LawyerLow Diaries

Unbelievably we have made it! A whole year since I started my diary, and I definitely didn’t expect to still be going after 365 days.

But all good things must come to an end and so this will be my last entry. I’ve no idea how you are going to cope without finding out how E’s big performance as the Scarecrow goes this weekend, or how M’s potty training develops (badly is the answer to that one), or who wins the March step challenge in the Low household, or whether we will make it to the end of Lent without eating chocolate, or even what my hair is going to look like after Steph gets the clippers out tonight ahead of my appearance in Court tomorrow (professional reasons not personal!) But cope you must and I promise if there is another pandemic in my lifetime, I’ll write another diary to keep the spirits up.

Whether you have read only one of these, or avidly devoured each and every post, thank you so much for all of the kind comments and messages over the last 12 months. It’s made a real difference to me personally and given me a bit of purpose in amongst all the mayhem.

I felt there was only one way to finish this though – my top 5 things I’ve learnt over the last year:

1. My family are my life and I don’t know how I would’ve coped with lockdown without them. Now this may sound obvious but looking back I definitely took them (and so many other things) for granted. Pre-Covid they would so often play second fiddle as other things took over, especially work and swimming. Yet they stood by me, especially Steph, patiently and quietly supporting me. I’m a little embarrassed it took a global pandemic for me to really see that but I am proud to say that it has changed my life for the better. Even when we are all vaccinated and things return to normal (whatever that means) I am going to be so careful not to lose perspective and remember my priorities. Who knows when life will change for the worse so I need to enjoy what I have now.

2. Remote working is generally a good thing. For most it was initially a novelty. For many it has become a real pain in the backside. It certainly was challenging trying to work with 2 small children at home but after 12 months I can see there are real advantages. Most importantly it has given me more time with my family than otherwise would be the case. I haven’t missed a bath time or a bedtime all year. I’m lucky that I don’t have a huge commute anyway but removing that travel time is a real blessing. Sadly no option for a snow day unfortunately. I’ll still be happier when remote working is optional rather than enforced but it is clearly the brave new world.

3. My kids are blooming hilarious. Forcing myself to sit down on a weekly or daily basis and actually write about the things we have done has made me realise those little cherubs make me laugh a lot more than they stress me out. Don’t get me wrong, they can still be right pains in the backside, and my grey hair is even greyer now than at the start of lockdown. But E has developed a passion for joke telling and they both come out with some ridiculous lines which just crack us up. I wouldn’t mind if they could tidy up after themselves every now and again but I’ll forgive them if they carry on giving out so much joy. It’s not just us but also those unlucky strangers who we encounter on our daily walks and who quickly learn the names of our kids given how loud we all are!

4. I enjoy hosting quizzes far too much. I suppose this stretches into Bingo as well as that has been my latest Zoom adventure. Just the concept of hosting an online quiz on Zoom (not that we knew what Zoom was a year ago) was alien to me yet I now have a bank of thousands of questions. Perhaps I’ve missed my true calling but whether it has been for family, work, swimming, a birthday or even a girls night in party(!) I’ve loved every single one. At least I know if I decide to pack in with the law I have a back up plan now.

5. You really can do anything you put your mind to. I was determined that lockdown could be a positive thing and so it has proven. I look back and realise I have somehow managed to get myself healthier and fitter. I’ve shed a couple of stone, run my first ever half marathon and now run 10ks for fun. I’ve raised a bunch of cash for charity. Sadly none of my clothes now fit, as will be demonstrated when I go to Court tomorrow in what will look like a clown suit! The only unhealthy part of my life really now is the copious amount of midweek drinking but I guess I’m allowed one vice. Cheers to you all! Stay happy and healthy one and all.

FIN

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Well, we have nearly made it dear reader. As we approach the first anniversary of the first lockdown, my online diary is drawing to a close. Only 3 days left so you will get a midweek special to finish!

But before we get to that, we need to get on with this penultimate entry. Of course today we have been celebrating Mother’s Day and I want to send a lot of love to all the mums, mams, grandmas, great grandmas, mothers-in-law, step mums, foster mums and in fact anyone else who marks this day. Obviously I want to make a special mention to Steph as well as my mum and mother-in-law, all of whom put up with me to a greater or lesser extent! I can’t believe this is the second year of lockdown for this day but I guess all the afternoon tea suppliers are looking at the positive! The kids went all out today for Steph including a super emotional poem from E about growing up. I’m not crying, you are!

Of course it’s been a big week with the reopening of schools so what ended up making the top 5?

1. We were relieved that E’s return to school went so smoothly, and we certainly didn’t take it personally when she skipped back in without a backwards glance, and has enjoyed telling us how delighted she is to be back with her teacher (and friends). Her thirst for learning knows no bounds and led to a very important father/daughter life lesson. The dreaded birds and the bees chat. She started with the obvious question “Where did I come from?” I’ll be honest, I tried a sneaky trick (which backfired) by responding with “well, where do you think?” She’s clearly been paying attention when she told me, “Mammy’s tummy” so I thought I’d allow the conversation to continue “But how did you get there?” I was not expecting her response: “I was made by God on the beach and then he decided you and Mammy would be the perfect match for me so he just took me from the beach and put me into Mammy’s tummy but then I wanted to meet you and talk to you so I had to come out quickly!” To be honest I’m okay with that version – it’s close enough so I’ll just leave it for now and get Steph to talk to her when she’s 18…

2. Speaking of the facts of life, E accompanied me up to the farm shop again this weekend so we could pick up some treats for Steph’s Mother’s Day breakfast. She insisted we pop in to see the animals and to our surprise we saw Big Dave (the pig for those not local!) awake and moving around, which I can’t recall ever having seen before. We glanced in on the chickens and I pointed out an egg. I wasn’t expecting the response: “Is it a normal one or does it have a chick in it?” I feel we might be failing as parents if she thinks the eggs we eat at home (or possibly chocolate ones) are “normal” rather than ones which hatch into chicks! More life lessons needed!

