That Was The Week (Eight) That Was

In which our reluctant hero wonders whether people really do know their R’s from their elbows.

Do you remember when Sunday nights used to be all about staying in, tinned fish sandwiches, fruit with “Tip Top” on, and wondering what fresh catastrophe awaited Compo as he sped downhill towards the jaws of a combine harvester with only an old bath for protection? That was last Sunday.

Monday
The spin-off series, “Muddle Monday,” which saw Clegg and Foggy sent out to clear up Compo’s predictable mess with equally calamitous results, wasn’t exactly the sequel that British public were hoping for either. Just how complicated can delivering a message of almost no changes be? Very, it would seem.

We spent most of Monday staying alert (obviously) and working out how to make face coverings from pairs of Nora Batty’s wrinkled stockings, seeing that face coverings now apparently stop the virus after all.

The rest of the day was spent consoling our youngest, for which a possible return to school in June is worse than the prospect of actually catching the virus, especially if his sister gets to stay home. Welcome to real life, son.

Tuesday
This week’s homework included PE of walking two miles per day. Whilst ticking this box, we learned that lockdown exercise works like prohibition. Restrict it and you can’t get folk to stay in, but talk of a free for all sends everyone scampering back indoors. To be fair, the official lifting is not until Wednesday so perhaps folk were conserving energy to run a marathon or two come midnight?

Wednesday
The best phrase I’ve heard to describe wasting time during lockdown is the “microfaff.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but I seem to have less time than ever despite dropping commutes of up to six hours a day. Enough is enough. It was time to cut out the microfaffing.

Five hour’s research on Google told me that, to do this, I needed to write a to do list of achievable things. After two more hours of planning, I came up with this;

• Walk 10,000 steps
• Read 50 pages of my book
• Write my daily blog scribbles
• Write my online diary
• Finish some lyrics for my twenty years behind schedule demo
• Take vitamins

There were some early failures. I obviously couldn’t risk bumping into the marathon runners, and I was too mentally exhausted to do the creative stuff after overdoing it writing the list. But the vitamins tasted OK which was something to add to my diary. Perhaps I should add “stop wasting so much time writing lists” to the list.

Thursday
Having fallen off his bike about a dozen times on the way to practise cycling, our youngest copped a painful one plum on his backside shortly after reaching Tettenhall Pool. Now, the last thing the gazillion people enjoying their post lockdown rule-bending meet ups needed to see was a precise anatomical presentation of the bit that was hurting. But, after a quick bend down and drop of pants and trousers, see it they did. I wish I was five sometimes.

Friday
I’m sure that there are undiscovered civilisations living deep inside some far off jungle or other without electricity, television and banana bread that are as fed up of having the “R Value” explained to them yet again as me. Deep breaths…

Anyway, it took a whole two days of the indigenous British population doing what they like for the R value to creep up to “somewhere between 0.7 and 1.” There’s obviously no need to panic as it could be as much as a whole 0.1 under 1, which means that we can all do cartwheels down the street and start licking the trolleys in Lidl again. What could possibly go wrong?

Saturday
Last week, I criticised the kids for their traditional Saturday morning early wake up. Thankfully, this week, there was none of the usual crashing and banging. The boy child instead chose to sneak downstairs, fetch his tablet, sneak back upstairs and set an alarm off down his sister’s ear hole. I can’t criticise his creativity, and it certainly beats yelling “Cock-a-doodle-doo!!” Again.

Maybe it’s coincidence but, after a reasonably argument free day, said sister went on to whack a lump out of his head with an old mobile phone at bathtime. And they say an Apple a day keeps the doctor away. Pah.

Sunday
Speaking of alarms, who left one set on a tablet downstairs? I wonder…

We had a well deserved break from raking leaves today, not because they had magically stopped multiplying (R is currently 2.6) but as there was a more pressing need to rediscover the kids’ bedroom floors. In turn, I attempted a well deserved break from bedroom floors having considered expert advice, shouted downstairs, that indicated my blood pressure was unlikely to cope with even the slightest glimpse of the horrors that lay above my head.

Having started typing this load of old guff instead, the floors suddenly seemed a lot more appealing. Both involve dealing with the same old mess, just on different weeks. Perhaps it’s time for a staycation?

Stay alert all. Until next time, whenever that may be…


Fin.

