so many on their hands. At a recent visit to the supermarket I wore my mask and people looked at me as if I was mad. They didn’t give a damn about social distancing and the whole experience felt very unsafe. If I let other people get to me, I’ll be a really miserable person so I need to focus on my two boys and stay in our little bubble at home protecting each other and our wider families.

Thoughts on schools going back

A week ago today, some schools across England reopened for certain year groups including Reception, Year One and Year Six. Our son, Olly, is in Year 2 so hasn’t been invited back and we don’t see him being invited back before September either. The school he attends is tiny. It’s a one form entry primary school and we have a small playground and a small field either side of the building. There is no extra room for additional classrooms and with 30 children in a class, I don’t think there’s enough room in the school to space out the children properly at all.

Edit: Just yesterday, the Education Minister did a u-turn and Olly definitely won’t be going back until at least September now!

I wrote in our Me and Mine May 2020 post that we have decided to keep Olly off school until September. He’s been homeschooled by me throughout the week and we have access to a private tutor (which we are paying for) twice a week to help him with some of the more complex stuff. I can work around the boys and we are in a privileged position in order for me to do that. Shilts is still working from home (albeit in the office) so he’s on hand if we need anything.

I collected a bundle of work from school last week along with a plan of learning topics for between now and the end of term. We’ll be doing much more structured school work every week which I’m happy with as this means Olly has a plan of what he needs to know before he goes into Year 3 in September. Homeschooling is tough and trying to motivate Olly some days is really hard work. I dread to think what he will be like when he has to go back and learn for 5+ hours a day!

Thoughts on work and being self-employed

Being self-employed in the middle of a pandemic is super stressful. In March and April, my work dropped off a cliff as brands didn’t go ahead with planned campaigns and I lost my social media clients too who had also been affected by the lockdown. I applied for, and was granted, the Self Employment Income Support Scheme grant which was based on 80% of my profits over the last three years. Given I had a baby during the last 3 years and was on maternity leave meant my profits were pretty dismal but I did receive a small amount of money which helped pay some of our monthly bills.

Over the last three months I have been quite stressed and felt quite lost. Although my place was to be at home looking after our boys whilst my husband worked from home, I have never not paid my way. I felt a bit useless that I couldn’t do anything else to bring some money in for us. I did consider getting a PAYE job in the evenings but realistically, I would be far too tired to work outside the home after homeschooling and refereeing the boys all day.

I’m hoping that as the lockdown relaxes more work will come in and I won’t be wide awake at 3am worrying. My sleeping patterns are so bizarre and I’ve had the most incredible and vivid dreams. The whole pandemic has made me realise what is important though and once Freddie is in full-time school, I will definitely be considering returning to the workplace for a more secure and guaranteed income.

Thoughts on quality time with the family

We have had good and bad days. Some days the boys are both calm and will listen, and other days it’s like I’m talking a foreign language and they’re both hyper and do everything possible to annoy each other. It is exhausting! Saying that, we have baked, we have been for walks, we have watched films and had popcorn, we have done arts and crafts and tried to keep them busy with various different activities. I’m actually really looking forward to the summer holidays so we can chill for a bit. I’ve decided we’re not going to do any school work over the holidays, it’s too much. We all need a break!

Thinking ahead to the future

We are sadly not going on holiday this summer. We were due to fly out to the south of France for a weeks holiday in the sunshine. We’ve been able to move the holiday until next year so hopefully it’ll be safe to fly again and we can go and enjoy our holiday then. Instead we’re planning on a DIY project at home. We’re going to swap bedrooms with the boys so they have our bedroom and we move into theirs. It requires new carpets, plastering, decorating and new furniture but we need to do it. I don’t think we’ll be able to move house in the near future so we’ll make the necessary adjustments at home instead to make more of the space we have. We don’t need a big bedroom but the boys need the extra space so it makes sense. I’m looking forward to planning it all and it all coming together over the summer.