3. I feel obliged to bring in work’s step challenge at this point given the ante is really ramping up in our house. Somehow we have both managed over 100,000 steps over the course of the week and the poor kids are exhausted from being dragged out on walks. Steph is onto Couch 2 5k and I’m trying to run when I can and there’s a daily comparison of data. I must say I think it’s not that healthy for our relationship but when my team takes top spot and I have a trophy to proudly display in the living room so everyone knows who the champ is, I’m sure it will all end well.

4. Picking M up from nursery on Friday night was a bit more eventful than one might hope. He was heavily laden with Mother’s Day gifts and art work which of course I had to carry to the car whilst he stuffed his face with his fruit snack. Whilst crossing the road he was too busy eating to actually look where he was going so inevitably face planted the ground and lost his fruit in the process. Cue tears, not because he was hurt but because he loves fruit. I got him strapped in and put his items on the back seat including, in pride of place, his hand decorated plant pot full of soil and a planted seed. Half way home a line of pheasants wandered out in front of the car (imagine a line of waddling ducks) and I didn’t fancy perpetrating a mass pheasant-icide. Brakes slammed on, no animals or humans hurt, but plant pot now upside down on the floor of the car. I tried to scoop everything up and fill it again when we got home but it seemed to be mainly raisins and old McDonald’s chips rather than soil! M took great pleasure in presenting it to his Mammy when we got home however and she was suitably delighted.

5. Probably the most important development of the week has been the start of M’s potty training. He has basically decided himself the time is now as he’s started sitting on the toilet off his own back, and keeps taking off his nappies and running around with a naked bottom half! I was therefore dispatched to buy some dinosaur pants and left Steph to cover the basics with him. I arrived home to find them discussing matters in the kitchen. She was asking him where he goes for his wees and poos and he just kept shouting WEE and POO at her. The word toilet is clearly a step too far for him to tackle. But, as I helpfully pointed out to my wife, he now has two new words in his vocabulary and I suspect like most boys they will feature heavily well into his teenage years. He might be relieved this diary is coming to an end so you don’t have to suffer a week by week account of his toileting progress!

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First off this week, an apology if any of this diary entry doesn’t make sense. My wife and I, much like many parents around the country, have been celebrating since 3.30pm on Friday and may have slightly overindulged! There are definitely mixed emotions going on here as we are looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet, possibly a tidier house and definitely a reduced weekly shopping bill. But when I put E to bed tonight and spotted her school uniform lying out on her bedroom floor (having worn it most of this morning – just to check out my outfit Daddy!) it hit me how much we will miss her every day.

But let’s not get soppy and instead concentrate on some of the happier moments of the week and we delve into the top 5:

1. I must begin with the last week of homeschooling and once again my girls have really stepped up to the mark. Don’t get me wrong, there have been tantrums, slamming of doors and at points a complete refusal to engage at all, but once Steph calmed down they managed to get on with the work. This week’s highlight was definitely World Book Day. So often maligned as being incredibly stressful, we are fortunate to have a bit of a bookworm of a daughter who also has a dressing up box brimming with outfits. Snow White was the book of choice, so it was lucky she received that exact dress for her birthday! Weirdly her school has also set a challenge of welly throwing to see who can chuck their wellington boot the furthest. I headed out with the kids and the tape measure into the street and tried to multitask coaching E on how to throw in a straight line and therefore not hit the neighbours’ cars whilst chasing M up and down the street with his trousers round his ankles (he has a really skinny waist!) I genuinely hope no one was looking out of their windows at that moment!

2. It has not only been the last week of home schooling, but also a week of important life lessons for E. It started with a walk past the chickens at the start of the week and the conversation turned to chicken nuggets. Slightly worryingly E had convinced herself that the chicken we eat is a different type of chicken but she was quickly corrected. She then came with me to the farm shop to pick up our meat for the week. Whilst standing at the counter the butcher behind was sawing away on the largest side of beef I’ve ever seen. I asked E if she knew what it was. “A chicken?” came the reply which was clearly ridiculous. When I explained it was a cow she was once again perplexed. “You mean we eat meat Daddy?” I suppose it is easy to forget how naive kids can be, or perhaps we need to up our game in teaching these life lessons!

3. The walking challenge continues and unfortunately is dominating a lot of what we are doing at present. The February challenge at work, as well as my own 10,000 steps a day has come to an end and unfortunately neither of our teams won overall. The important thing however is that my team finished 3rd and Steph’s finished 4th so all is right in the world! The challenge has been really popular so has carried on into March albeit with new teams. I am feeling very confident this time and definitely have an eye on securing one of the limited edition trophies. Of course I just keep telling Steph it’s all just a bit of fun and she can chill out and put her feet up whilst I nip out for a quick 5k walk! The problem is that she’s no mug and is doing exactly the same to me! I think Emma will just be delighted to be back at school where she *only* has to walk a daily mile rather than 3!

