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Day 14 – 31 March 2020

Officially our self-isolation is over, although we’re under the same general restrictions as everyone else. Tracy celebrated this not quite freedom with a trip to Tesco. So we had a celebration lunch of brown food!

Work

With Tracy having Tuesday off I spent most of the day working. I started a bit later than yesterday, logged in about 0715 and read the sitrep with my breakfast. A day of meetings followed, most video but a few straight phone calls. Outlook only worked when I use it live, which eats bandwidth like a teenager. So mostly I was in the web browser version, which lacks functionality but at least it works reliably. Things are starting to make more sense, as a team we’re almost adapted to working from home. Our role is taking shape, and in the absence of direction we’re radiating intent and doing things that help. Or at least I hope so.In between meetings I managed to go to the pharmacy to collect my prescription and then take it to another pharmacy that had the inhaler in stock. This was mostly down to Tracy, she used her knowledge of community pharmacies and rang round while I worked. Thanks to the miracle of work smartphones I also managed to keep working while I queued (distantly). So I’m good for another four months with my inhaler.

School at home

Alexander spent most of his day on art homework. He got to grips with gimp, and also a stylus for the touch screen on his laptop. So mostly what he did was teach himself to paint on a computer. He also built a Lego version of the BFG from Doom and posted it on r/doom and got over 2000 upvotes, which he was pretty chuffed about.Lucy got a large box of crafting supplies from the Tesco trip. This fed into her art lesson where she made ‘Spoonie’ to go with the Forkie she made at school after seeing Toy Story 4. Other lessons included reading, a maths worksheet and learning about the body with Tracy.

Food

Thanks to Tracy’s monthly shop we have plenty of everything. We should only need bread, milk, eggs, cheese and fruit over the next few weeks. This is pretty much our normal state. The only thing we don’t have is strong white flour. I usually make bread, usually for pizza dough, every other week or so. This is one of our more common Saturday evening treats. So I guess I need to find a method that uses plain flour, which we do have.Today’s food was a buffet of ‘brown food’ for lunch and Tracy’s home made shepherds pie for dinner. ‘Brown Food’ is a term we’ve picked up as a family for the sort of frozen oven food that you get for parties. It’s nearly all shades of brown. Our smorgasbord included chicken wontons, breaded mozzarella bites, jalapeno poppers, chicken fillets, prawn toast, spring rolls and tortilla chips. It was very nice.

Exercise

Lucy managed to join in an online martial arts class. We hooked her laptop up to the TV and got zoom working to join the class. I was working in the background while she did her exercise. It was pretty interesting, the instructor muted all the lines and she was able to see who was doing what. It was just like the sessions I’ve watched in the dojo where the kids were called out either to praise or speed up in s friendly way. They all got involved positively.Later on, after dinner, Alexander and I went for a walk round Merstham. We took a circular route through the back streets avoiding other people. We went over the railway bridge, saw the pizza project was still doing takeaway, and came back down under the railway and through the rec to keep us moving the whole time. We had a pretty good chat while we walked. Mostly about how to make daleks scarier and more intelligent as an adversary for Doctor Who. For the first time in a while I’ve comfortably got in over 10,000 steps.I’ve got the Tiger King in the background while I’m writing this. It’s a pretty messed up story, if it was presented as fiction it would be seen as too far fetched.

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Day 12 – Sunday 29th March 2020

Today is the first day of British Summertime, so of course it snowed, hailed and rained for most of the day!

Hail and Snow

When it wasn’t doing one of those it was noticeably colder than yesterday with a biting wind. We did manage to paint the shed though before the first hailstones started coming down. I also cleared away the rest of the stuff we’d cut down, and was just spraying some weedkiller before covering it in black fabric when it started. There will be other days, and it’s not like we have anything else planned for the next couple of months.

We’ve started gardening most years, and what usually derails our attempts to keep it under control is an active social life and weekend trips away. That doesn’t look like it’s going to be an issue this year. Sadly.

Adjusting

I’m starting to get used to staying in, this is my third consecutive weekend out of what might be described as my normal routine. Usually Saturdays involve taking Alexander and Lucy to martial arts lessons in Redhill. They go consecutively, so Tracy and I take Alexander for breakfast in West Central while Lucy has her lesson. Alexander then has an hour and a half of jiu-jitsu and we do some shopping in the market with Lucy and then go for a drink and a snack before collecting Alexander. Sundays are more varied, but if the weather is good gardening happens, and if not sometimes we go to the cinema. Either way we usually go out for some reason.

On 10th March I came down with cellulitis and sepsis. So my routine was disturbed, mainly because I had a couple of days in hospital and then daily IV antibiotics and a couple of follow up trips to hospital as an out patient. That was just when we were all starting to worry about the Covid-19 virus, but before it was properly declared a pandemic.

