Thursday photo #307

It seems things are changing every week at the moment. Last Thursday, I wrote about the seemingly huge alteration of the schools closing. Now, things have moved on even further and we are all at home for the foreseeable future, leaving for only a few specific reasons. During such a difficult time for us all, I can only feel gratitude that we are in such a fortunate position personally. We are all well, our home has space both indoors and outdoors and we have all we need. I couldn’t ask for more than that.

How social distancing will change our children’s generation

When the schools closed on Friday, we were all understandably petrified. With no real idea as to when they would reopen, home schooling for the foreseeable future became a reality. A few days in, is it going the way you thought it would? For us, there have been a lot of completely unexpected positives. It got me thinking about how this crisis is going to change our children. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and I believe the Corona virus crisis is going to make our children incredibly strong and resilient.

This will be the first generation for many years to genuinely appreciate what they have. Their schools, their friends and their freedom. A fortnight ago, children were complaining about school in the same way I did as a child. It’s boring. I hate maths. Some of the children aren’t being nice. The lunch wasn’t great. The book I’m reading is boring. I don’t sit with my friends.

What a different attitude they have just days after school closed. If they could have half an hour with any child from their class now, they would behave like long lost friends. Suddenly, they appreciate their teachers. The children they weren’t getting on with aren’t so bad after all. They even miss maths. As for their out of school activities, they suddenly realise how lucky they are to do them. If I could have bought them an attitude like that a couple of weeks ago, I would have handed over my money then and there.

More space to play

When I bought my house many years ago, the garden was incredibly disjointed. An area to one side of the house had no functional use and was separated from the rest of the garden by a garage. At the time, the best use of that garden was to knock the garage down, get planning permission and sell off the side garden as a building plot. So, that’s what I did. Since then, we’ve decked the back garden to make it a more useable area. There was a side garden containing a shed and not much else, and a large garden at the front that was fairly useless because it wasn’t fenced off.

It had been our plan for a while to fence off the front garden to give the girls a larger area to play. After a few false starts, I had someone booked in to do it this week. With the announcements that people were to leave the house for essential reasons only, I wondered whether we would be able to get it done. However, the person who was doing it messaged me to say that he still wanted to go ahead. He was allowed to work according to the guidelines and wanted to keep some money coming in while he could.

So, our fence is now half done, due to be finished today. When it’s up, we’ll be digging a vegetable plot and putting up a swing. The girls will have so much more space and we’ll be able to do some gardening. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

Thursday photo #307

Like most people this week, we are going a little stir crazy. The girls haven’t lost their sense of humour though. They’re always on hand with a funny face.