4. I hope regular readers realise that this diary is designed to be a warts and all type of publication rather than the usual rubbish on social media so often designed to make readers feel completely inadequate. Having said that, when things are good then I’ll tell you that too. And M’s nighttime routine is working an absolute treat. He’s stopped building climbing frames to vault over the baby gate. He’s stopped trashing his room every evening before falling asleep in the middle of the floor. He now takes his Mammy by the hand when he is ready to go and lies down in his bed to listen to a story. He then sits up and pretends to whisper in her ear, alternating 4 times (don’t ask my why, but basically he just blows in her ears whilst grinning) and then cuddles his Bing toy and goes to sleep. It’s utter bliss! Of course now I’ve posted this he’ll be a terror tomorrow night – you heard it here first!

5. I have to finish with our family walk today. At least M managed to stay awake this time, but only just. A bit of Pooh sticks down by the river and clambering over 5 stiles in total. I think E is only obsessed with them because she loves the word style – she has so much apparently! Anyway, as we were walking along, Steph and I were talking about weight loss during lockdown. Steph was just saying to me “you have lost it” when E, who was obviously earwigging, suddenly interrupted and said “no, Mammy has been losing it.” I thought that was lovely she was paying Steph a compliment but I hadn’t realised she was still speaking “you lose it with me, and you lose it with M and you lose it with Daddy. I think we all frustrate you!” Maybe the end of homeschooling can’t come soon enough!

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What a gorgeous weekend. It’s hard to believe it’s still only February but perhaps the weather has decided to jump on board with Boris’s roadmap and the light is here and not just at the end of the tunnel. Only one week of home schooling left and there have been a lot of celebrations already! We have loved having so much time with E but she is definitely ready to go back to spend time with her friends and learn in a slightly more structured environment.

I’m delighted to have completed my 10,000 steps each day in February challenge for Brain Tumour Research. Thank you so much to everyone who has sponsored me – it’s not too late to donate a few pounds as I’m still a little short of my target.

Here we go with this week’s top 5:

1. We have been here before but E has had another wobbly tooth all week and this time it’s right at the front! She can twist it right around which is pretty gross.

E: Mammy there’s blood everywhere and I can’t eat.

M: Ok, well stop wobbling your tooth then.

E: But I can’t eat Mammy and it can go this way and that way and up and down.

M: It’ll come out when it ready though.

E: But Mammy I’m going to starve because I’ll never be able to eat anything ever again <dramatic sigh>

M: E, I love you but please stop being ridiculous.

E: But Mammy I need my pudding.

STOP PRESS – the tooth has come out tonight and is safely stored under her pillow ready for a nighttime visitor. I am not prepared in any way. Do you think she will accept contactless payments?

2. M continues to cause mayhem wherever he goes, which is really just home or nursery. Apparently he spent one of his nursery days this week shadowing one of the staff members and trying to tickle her. He’s such a flirt (no idea where he gets that from!) At home his jigsaw obsession continues and he has no qualms doing the same one a dozen times over in a row. I think he just finds them calming and is so proud every single time he completed them. His latest party trick this week has been to trash his bedroom every evening by emptying every book and toy onto his floor and has even taken to ripping down his wall stickers. Every morning we are going in to find a different woodland creature crumpled on the floor or hidden in his bed. No idea what he’s going to smash up next!

3. Every so often we enjoy participating in an online quiz rather than actually hosting one. Saturday night was one such occasion and so logged on with pen and paper and drink in hand. All was going incredibly well with 29/30 at the half way mark. Little did I know things were about to take a dramatic turn. The next round was far from traditional and involved teams having to find household items and hold them up with the fastest three teams getting points each time. I was dispatched to the door of the living room so I could dash into other rooms as required. It did not go well. Apparently I was too slow. Communication was almost non existent. It didn’t help that we had somehow managed to mute ourselves so when Steph was shouting that we had an item, the quizmaster couldn’t hear her. I’ve never known such a frosty atmosphere to descend in my own house and inevitably we ended up plumb last. Perhaps we’ll go back to hosting next time!

4. With the gorgeous weather we ended up on a nice family walk on Saturday and a long run home and then decided to go out again on Sunday. It certainly helped with our step counting (my team is still ahead of Steph’s… for now!) Steph had the idea of walking up the hill to the farm shop to pick up some meat for the week. We loaded up a picnic lunch and set out as a happy family of 4. The public footpath signs quickly disappeared and before long we ended up in a field full of cows which had a sign warning us to beware of the bull. My better half was definitely not happy at this development but we made it through in one piece and carried on up the hill. As we reached the summit I commented that I was surprised the farm shop was open on a Sunday and, of course, it was only at that moment we discovered that the walk was very much only a walk and any meat purchasing would have to wait. Cue a long trudge home (the long way so as to avoid the cows!)

5. The top 5 are meant to be my highlights of the week but on this isolated occasion I’ve agreed to include Steph’s highlight. It came as we headed back down from the closed farm shop and M was finding the going tough. To be frank he was out on his feet so I hoisted him onto my shoulders to give him a rest. Perhaps it was my rhythmic walking, or perhaps my dull conversation, but before long he was snoring away up there on my shoulders. All I could think was we had an awful long way to walk back and now I’d have to carry him the whole way. What I hadn’t realised (and why this is Steph’s highlight of the week) was that sleeping beauty was drooling a lot and coating the whole of the top of my head in his slaver. Oh the joys of parenting!