That Was The Week (Seven) That Was

In which our reluctant hero considers joining Tom on his Mission Impossible to space. Or something. 

Monday

Mayday, mayday. Or is it, as Bank Holiday Monday is now on Friday to further muddle the daily game of “What Day is it Anyway?” Well, that’s the excuse one of my team gave for not logging on until almost lunchtime. “Bank Holiday, innit? Look at Outlook.” Yellow card. 

Back at home, mum (yet again) creatively mashed homework (vegetables) with fun (carbs and butter), helping the kids make bunting and poppies to decorate the house frontage, while learning about VE Day. A dozen or so Celebrations and Heroes containers were repurposed for the poppies, which we couldn’t possibly have munched through since Christmas, could we?

In unrelated news, I discovered that I’ve lost four pounds by extending my daily walk to around three miles rather than between my “office” (the dining room table) and the spot on the sideboard where the colourful tubs used to be.

Tuesday

The poppies and bunting were unveiled and really look the part. As a result, we’re getting yet more visitors than the usuals who breach the boundary to look at our little fairy garden. The folk in the old folks home all stop too, which is nice. I briefly considered fixing an NHS donations box to the gate to help keep ICU going while Major Tom has a rest.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage, who must be fuming at another dangerous threat to human existence hogging the front pages, returned to the front pages to complain about the police wanting to restrict his freedom of movement. The man really has no embarrassment threshold. 

Official, underestimated, figures revealed that Britain has the highest coronavirus death toll in Europe which is, quite frankly, scandalous. Slow hand claps all round.

Wednesday

Actor and General Scientological oddball, Tom Cruise, announced his intention to take social distancing to infinity and beyond by filming his next movie in space.

Back on terra firma, Boris finally turned up for PMQs. His big rabbit out of the hat was an announcement about an announcement about lifting lockdown at the weekend. I should think so too now that we’ve obviously got this virus thing totally under control. What could possibly go wrong?

Has anyone else noticed that the government has suddenly stopped using platitudes like “world leading?” I was also going to mention something about Matt Hancock criticising the Shadow Health Minister’s use of language but couldn’t get the tone of it right. 

Thursday

One of the useful discoveries during lockdown has been Google’s “Socratic” app, which uses AI to help look stuff up and learn. Socratic’s results when researching the Christopher Columbus homework a few weeks back were impressive. Less so for this week’s homework where a simple search for “crabs” generated more questions than it answered.

Spain reintroduced lockdown measures due to (surprise, surprise) the infection rate shooting back up as folk have no idea what two metres looks like. No fear of that here mind, we’ll do it properly. 

A tent, which I bought in 2005 as a romantic gesture to satisfy calls for a “nice weekend away”, appears to have been erected in our bottom garden. No good will come of this.

Friday

Friday marked the 75th Anniversary of VE Day and it was a glorious Bank Holiday… erm… Friday, for a change. I clawed a few Dad points back from my almost total lack of involvement in this (and most) week’s school work by baking scones with the kids and dusting off the cornet to belt out a rendition of the Last Post for the neighbours at 11am. The Red Arrows did their bit by making a beautiful Tricolore pattern during their flypast. Was a Union Jack really too much to ask?

We watched bits of Auntie Beeb’s coverage and I got myself in almost as much of a muddle as a Health Secretary in a daily briefing when I tried to explain that the baddies probably thought that they were goodies and the goodies were the baddies but, in this case, we were the goodies and the baddies were definitely the baddies, but it was somehow completely different to the days of The Empire when we were doing what the baddies were doing but were still the goodies. Like Christopher Columbus. Or something. 

Queen guitarist Brian May was hospitalised after what the Independent described as “ripping his buttocks to shreds” in an unspecified gardening accident. The best that I could come up with was “FLESH! AHAAAA!” No, YOU do better. 

Saturday 

Saturday was our wedding anniversary, which we celebrated by staying in. Well, I did. Everybody else started the day in a tent in the garden, having “slept” there. When they finally emerged, looking as dishevelled as Tom Hanks midway through Castaway, I calculated that I had managed almost twelve hours by myself for the first time in seven weeks. Best. Anniversary present. Ever. 

Sunday

I decided to write this thing early doors so that we could get on with filling the PURPLE BIN with yet more leaves, and avoid the temptation to bash out three thousand more words about whatever nonsense is announced this evening. Stay alert, everybody.

