The Quarantine Diaries

Day 9: Day 9 was the first day of this quarantine that it has rained and so it had a slightly different feel to the first 8 days.  We didn't go outside until after lunch and so we spent the morning watching movies and playing games. Once we did get outside though we were very productive, we planted some onions and some brocolli into the flowerbed that T spent last week digging and fencing off from the rabbits.  It felt very 'Good Life'-y.  Will keep you updated on how that goes. After that C had her afternoon nap and M and I did some of her glitter craft that she got for Christmas and then M did some water painting. T was officially 'back' to work so he spent a lot of the day in the office making phone calls and so it felt a bit more like a regular (non-CV) day, aside from the whole not being able to leave the house thing of course. Excitingly, 8 days before her 1st birthday C has cracked standing by herself, both the getting up from a crouch and the bal...

Day 8: Yesterday (29th March) was a bit of a strange day for a few reasons.   1, T had completed his week of isolation and was freed to return to the outdoors.  So he took himself to Tesco, bought a slightly random assortment of things and reconfirmed my feelings about never letting him go shopping unsupervised. 2, It was Sunday again and so we did "church" alongside a prerecorded video from the vicar, including communion.  It was odd to be doing that in my pajamas and the girls had no interest in the talky bits but enjoyed being allowed to take communion. 3, The clocks went back an hour so it felt like we had a lie in and then the day was out of sync, C refused to have an afternoon nap and so ended up going to bed at like 6.30, which as far as she was concerned was 5.30, it was very confusing. And 4, It was my sisters 25th birthday so we both videocalled in the day with the girls and again after they were in bed for virtual board games.  A concept I am...

Day 6: Having had a slightly dull 2 days and feeling a bit like I had lost my isolation-parenting mojo I was determined to do something new and fun on day 6.  Fortunately in the morning we had another food shop delivered by friends and so we suddenly had all the ingredients for baking.  We'd had a couple of bags of bread mix sitting in the pantry for months and so I decided we were going to make hot cross buns.  This turned out to be a very messy task but I was pleasantly surprised by how well they actually turned out.  Not beautiful in the slightest but they taste good so that's the main thing. Plus they filled pretty much the whole morning.  The only one interruption was a 4-way video chat with M's best friends, which was basically just mayhem.  4 3-year-olds all shouting and trying to show each other things.  But hey, they had fun.  Plus it's just nice to see other people. In the afternoon M decided she needed a trophy because she had "won...

Day 5: And today I went right back to feeling like everybody is fine and it is therefore annoying that we're in quarantine.  T seemed to be feeling much better and has gone over the peak of the illness and the rest of us are back to no symptoms at all. Activity wise we didn't do much new today, we did another dance class (this time with a whole 3 students) and one of the activities from Nanny's care package.  It was beautiful weather outside though and so we spent a lot of time in the garden this afternoon sitting in the warm sunshine and C got to experience her first ice pop.   Movie count only 2 I think but we did watch a fair amount of Disney + shorts and also some Star Wars tv show that for some reason M decided was acceptable?

Day 4: This is the point at which it's started to feel like we might actually be in a sick house and that maybe the quarantine is worth it.  Aside from T's initial fever and a slight bit of out-of-puffness there really hadn't been any symptoms.  In fact I had kind of forgotten, in amongst all of the other worries, to be concerned about what it might mean if we actually do have the virus. But today it seems like everyone might be coming down with something.  T's breathlessness has increased to the point that he's actually starting to be hampered when moving around, I started to feel out of breath too by the end of the day, although at this point it's hard to tell what's real and what's just in my head.  M so far doesn't have any definite symptoms other than just being slightly cranky, but then she is all out of routine and being made to stay home so it might be nothing. C has definitely been off today though, a bit extra sad about things and really...

Day 3: Day 3 started out with some more time in the garden, after which we did a virtual dance class with M's dance teacher.  She was the only kid signed up so we just did a direct Skype call in our living room (through the technological genius of Daddy and the Xbox).  I was impressed by how much she actually engaged, and I proved once again how unfit I am when she made me join in. After lunch we did some more painting, including more rainbows, while C napped. We have been using a puddle suit to allow C to crawl in the garden without getting completely filthy, and in the afternoon M wanted to play outside again, for some reason I decided it was dry enough that C would be fine without the suit.  I was wrong.  She was filthy and soaking.  Lesson learnt! M giving all of the Paw Patrol a bath Good toes and naughty toes Note the use of the giant tv box as a tap dancing floor It's only day 3 and I'm realising just how monotonous this is going t...

Hello to whoever might be reading this, I haven't decided whether I'm actually going to share this blog with anyone yet or if it's just going to be my own record of this lockdown/isolation/quarantine thingy we're currently experiencing.  So if you've found this by accident or if at some point I decided to share it, Hello.  For reference we currently have a 3.5 year old and an 11 month old, neither of whom are used to staying at home, we've always gone out and done stuff pretty much every day. This (24 March) is day 3 for us of self-isolation due to T having some symptoms (is it the real thing? who can tell at this point). So far the rest of us are symptom-free but we're staying in just in case.  Last night Boris Johnson announced a national lockdown so I guess this is kind of day 1 for everyone else but I'm going to stick calling it day 3. This first post is going to be a quick run down of what we did the first 2 days and then I'll document today...