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I genuinely can’t believe that half term is over already. Once again I find myself asking how teachers do it! The prospect of another 6 weeks of home schooling is pretty daunting, and we only have one child to try and educate rather than a whole class. We will hopefully find out tomorrow what the roadmap out of lockdown looks like and therefore how far away the light at the end of the tunnel is.

This week has been very much about E’s big birthday – when you are 6 apparently every birthday is a big one! And Grandpa has been bubbling with us so having an extra pair of hands has come in very handy. It certainly hasn’t been a holiday for him especially this afternoon when I set off the smoke alarm after flambéing our roast beef. He thought I was running a weekly fire drill before realising there was smoke everywhere!

I’m pressing on with the top 5 as I need to get some sleep and gird my loins for a busy week ahead:

1. Our number 1 must be E’s Birthday. She gave us a list of 10 things she wanted to do and we managed to get 9 squeezed in with the last one (painting) ticked off the following day when Grandpa arrived. We had more balloons than we knew what to do with, pancakes for breakfast, lots of cards and presents, a huge afternoon tea, a Zoom call with friends and family including a Disney quiz (which she won), a huge chocolate birthday cake, an afternoon movie with popcorn, and fish and chips for tea. She tells us she loved the whole day and preferred it to Disneyland Paris so I’m chalking that up as a win! My personal highlight was the fact we managed to play some party games even though it was just the 4 of us. We let the kids smash up the piñata, and also made sure E was able to rip off the last layer of the pass the parcel. But when it came to musical bumps and musical statues I was in my element. And I don’t care what you say, kids need to learn how to lose some time and shouldn’t get upset about it. Fair enough I maybe shouldn’t have celebrated right in their faces but it was a comprehensive victory for Daddy. You gotta love a party game!!!

2. Even though there has been no school work we’ve tried really hard to keep the routines going and now that she’s a “big girl” this has included trying to get E ready by herself each morning. One day she appeared downstairs completed dressed and ready to go for the day whilst the rest of us were still in our pyjamas. I told her how impressed I was and she then made herself her own breakfast and drink and even when I tried to help she told me she could do it herself. Far too grown up for my liking so I told her that the way things were going it wouldn’t be long before she is moving out! She shook her head and explained she needed a <pointed at me> first. I asked what she meant and she said she needed to find a husband. I asked where she was planning on finding one of them and she told me in the Amazon rainforest. I think we need to stop describing M as a monkey!!

3. After Sunday dinner we spent a bit of quality time around the table. As usual M was desperate to do a jigsaw so he brought through his favourite dinosaur one, wooden blocks with letters on one side and numbers on the other. The speed at which he put it together surprised me until I was told he had been doing it a hundred times each day with Grandpa! He put it together with the numbers and then deconstructed and reconstructed with the letters. On his third build I asked E if she knew why the numbers only went up to 26. She gave me a cracking answer to which I had no real reply: “Is it because that is the day after Christmas?”

4. A weekend without rugby had the potential to be a bit dull but I shouldn’t have feared. My swimming club was hosting a fundraising night on Saturday which turned out to be a huge success and I was really pleased to be able to play a small part. I was one number away from winning the Bingo and enjoyed running the grand raffle draw. We raised some much needed funds for the club and had a lot of fun in the process. The highlight had to be the “guess the number of sweets in the jar” competition which I offered to enter the kids into. E decided there were 32 and was not for changing her mind. There were clearly hundreds in there so she eventually compromised to 432! M didn’t really understand so we ended up picking 369 just because of the sequence. Well lo and behold the right number was 367 so the kids woke up to the news that there was a huge jar heading their way… I’m just glad there’s no chocolate in there as I’ve given that up for lent!!

5. The step challenge is really ramping up now as we hit the three quarter mark. The improvement in the weather and the temperature has been a key factor but the competitive spirit is really coming to the fore. I’ve been back out running again and boy have I needed it as Steph’s walking routes around the house have meant she has really increased her total. Grandpa has been a bit perplexed as to why we keep just walking around in circles. Even E has announced that she doesn’t like the walking challenge as she’s been dragged out on walks every single day! It is great motivation however and we are definitely moving around more than normal. I think it was a step too far going out for a 10k this morning to try and clear my hangover just so I could rack up 10,000 steps before breakfast. Never trying that again!!

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Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope you’ve managed to tell those you love how special they are at some point today. It’s not a particularly big day in the Low household as we usually celebrate last week instead but we still raised a glass tonight.

It was actually a super romantic day as we finally took on the challenge of sorting through every single toy in this house with the aim of reclaiming our living space. Even the kids helped by putting together all the jigsaws to check there were no missing pieces. Anything to keep them quiet! But after we put all the Frosties back in the box they needed a tad more supervision. I’m not convinced the tidiness will last but at least we’re trying!

Rugby definitely does not feature this week (just don’t!), but what did make the top 5?

1. The mental health of children is a key concern during these periods of lockdown and no one is immune to it. E however seems to be good at expressing her feelings so that makes things a little easier for us. She did worry us a little during our family walk out on Monday when she made 2 snowballs and insisted she carry them around the entire way as they were her “friends”. One was called Icy (Snowy for short) and the other was called Matthew. Weirdly she said her hands were getting cold as a result so she asked if I would carry them for her. I politely offered to put them in my pockets instead but she declined for some reason. As a Frozen aficionado I assumed she would cotton on to the short term nature of anything snow based but actually it didn’t matter as she just threw them at me (quite hard) when we got home. I can’t help but feel I get played by that girl sometimes!

