The Lockdown Diary - DAY 130+++ - Lazy Clips Show

On Tuesday, the odyssey (62 - chapeau to us all, irrespective of context) that was this blog will hit the year point from its trigger text.

So how's everyone doing? I'm through the half century barrier on brownies - it's a weekend think I'm quite happy to do - although the cookies I do more sparingly, simply out of logistics. They're more an exercise in space management. I have also recently added banana muffins to my repertoire, simply because I had some very ripe bananas and they came out so well the adults who have a sight of them are eating them faster than I can make 'em (because the bananas need to be well wilted for best results).

I'm not at home. The saga that is Mum's ankle and my brother's behaviour and mentality means I am doing the carer bit, am shielding in lockdown and bubbled with home. We are naturally all pissed off by this, but the times we get to be together art least stave off the insanity a bit. I am now working out of my ersatz (11, now 12 where 4 each by me and sadly, Ray - it is a quite lovely word) office that is in the bedroom I left a lifetime ago and sleeping in the room where Dad's ashes are in a wardrobe we put together when I was an early teen. Prognosis for work is sketchy but "don't expect until June" was floated this week and as our area can work remotely all but 100%, it'll be later again for us. Upstairs has become my lair, should I decide to go Bond Villain.

Schooling has, as a result, been a nightmare. My son's GCSEs have been utterly destroyed by a vacillating government over two years but he's been very structured in his response to it all and he has a graft ethic that doesn't come from me. Of course, the nebulous (6) state of how they will be assessed is not helping - guidance is due in a week or so and so the parents' evening we had a week or two back was basically the staff telling us "when we know what the government intends to do, we're ready to move but FFS, can they get their fingers out?" My daughter has tied down her options and largely dances to her own tune - she is her own kid and I'm both very happy about that and also naturally worried. She doesn't speak up (I was exactly the same) and sometimes she should (again...) because you're not alone and sometimes, someone could help whereby you save an awful lot of time, heartache or even misery. At the same time, there was a bee in the bathroom this week while the boy was readying a bath. Mrs C doesn't handle insects, the boy feigns stupidity and while they chucked this pigskin around for about a half hour, daughter steps out of her room, says "what's going on", is told and goes in and sorts it out in forty seconds, start to finish.

I'm quite pleased at how my kids have turned out My son is of course sixteen now and old enough to do a lot of things he has no desire to do*, which saves us from stopping him... and my daughter is fourteen and as such old enough to sign up to the women's cricket team, and I think she will. Her brother's itch to get back in nets and out in the field would need a salve of more calamine (4) than you could carry. You can see even now he's never going to fall out of love with the game.

As such, therefore, the state I'm in personally (the nerve stuff I documented elsewhere continues but I have a handle on it and chiro is on the menu before long) is actually worse than it was when shielding/lockdown ended and it is massively frustrating but on the upside, winter's over. It's hard on me anyway for a few reasons but this year has been brutal.

In short, we're managing. We have to. Hat tip to Mrs C who is batting a thousand at home. She actually volunteered me for this, but the twist that has me here we never saw coming.

*Drive a moped, smoke, buy a knife, buy a lottery ticket and pilot a glider