Just as I was getting better Lucy developed a cough and a temperature. So we went into sled isolation, following the government advice at the time. It’s been a pretty odd couple of weeks. I doubt anyone hasn’t felt that way, and there’s been way more than the usual mental strain. I’ve certainly been fractious at times, and I know my family have been too, although thankfully not all of us all at the same time. What seems to be helpful is realising that we don’t need to do everything all the time.

Food

I think this is going to be a standard heading!

We used up the last of the sliced ham for sandwiches, and finished the fresh orange too. I also finished off the lettuce in the salad I made to go with the pulled pork at lunchtime. That said there’s loads of fruit and vegetables, and also rather a lot of sausages.

Tracy made shepherds pie and a pork stew. Both of them are for other days. The shepherds pie is going in the freezer for later in the week. I’m going to do some dumplings in the pork stew for tomorrow night. It seemed a bit pork heavy to have it this evening, after bacon sandwiches for breakfast, and pulled pork for lunch. The kids and I did have sausages and chips for dinner though. I also had more apple crumble for dessert, although I had it with ice cream this evening. Alexander and Lucy had cupcakes that Lucy made this morning.

The Mandalorian

The TV has yet to move channel from the Amazon Fire Cube that arrived yesterday. As well as a bunch of random TED talks and Jeff Goldblum, we started to watch The Mandalorian this evening. Disney have only released three episodes so far in the UK, which is slightly disappointing. However I really enjoyed both the episodes we watched this evening. It’s pretty awesome, and a great expansion to the Star Wars universe.

Map Making

Apart from the dozen blog posts, which are all easy reportage, I’ve not written any fiction for almost three weeks. It’s was too hard to concentrate on creating things when I was unwell, and since I’ve recovered there hasn’t been enough peace to get into the headspace I need to be properly creative.

When it was alternately hailing and snowing this afternoon I had an attempt to digitise some of my hand drawn maps into inkscape. It sort of worked, but I got bored before I finished. It would be really nice to be able to have digital copies of the sort of thing I can happily draw freehand. It just seems to take so much longer digitising them than it takes me to draw them. I suspect that the answer is to find a way to draw them on a computer.

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Day 11 – Saturday 28 March 2020

No work today!

We spent most of the morning and some of the afternoon in the garden. Mainly clearing the area just outside and behind the potting shed. Like lots of the garden it had become more than a bit overgrown.

Gardening

While Tracy got started with the hedge trimmers, Lucy and I prepared some pots to plant some seeds. We did four trays, with small stones in the bottom and compost on top. One tray was a 50/50 split of flowers. Another got tomatoes, peppers and some chillies. In the third there are spring onions, lettuce and more tomatoes. We also planted some sunflower seeds and some beans. We ought to start seeing some shoots in a week or so.

Outside Tracy cleared the back of the hut, which had Bamboo growing in the space between the hut and the fence. She trimmed up the canes and we’ve kept them for supporting the plants when they finally get planted out.

In front of the hut, out to where one of our plum trees is, we took several passes to chop everything down. About a decade ago this space was a couple of vegetable beds, but some of the large grasses took hold over the winter and they’re pretty hard to get rid of. So the area had lots of brick edging, some wooden boards and also paving slabs hiding under the growth. When we got down far enough I lifted all of them and stacked them out of the way. I also tried to very roughly level it off.

If the weather stays good then tomorrow we’ll put some fabric down and then weigh it down with the paving slabs.

Over on the patio Alexander had the pressure washer out. He moved all the furniture off it and cleaned about half of it. We also managed to clean our very muddy boots too!

Food

Normal breakfast all round. Although we carried on the pattern that’s developed of substantial lunches. Today we had sausage pie and beans. It was our last tin of Heinz baked beans, something else we’ve run out of.

The pulled pork was fab, but we ended up having pasta for dinner with ape crumble and custard for dessert.

Fire TV

The Amazon Fire TV Cube arrived this afternoon. After a short amount of faffing about to find an ethernet cable, and pulling the TV out so that I could get to the sockets, it was working. The first thing I did was turn the microphone off. With just the remote it’s a really fast and responsive box. It has all the streaming services we use on it and a load more besides.

The reason we got it though was Disney+ on the TV. So within about twenty minutes of it arriving Lucy was on the sofa with me and Tracy watching Pixar in Real Life. Lucy then decided that she wanted to watch Descendants. That’s when I went off to make dinner and prep the crumble for dessert.

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Day 10 – Friday 27th March 2020

Milk, bread and orange juice in a box
Key supplies from Fresh Connect, a local wholesaler, about four days worth of milk, and a week of bread. (Photo: James Kemp)
Two boxes of really great quality fresh fruit and vegetables from Fresh Connect (also butter and cheese). (Photo: James Kemp)

First thing in the morning, about 7am, we got a good delivery from Fresh Connect, a local food wholesaler. It was a real boost to morale, we now have bread, milk and cucumber, all of which we’d run out of. We also have some really fab quality fresh fruit and vegetables. It was a pretty awesome start to the day.