2. Another classic E/Mammy conversation to share as she was making cards for her teachers (the real ones, not the wannabes!):

E: Mammy what do boys like?

M: Ermmm what do you mean?

E: Well, Miss Houghton has hearts, Mrs Yates has bonfire night, Mrs Keenan has a flower. What about Mr Baxter? What do you think he’s like?

M: Well it could be anything you want to draw

E: How about Santa?

M: Well it’s the wrong time of year for Santa

E: Ok, maybe a frog? But a frog is hard to draw. Maybe a moose?

M: Ok you can draw a moose

E: Maybe not, what about a fish?

M: Yeah he might like a fish

E: Yeah I’m doing a fish

I’m sure Mr Baxter will be delighted with his fish!

3. As parents, we are relied upon by our offspring to make mature and sensible decisions. Unfortunately I failed in this on Wednesday when I decided that a long walk in the snow was the order of the day. Rather than try to get the car out to pick M up from nursery I thought it would be a doddle to walk the 3 miles there and then walk him home again. By the time we were half way back, I was tired and he was exhausted after a busy day at nursery. It was also freezing. Oh and dark. I had thoughtfully taken the sledge so I could pull him back, but at one point I was just trudging through the snow hauling him behind me whilst he was clinging by his fingertips to the back (he’d fallen off and I hadn’t realised) and was being dragged along. It was definitely not the lovely walk home I was hoping for, and to be frank I should have known better! It took Steph quite a long time to deal with the tears once we got home, but I’m fine now. Never again!

4. My steps challenge is still going strong and I’m half way through now, so 14 consecutive days with 10,000 steps chalked up each day. And most importantly my work team is one place ahead of Steph’s team so bragging rights are still with me (for now!) I tried to do a couple of runs in the snow this week with mixed success. There’s something quite enjoyable about crunching through the snow with the cold air rushing by. But my last run was interrupted by a small dog who decided to take a disliking to me and started on me, snapping at my right calf. Kicking out didn’t feel like the correct response nor did stopping for him to get a better line of attack. So I tried to speed up instead, slipping all over the place whilst being chased by a dog. A strange sight I would imagine. I mean, I’m not doing this for the danger, so perhaps an uneventful week next week please?

5. I was off work on Friday to try and give some more home schooling support on the last day before half term. It is definitely easier when you aren’t trying to juggle multiple jobs! We smashed through the maths, English, spelling and art tasks. For some reason we had a science task left to do, even though it’s normally set for a Thursday. The reason soon sunk in as I discovered the task was to design an exercise routine and then get a parent to take part, so my darling wife had left that for me to do. I was halfway through the 65 jumping jacks, having already completed the press ups and lunges and wondering to myself whether using my annual leave for this is actually worth it? The answer is yes, of course, as I know I’m going to be lost when she is back at school! Just don’t tell her that as she can’t wait to be back with her friends.

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This week has been a complete blur and I feel like I can’t remember most of it. To be fair that is perhaps to be expected when you try to catch up all of your drinking from January into the first week in February. Boy it’s been wild!! I’d forgotten how much easier it is to home school with a beer in the other hand.

Home schooling and remote working continues to run in tandem although to be honest it’s getting harder and harder. Only one more week until half term so we definitely know how teachers feel! This week has been all about pirates however so we’ve made hats, a ship, advertised for a crew and learnt lots of new adjectives. I can reliably inform you that Captain Swashbuckle E is the happiest pirate on the seven seas with the cleanest and tidiest ship. I just wish her bedroom would follow suit!

Right here we go with the top 5 for the week:

1. Today marks the 12th anniversary of the first date I went on with my long suffering wife. We like to mark it each year in some way but a night away from the kids wasn’t on the cards this time around. We’ve managed to make it special however, starting with a lovely homemade card presented to us by E. We did some little gifts and made some blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Steph then baked the most gorgeous afternoon tea for lunch. I was in charge of the evening meal and cheated a little by just ordering in our favourite Pavilion! I’ve been thinking back to that night, waiting in Durham marketplace for her to get off the bus so we could walk round to the pub together. How I ever convinced her to stick around this long is beyond me, and I’m pretty sure it’s not because of my great taste in mugs! But I’m not complaining and hope she’ll hang on in there for a few more years yet!

2. This week was Children’s Mental Health Week with lots of schools running various activities. This has never been so important than at present with so many routines thrown into disarray and so many additional pressures and stresses that children shouldn’t have to face. E’s school decided to to run a “Dress to Express” day on Thursday where the kids got to wear anything they wanted to express their own feelings and personalities and preferences. Inevitably E plonked for a Disney Princess dress to let out her inner diva. It also happened to be the day where her little brother ditched all of his pyjamas and decided he wanted to start wearing E’s princess ones instead. I thought the one downside of having a boy was that there was little chance of hand me downs but nothing could be further from the truth! #BeYou

3. The top 5 is meant to be the real highlights of the week so when something happens which is a highlight of the year, or perhaps the decade, then it undoubtedly needs including here. Scotland winning the Calcutta Cup. At Twickenham. For the first time in 38 years! Saturday was a very VERY good day. We built up to the match as a family, with M and me donning our matching Scotland tops. Obviously there were some divided loyalties in the house but one member is still undecided. I asked E who she was going to support and she explained it was complicated. Apparently she is a little bit Scottish, a little bit Australian and a little bit of where Aunty Katy is from (American!) but she’s mainly English. It’s amazing how children can break your heart! In the end however it came down to the kits the two teams were wearing and she wasn’t bothered about the colours so decided she liked the rose better as it was prettier than the thistle. I’m hoping we can bring back the pink kit as that might convince her to return to the right side of the divide!