Fin

That Was The Week (Six) That Was

In which our reluctant hero is surprised to learn that the national curriculum has already been updated to reflect the reclassification of time as an abstract and meaningless concept. Or something. 

Monday

Boris is back at work today (hoorah!) but manages to say absolutely nothing (boo!) asides from being raring to go, by which he presumably means scarper, and let’s not double dip.

We’re still doing our bit by adhering to governmental advice, but traffic around Wolverhampton is noticeably up as are the amount of people wandering, meeting up or just hanging around. Why we’re complying but so many others aren’t is becoming increasingly difficult to explain to the children during their rare forays out. 

Back in lockdown HQ, the little people have started hoarding cardboard boxes despite my cunning efforts to sneak them into today’s recycling BINS collection. “Craft stuff” they call it, but upstairs looks like Amazon have fly-tipped the rubbish from their entire returns departments. Are skip hire firms in the essential services category? 

Tuesday 

In a hugely sobering moment, I learn of the first Covid-19 death to directly affect a friend and their families. Up until now, we’ve heard of folk we know contracting the virus but they’ve all thankfully pulled through. Grief is one of the most difficult things to handle at the best of times, but I can’t imagine what it must be like to deal with given the current restrictions. It’s awful news which makes the pandemic seem so much more real.

Wednesday 

Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day. All apart from the online clock in the children’s homework. “Set the time shown in the box by dragging the H label first and then the M label.” OK. The little people know that they’ve set “Quarter to 1” correctly. We know they have too, but computer says no. 

Computers forgetting how to tell the time is bound to be linked to 5G, right, which (if Eamon is right) is coincidentally being installed right outside our house. It’s either that, or a replacement telegraph pole. Or is it? Hmm… 

Boris announces the birth of baby five, six, seven, eight or nine, presumably to dodge PMQs again. Meanwhile, I receive my first home haircut which succeeds in making me look slightly less than the nineties iteration of Alan Partridge that I resembled this morning. Aha!

Thursday 

A day of media coordinated celebration as Major Tom was granted an hour off from saving the NHS to eat birthday cake, while the rest of Blighty forgot to join the Thursday clapping, if our street was anything to go by. Not even the NHS staff braved the drizzle this week. The kids briefly shook their shakers and PJ Masks toys stood in a puddle by our gate before heading to the warmth of bed. 

Friday 

It was only a matter of time, but I think that I may have actually teleconferenced myself out. Over eight hours, I Teamsed, Zoomed and Meeted, if they are the right verbs. Or adjectives? Who knows? Or is it “whom” knows? Who knows? There should be a law against training on a Friday afternoon too. 

Facebook’s “On this Day” reminded me to post my annual “May 1st Be With You” status. It’s a post that never gets old, but I am considering a revamped Director’s Cut reissue with enhanced CGI in the next couple of years. 

Saturday 

Now, I’m not one for conspiracy theories (asides from 5G which is definitely now a thing) but the boy child was up at silly o’clock on a Saturday. Again. Monday to Friday, when I’m already up and working, no sign. Anytime we needed to go anywhere, like in the olden pre-lockdown days, nope. Saturday morning, and it’s all “Cock-a-doodle-blooming-doo!” 

The last thing I needed after a stupidly late night (half ten after The Mash Report – yeah, I know) and not one but TWO mugs of drinking chocolate (yeah, I know) was to be woken by what sounded a herd of elephants, possibly riding a motorbike while playing the trombone, rising and shining to start a caterpillar hunt before 6am. But woken I was. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. Happy Saturday, everyone.

Our “lovely family walk” (why do we persist with these crazy ideas?) synchronised perfectly with the boy child’s peak tiredness. He was moaning before we got to the end of our street and declaring this, and every day involving walking and walking and walking, “THE WORST DAY EVER!”

Saturday night’s “Isolation Song Contest” was brilliant and is available on YouTube should you need some bonkers escapism, and don’t we all. You’re welcome.

Sunday

The kids slept for twelve straight hours, then declared their intent to complete “The 24-hour Challenge” which simply involved isolating in a room together for 24 hours. They started mid-morning and were back downstairs, having fallen out, before the Yorkshires were cooked.

Stay safe all.

Fin.