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It’s week 5 and its official that this lockdown is extended for a minimum of another 3 weeks. I think its likely that will also be extended so I am anticipating we wont be seeing anyone or going anywhere for at least another months or so.


It’s been announced that it’s highly likely things will not return to anything like normal until a vaccine is available which experts think will not be until the end of the year at the earliest. That’s 8 months from now! Oh my days!

So what’s happening in the house of fun this week?

It’s been a very arts and crafts orientated week. The house resembles a mausoleum of old recycled waste, reincarnated as new creations adorned with sequins, pipe cleaners and coloured feathers. It’s going to take weeks to smuggle these things one by one into the bin!

I spent a stoopid amount of moneys on materials and make your own activities from Baker Ross to keep the kids occupied with new activities for the coming months. Until I realised that I was being pure dumb and each activity lasts 5 minutes with my kids and I’ve basically spent all this money on a weeks crafting at most! Ravey has seen this box of wonder and in his eagerness to use it all has taken to colouring each thing in one damn colour in a rush to move on to the next! Beautiful stained glass window designs one black blob! Entire face of a gnome birdhouse in blue. I know its about them having fun and that’s what matters, not how it looks but FFS at least make an effort! Roo is doing a better job. It may be scribbles but at least its colourful.

Si bought a bumper pack of stickers for them too and do you know what kids under 4 do with stickers? They take them off one by one and transfer them onto one piece of paper. The whole sticker sheet from one piece of paper straight onto another, declaring the new sheet a piece of art in the process. There is nothing more annoying than spending money on a sheet of stickers to see the entire thing moved over onto a tatty piece of A4 in 2 minutes flat. Seems such a waste!

Got some glue spatulas too, just like the ones in school. I assumed this would be better than using the paint brushes like we have been doing, but it turns out a glue spreader is nothing more than an invitation to a 23 months old to scoop the PVA directly into her mouth hole. Grimage!

Why do toddlers love to stick shit in their mouths? (This is my next post BTW) I kid you not I went into the garden yesterday to discover why it had got so quiet whilst I was washing up. And there they were, Ravey passing handfuls of stuff to his sister in what could only be described as in a ‘shifty manner’ as though smuggling illegal contraband. When I asked what was happening he beamed at me, pointing at his sister with pure delight at their mutual creation. Roo turned to me with a full grin and where her pearly whites should be was a gum shield of dried out, garden inhabited old stale play doh which had clearly been discarded somewhere in the garden when we used it last week and resurfaced today as a tasty treat. It was stuck between each tooth and required me to hold her down and prise it out, to the protest of Roo who had clearly enjoyed ingesting the filth.

Ravey has also taught Roo some new words, expanding her vocabulary and indoctrinating her into the opposition. As I write they are both chanting ‘bum head” at me between fits of giggles. I’m not sure Roo even knows what it means but she knows Ravey thinks its hilarious and his approval is paramount at the moment. It is very cute, when she hurts herself she runs to him now for reassurance. Alongside the growing bond is the constant fighting. You cannot leave them for a second without a brawl commencing over literally anything. Its like real love now. You want to spend all your time together but you argue about everything.

Practically living in the garden thanks to the continued glorious weather and needing to keep the house quiet for Simon working, has introduced me to my new nemesis. The toddler splinter! Oh splinter how you mock me so. Anyone who has ever tried to get a splinter out of a toddlers finger will no doubt understand this predicament. Ravey got a splinter on Tuesday and it was a relatively simple process to get it out. A little protest during the prodding to get it out at the realisation that it hurts a little. The parting warning to not hang on the fence as he will get another. Roll forward a few days and another damn splinter. Only this time he knows what is coming. I spent an entire hour with him wailing that he wanted me to take it out, then balling his eyes that it will hurt and laying on his hand to stop me touching it. I draw back and say lets leave it as he is getting upset and unless he lets me get to his hand I can’t get it out. This is not what he wants, he wails that I can’t leave it in because it hurts. He demands I get it out. So I pick up the tweezers and literally the second I do, he recoils and runs again, like I’m brandishing a torture device. “it will hurt it will hurt”. Eventually I get fed up of reassuring him and doing this ridiculous dance. The splinter is still in the finger. Hopefully it won’t get infected or anything.

On a more positive note Flour is back in most of the shops and the cookie and cake baking has been re-established now the Easter chocolate reserves and hotel chocolat hoards have gone. Totally shamefaced at the volume of chocolate we have consumed during these 5 weeks. It is hideous!

Joe Wickes no longer graces my screen and we haven’t even partaken in cosmic yoga either. The last 7 days have been a complete absence of any exercise. Must get back on it. May as well wait now until after the weekend and resume on Monday eh? What kind of mentalist starts anything on a Friday? Not I!

Been feeling proper emosh this past week. I don’t know how much of it is the sinking realisation this is going to be going on for months, the accumulative affects of isolation, missing my friends and family or just PMT but I’ve been blubbering about all kinds of stuff since last week. It started with primary school offer day, a legit reason to be emotional and has developed into random blubbering’s about tv ads, pictures of rainbows and footage of the reserve of the nation in these times of hardship. Things that I normally am able to manage with my British stiff upper lip and general pessimistic nature. I have also been pretty chill with the kids too. Well mostly, this morning I literally roared “Noooooooooooooo” at deafening volume when I looked up from cleaning the floor to see Roo drawing on the wall with white board marker pens.

I have been saying it for weeks I know, but the weather has been a life saver. Its scheduled to rain most of next week so I anticipate by this time next week I am going to be at my wits end, pulling my hair out and on the brink of a psychotic episode, guzzling prosecco straight from the bottle (as opposed to from the glass, my current past time for most evenings of late)! ??

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