4. The news is dominated at moment about vaccines and this clearly hasn’t escaped E’s attention. During one of our daily walks she asked me about the special injections people are getting to stop them catching coronavirus.

D: “You mean the vaccine?”

E: “Yes Daddy. When will me and you and Mammy and M get it?”

D: “Well not for a while yet. They aren’t giving it to children as they don’t really get sick. So they are giving it to the older people first.”

E: “Oh, I see” <slight pause> “But what about you Daddy? I mean you are pretty old…”

D: “How old do you think I am?”

E: “Sixty something? Grandma said you were middle aged.”

I don’t care what Steph says. I’m definitely buying in some hair dye!

5. The walking challenge is really heating up in our house. I am delighted that I have hit my 10,000 steps each day this week although some days I’m not quite sure how I managed. The weather has not been particularly helpful but that wasn’t going to stop the competitive bones that Steph and I both possess. It’s all gone a bit too far if you ask me, which I only realised when we passed each other pacing around the upstairs rooms on some weird route that has been developed to maximise our step count. I even caught Steph taking the clean clothes upstairs one item at a time. Where there’s a will there’s a way and boy there is a lot of will under this roof! I don’t think the work totals bother either of us as we have our own individual head to head to focus on!

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Well, we made it to the last day of January. And thank goodness this week is over! I don’t normally wish away my weekends but as I write my diary entry this evening I’m just hoping I can stay up to midnight so I can have a cheeky drink before bed. A completely dry month, and no takeaways either. 2021 is such a walkover!

Ok so that was a little white lie. I know it can be infuriating when people post on social media about all the great things they have achieved during lockdown and in the good weeks I might have been a bit guilty of that myself. But this diary is all about an honest record of the highs and lows of lockdown and so when things have been hard I’ll tell you. And this week has been really hard. Home schooling went from being a real job to being an impossible undertaking and it felt like each day was a battle. None of us are sleeping well which leads to grouchy and snappy behaviour but the kids seem to be forgiving us that! But there were some moments of light in amongst the darkness and so here is a positive top 5 for you to enjoy:

1. This latter half of the week has been all about tits. Blue tits, coal tits, great tits and the like. I sincerely hope you didn’t think I meant anything else. This is not that kind of diary! This weekend was the Big Garden Birdwatch and the girls in my house were very keen to get involved. They both work together every day in the kitchen aka office aka classroom and have a perfect view of the garden. We are very blessed to have a lot of avian visitors so it seemed like a great thing to participate in. Steph got everything downloaded and ready for Saturday morning and even ordered a ridiculous amount of bird feed and fat balls – I’m not quite sure how the birds are expecting to be able fly after eating all of that! So they sat for their hour ready to count and unbelievably the birds all started playing hard to get. It was like me heading into a nightclub at university. An unmitigated disaster. We convinced ourselves that perhaps Sunday would be better so tried again and fortunately some did turn up. At least it wasn’t just one again, as that really would be like my university days – one big great tit!

2. Many of you will know that E attends a weekly stage school class. With the pandemic her classes are now on Zoom and they learn a different song each week with a dance to go with it. The first week the teacher realised that having all the microphones live did not work at all(!) so they now all stay on mute unless they raise their hand to ask a question or share something. Very civilised I feel. So this week’s class was all about space and the song was about wishing upon a star and how you can be anything you want. The kids kept wanting to tell the teacher about various unrelated things like how their teeth had been falling out, or they had a new puppy. She did really well to make positive noises each time and tried to press on with the class. We reached the line in the song “a seed, a tree, a flower that grows and grows” and suddenly E has her hand up. The teacher notices and so I’m trying to unmute her without knowing what she was going to say. “Miss, are you sure flowers can grow in space? I’m not sure they can.” Well, that set a cat amongst the pigeons! The poor teacher tried to explain that the song was just make believe but clearly E is missing having a teacher to ask her probing questions of. Next week is all based around the movie Sing – can animals really talk?

3. E has heard her parents talking this week about dry January. Clearly it’s been on our minds and we’ve been talking about it far too much with earshot of someone so impressionable! It was perhaps inevitable therefore that E would ask what it meant. I overheard Steph explaining. “No wine. No beer. No gin. No cider. No whisky. No cocktails.” E’s response was a cracker – “But then what’s left Mammy?” What indeed my darling daughter, what indeed. Maybe we should take this as a sign that we need to take more care as to the level of our lockdown drinking next month. But I’ll worry about that after I’ve topped up my alcohol level properly in February.

4. I think because the week has been so tough, emotions have been heightened, and sadly that means there has been some very obvious emotional blackmail going on. The most obvious was E trying to negotiate extra pudding from me one evening, so explained that she loves Mammy 1000%, and Matthew 100% but Daddy only 20%. You’ll never guess what would happen to those percentages if I offered her another chocolate mousse… I’ll confess I’ve been guilty of it myself this weekend. I mean, who would send a video from downstairs to their wife who was upstairs, just showing their ultra cute kids explaining that their Daddy was really sorry and loved her a lot? It still amazes me when these things work but I really need to just stop putting myself in the bad books to begin with!