Alexander making a cake, and cleaning up some of the mess he’s making! (Photo: James Kemp)

We all had some fresh orange and toast with butter for breakfast. It’s comfort food. Alexander also got on with making a layered chocolate cake with the flour that arrived in the degusta box the other day. The pulled pork turned out okay, but has gone into the fridge for Saturday. Tonight we’re having fish cakes, freshly made.

Work

Alexander completed all the assigned homework, and Lucy was really good at doing her work too. For most of the afternoon they went upstairs together and built a Lego rock concert. Pictures to follow when they’ve finished making it.

So Tracy and I were able to get through quite a bit unmolested. I managed to write some weeknotes as well as deal with all of the days emails and write notes from the meetings I dialled into. I also checked my DWP laptop and forwarded over the essays that I need to write as part of the Project Leadership Programme. If next week is the same as this week then I might just manage to finish them both.

Ending the working week

What I did do was tell my team to make sure that they put all the work laptops and phones away for the weekend. It’s important that we have a break and a clear separation between work and home. Usually we manage that through our commute, but when working at home, especially for the prolonged period that is likely we need to act deliberately to get that separation.

At half past five, after sending a message to the team that I hoped they were already logged off Nf enjoying the weekend, I put all my work stuff away. I closed the laptop lid and out it in my work bag, along with my headset, charger and notebook. I switched the work phone off, and zipped up my bag with it all inside. Then I hid the bag under the table where I wouldn’t see it.

After doing that I put my shoes and coat on and took a short walk round the green in front of my house. I walked round it for ten minutes taking care to stay well away from the few other people that I saw. Then I came in and started my weekend.

I recommend it to you all. Put some space between work and home.

Have a great weekend!

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Day 9 – Thursday 26th March 2020

Routine is gradually emerging from chaos. I set my alarm this morning, admittedly for about twenty minutes later than when I go to work. I got up about 0645, had a shower, got dressed and was working by 0720. Over the course of the day I wrangled my inbox down from over 300 unread emails to just two. I also reorganised my folders to account for the pivot from political change to dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. All that effort came at the cost of not doing any significant exercise today. As of bedtime I’ve only managed about 3,500 steps today, which must be an all time low for a day I wasn’t ill.

Technology or Environment?

Elsewhere in the household Lucy learnt how to use email and Google hangouts with her friends. At one point there were four of them on video on Tracy’s phone and Lucy was typing and email (very slowly) to one of her friends while they chatted and played games. In fact they only stopped when devices ran out of battery. It seems normal to them to play by video call.

There’s a school of thought that stuff you grow up with isn’t technology, but just the way the world works. That’s certainly the impression that I got listening to a bunch of Y3 girls play with each other from their own homes. At one point Lucy went out into the garden to show things to her friends.

Lucy playing with her friends on google hangouts, like she’s always done it that way! (photo: James Kemp)

The other thing I did today with technology was sort out zoom on the laptop that Lucy is using and also connecting it to the TV. We’ve only got two HDMI ports on the TV and both are in use, one for the virgin TV box and the other for the PS3 that provides us with DVD/Blu-ray playing and also access to smart TV features. This latter is a problem because it’s no longer supported for new stuff, and we want to be able to watch Disney+ on the TV. So this afternoon I ordered an Amazon Fire Cube, which will plug into the TV and play a range of streaming services, including Disney+, prime video and Netflix.

Food

Lunch was pretty hearty. We have a large box of Indian snacks from Iceland. So there were mini bhajis, pakoras and samosas with oven chips. More than I’d usually eat for dinner, but I can’t complain because all I did was turn up to eat it.

It being Tracy’s payday we had dinner delivered from a local takeaway. Partly doing a bit to help local businesses, and partly a treat. Tracy had a kebab washed down with Pimms and I had pizza with a Ruby Leffe. Both the kids had pizza too, although they had an Irn Bru and a Vimto. Tomorrow is the end of another week and I’ve started some pulled pork with another third of the massive pork joint I made yesterday’s pork wellington with. Still not sure what to do with the last third.

The start of some pulled pork, coated in barbecue sauce in the slow cooker. (photo: James Kemp)

With luck we’ve got a delivery of groceries coming tomorrow, but news from friends and colleagues suggests that there may well be gaps in the delivery.

NHS Clap

Bearing in mind that Tracy is a matron in the local hospital, we went outside at 8pm to see if anyone was participating. So we were pleasantly surprised by not only a lot of clapping up and down the street but also bells, pots and pans, and even fireworks let off nearby. It was a pretty positive expression of support for the NHS. Let’s hope people remember this next time we have an election.