Why I miss washing my kid’s school uniforms.
It’s four weeks since I wrote my last piece about being in isolation. It’s tone possibly a bit smug, but I didn’t believe how horribly the virus would take hold and that we’d all be in isolation for a few months.
I did enjoy the selfishness of that week. Since then, its’ been full on lock-down. I only work part-time, but my husband is full-time and working from home. High-level blokey Zoom meeting chats echo round the house (a bit like Dom Joly if you remember that), accompanied by the kid’s urgent queries of “what’s for lunch”, and “I don’t have any clean clothes”.
I miss the hallowed tranquillity of that top bedroom… but – to be fair my children have been amazingly upbeat and easy going – they can’t really help needing food and clean clothes… (school clothes are made of tough wipe-clean technical fabrics that can take a whole week without seeing a washing machine, not so trendy cotton jogging bottoms and hoodies…). Still at least it’s been sunny – pegging out the washing is a new daily ritual.
Some new observations:
Culture Vulture- things I think about (but never get round to doing):
High-level art projects, worthy high-brow books, ambitious cleaning projects, helping the children with their home school projects
Culture Vulture things I can recommend:
Roger Allam as Prospero in The Globe’s Tempest (Globe TV)
Tiger King, Netflix, – so sordid it makes you glad to be inside
Friday Night Dinner, Channel 4 – not quite as good as previous series
Jane Eyre, NT Live – I thought it was pretentious at first, but loved it
Bolshoi live stream – see its Youtube channel (scroll down past the Russian bit for details..)
Mariinsky Nutracker – the whole thing is on YouTube
New skills learned:
New words I’m glad I’ve learned
New words I wish I hadn’t learned
Clichés I’ve overused
New dilemmas? Essential or non-essential?
Things we have not run out of:
Toilet rolls
Things we have run out of:
Flour – it disappeared for a while, but I made a very nice polenta and ground almond cake.
Beautiful things:
The stars at night – so big, so clear
The blossom coming out – spectacular
The sea view – eerily blue
The birds – tweeting like crazy
People’s bookcases in the background on tv – reminder of all those interesting lives.
NHS clap – amazing to hear the whole city (maybe whole of Europe?) clapping.
by contributor Emma Beatty
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