5. We are starting a walking challenge at work in February where we have teams of 5 and you have to submit the number of steps you’ve taken each week to see which team can accumulate the most over the whole month. There’s been a really good take up and I think people are just keen for a bit of motivation to keep active as lockdown seems to be pretty draining at present. Of course Steph and I are on different teams so that’s going to be interesting given how competitive we both are. She thought she’d be sneaky on our family (extremely muddy) walk today and try and recruit E into going out every day to help get her step count up. Little did she know I’d already nobbled her and explained Daddy needed her support. Unfortunately the little turncoat was swayed by her Mammy and apparently she wants to be on her team because they work in the same room together. I’ve therefore signed up for the Brain Tumour Research February Challenge where you have to hit 10,000 steps each day for the month. I guess that means I’m contributing at least 280,000 steps to my team’s total but also I’m asking for any sponsorship you might be able to spare. The exercise definitely helps the mind and the body so no matter what your situation, make sure you get up and move and we can make it to the other side of this!

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Which twisted person came up with the concept of Dry January? I mean, I understand that in other years it might be something that would benefit both body and mind, with a real sense of achievement on 1st February, but in 2021 it is just pure torture. I know it’s our own fault for agreeing to do it in the first place but the ultra competitive nature of my wife and I means now neither of us have any intention of failing. Only 7 days to go…

I worry my diary is going to get a tad repetitive at this rate, as home schooling and work continue to take centre stage. Only running a couple of Burns Night themed quizzes this weekend has helped to break up the tedium. We’ve even stopped going shopping and are now relying on online deliveries. The Sainsbury’s man turning up at the house genuinely nearly made it into this week’s top 5, but was narrowly pushed down into 6. So let’s have a look at what came ahead of that!

1. By far the best Christmas present I bought for Steph last year was an Amazon echo dot. The introduction of Alexa into our lives has been a real game changer. Many a morning I have come downstairs to find E talking to “Santa“ or switching on her favourite song (Shotgun by George Ezra as ever). My wife has taken it upon herself to explore all of the various settings and time-saving aspects, making many of our existing devices completely defunct. I have no idea why, but verbally recording a shopping list is apparently better than jotting it down, and setting a timer by hand on the oven is so 2020! The only problem is that the kids hear all of this going on. So this week when E asked if I’d come and watch her do her latest dance I waved her away and told her I was just finishing something up and would be 5 minutes. The next moment I hear her run into the kitchen and say “Alexa, set a 5 minute timer!” Our 5 year old and a disembodied AI system are taking no prisoners!

2. As with any well managed organisation, my firm has been taking steps to remind all staff about the importance of carrying out workstation assessments, in the new age of enforced remote working. And of course as a diligent individual I have carefully read every email and then promptly ignored the fact I have been sitting on an ill fitting dining room chair for weeks now. The net result of this is that my lower back has finally succumbed and I’ve ended up hobbling around all week. I have now liberated my proper office chair from work so hopefully this situation doesn’t arise again, but not before having to pop a fair bit of ibuprofen and having so much Deep Heat sprayed on that the house smells like my old school changing room! My darling daughter has also now decided that my “bad back” is a sign of old age and wants to know if I’m going to start using a walking stick. I mean, come on! I’m still in my early 30s (loose interpretation I appreciate!)

3. Mini me has been his usual boisterous self all week, and we continue to feel lucky that he can still go to nursery 3 days a week. They are great at taking him outside but it seems he still has a huge amount of energy to burn off. Sometimes that involves just running around in circles, and sometimes rugby tackling his sister over and over again. This week however his energy has mainly been focused on dressing up. Every. Single. Day. Mainly in princess dresses and high heel shoes. E absolutely loves helping him get ready as it gives her an excuse to put on one of her dresses at the same time. The two of them just turn up in our bedroom to wake us up whilst dressed as Rapunzel and Elsa, or perhaps Aurora and her sidekick butterfly. Every morning is an adventure – never a dull moment when these two are involved!

4. We received a very exciting email this week, offering my little drama queen (or should that be drama princess) the opportunity to attend a casting day through her performing arts academy. Obviously there is no ongoing cost with this, just the up front fee to cover the day itself and the headshots, plus the management fee they would deduct if any work came of it. Heaven help any director wanting to work with my daughter however – objectively I would say that taking direction probably isn’t her strength. As we are not pushy parents I decided to just ask her if she would be interested at all. Her immediate response was “yes of course Daddy, I want to be famous.” I was pretty surprised by this and asked why. She then screwed up her face, pondered my question for a moment and then replied with “Daddy, what does famous actually mean?” Suffice to say we’ve decided to skip the casting day this year and will reconsider in 2022!

5. Friday. Oh where to even start? I decided, in my wisdom, to take a days holiday to lead E’s home schooling and give Steph a break. What a doddle I thought and I’d even get a bunch of housework done at the same time. The morning went pretty well, although to be fair most of that involved a Zoom call with Grandma who has been remotely helping with maths and phonics. I got through the spelling test however (full marks!) and made it to lunchtime with only Art and English left to complete. Cocky old me then decided we’d add in a bit of PE and Food Technology so headed up to Broom House Farm for a muddy adventure and a trip to the farm shop. Her report back to her mother was “Daddy got us lost, then got us stuck in the mud and then we had to wade through a river.” A slight exaggeration I think but it was certainly eventful! We got back and tried to get stuck into a lesson on pop art (certainly not my forte) and then it took nearly an hour to write 4 sentences. It was exhausting and infuriating and incredibly stressful. Never has Dry January come so close to being broken so abruptly. But I stayed strong even when Steph suggested I start working on Saturdays instead and take over all future Friday home schooling. I can feel my blood pressure rising just writing about it! When are the schools opening again?

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So, another week of lockdown successfully navigated and I’m left to sit here girding my loins ready for Blue Monday tomorrow. I can’t help but think that any previous third Monday in January has been a doddle compared to 2021. Certainly in my lifetime.

This week has been the usual nonsense of world and national events in the news, home schooling and remote working. Of course all we needed to add was a dump of snow quickly followed by some -7 degree freezing to make sure everywhere turned into an ice rink. Even daily exercise has become far riskier than it should be! We did make an awesome snowman however. The kids remain unfazed in their usual way although I am a little concerned they might be turning feral. Don’t forget to ignore all those social media posts about the perfect families and perfect parenting apparently going on. It isn’t real!!!

Off we go into this week’s top 5:

1. It’s amazing how some of the mundane aspects of life in previous years have now become highlights of the week (or month, or even year!) Standard car maintenance is a prime example – having to go and fill up at the petrol station is now a joy as it’s a reason to be out of the house. Now a trip to a car garage is off the chart! This week one of the cars was in for an MOT so we all piled into the other car to go to pick it up and pick M up from nursery on the way. I jumped out the car to get M and the doors auto locked. My car has the habit of doing this and I always forget!

Steph: E don’t move, we will set the alarm off

E: can I move my arms?

Steph: No

E: can I move my legs?

Steph: No

E: Can I blink?

Steph: Yes, of course you can

E: Mammy can I breathe?

Steph: yes E you can breathe, please keep breathing

<Two minutes later>

E: Mammy, I can’t stay still for too long, I have an itch!

Steph: Just don’t move, he’ll be here soon

E then inevitably moved… and nothing happened! It turns out the alarm wasn’t set but I still received an earful when we got back to the car!

2. My wife has once again taken the brunt of the home schooling and I genuinely don’t know how she manages it. There is definitely a reason why she didn’t choose teaching as a career path, as she does not have the patience of a saint, but one to one tutoring is pretty intense no matter who you are. Despite having some highs and lows during the week, I caught her earlier today downloading all of next week’s work tasks and planning the timetable. It is actually a full time second job! E’s favourite task this week was colouring in her Feelings Monster. Her class had to colour in the monster and choose colours based on how they were feeling: red for angry, blue for sad, grey for fear, yellow for happy, pink for loved and green for calm. I’ll let you guess which 3 colours she picked and you can check below if you were right!!

3. We received E’s report card from last term on Wednesday and it made us realise we’re doing to have to up our game. I don’t mean it was a bad report, by any stretch, but this term is undoubtedly going to be more of an assessment on our abilities to motivate her to work hard even without a qualified teacher, or any friends around. The pressure is definitely on! As a follow up to the written report, we received a telephone call from her teacher on Friday in place of a parents evening. It was a pleasant enough chat which finished with a request that we put E on the phone. I suspect Miss H regretted that pretty quickly! Off she set on an extremely lengthy monologue whilst walking in circles around our living room, regaling her teacher with stories of what she got for Christmas, what games she plays with her brother, how many days until her birthday and how “tilted” her snowman was as he was melting already. Certainly she’s in line for an A+ in any oral assessments at school – we just need to crack that maths now!

4. In addition to my chores around the house (and on that point I was put in charge of cleaning all bathrooms this morning which I feel was quite a big promotion and testament to my househusband progress over the last 10 months) I occasionally now also get school topics to cover with E. A bit like a substitute teacher or, as I prefer to look at it, a specialist teacher parachuted in to educate future leaders. I was given science this week, which was all about the 5 senses. We had challenges to test out at home, and then had to go on a senses walk so we could then write down all the things we saw, heard, smelt, touched and (somewhat concerningly) tasted. All that I saw and heard was my daughter wittering on, and I smelt and tasted fear as she kept going off the icy path and peering down the steep banks into the river. As for touch, that was just her hand as she held me up every time I slipped on the ice. Who knew her wellies would have better grip than my hiking boots?! I’ll confess I was thinking I preferred feeding her different foods whilst she was wearing a blindfold in our kitchen but only until she turned to me on the way back and said “Daddy, I really love walking with you and spending time with you and I always want to be able to do it. It’s devine.”

5. The weekend had an unnecessarily early start with E’s PQA Zoom session having been brought forward from 1pm to 9am. I actually read the rules of participation this week, and so stayed in the room throughout to help with the muting and unmuting. It was really enjoyable watching someone else running a Zoom meeting and trying to coordinate a dozen 5 year olds into a singing and dance performance. They all did really well and clearly had fun. A bit of semi normality in these weird times. I don’t think I could handle hearing “Get Back Up Again” from Trolls on repeat one more time, but it clearly paid off as she was awarded Poppet of the Week. One would think that would be the highlight of the class, but instead that accolade goes to E interrupting the teacher to show her a new dance move – whipping her hair around in a circle. The next thing we knew, the entire class was trying it out much to their amusement! Oh, the innocence and unbridled joy of 5 year olds!!

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