Covid Diaries Week 12

A recap of our 12th week of social distancing. May 30th - June 5th

Doing

Our latest addition to our backyard play centre: a paddling pool. We were all a bit disappointed with how small it is, but Ella is thrilled with it. We’ve had some hot and humid days this week so it’s been a good way to get her to cool down a bit.

Now that the weather is nice Andy and I will sometimes take the kids out for a walk in the morning depending on our work schedule. We often just go behind Ella’s school; there is a large paved yard that is always empty and perfect for Ella to zoom around on her scooter. Ollie's favourite thing to do is run around and chase his soccer ball. When Ella is feeling generous, she let's her little brother have a go on her scooter:

Andy and I took Ella on an evening walk to Hilton Falls, one of the Halton Conservation parks. It was 1.5km each way to a beautiful waterfall lookout.  We didn't bring a wagon or scooter so Ella had to walk the whole way, which takes some coaxing at times. Andy is really good at engaging her in little games like looking for bugs and walking on logs.

The path was really wide and flat, so a pretty easy trail to take kids on. We could have easily taken the wagon as well.

We had a snack once we go to the falls and Ella insisted on sitting on a rock in the river to eat hers.

You could walk to the bottom of the falls, but it was pretty busy so I wasn't able to get a great picture - I only ended up with this one from the top. No need to get closer to groups of people for a cool picture these days!

We found some rocks to climb on the way back. Ella loved this, but unfortunately was then pretty tired for the walk back. Some piggy backing was required to get her to the car.

For the first time since the government introduced social distancing measures on March 13th, we went to a friend’s house! Once the kids were in bed we drove to my friend Karen’s place and walked around the house to their back garden. They had some spaced out chairs set up, and we brought our own drinks and cups. Even though we are now “allowed” to do this, it definitely felt like we were doing something wrong! Karen and her husband Adam are the first people I’ve really talked to in person outside my household for 12 WEEKS! That is crazy. It was so, so nice to catch up with them. I had two glasses of wine and woke up the next morning with a headache, but it was totally worth it.

I taught my last class on Friday, yippee! We still have 2.5 weeks when we are meant to be working, writing report cards and all that, but I’m anticipating the workload will be much less now. Summer is nearly here!

Cooking

Brunch on the barbecue is becoming a thing in our house. This week Andy cooked French Toast and bacon on it and it was so good. The smell of the french toast on the barbecue was to die for! It seems to create a lot less mess than in the kitchen which is a definite bonus.

Drinking

Iced coffee! Yesssss! It is that time of year, and I absolutely loooooove iced coffee. It's really the only way I enjoy drinking black coffee. The only downside is I could drink way too much of it if I'm not careful. I've started making decaf cold brew, as any caffeine after about noon keeps me awake at night.

Watching

Still on Money Heist - Part 3. I also watched this video of Trevor Noah’s response to the protests and riots taking place in the USA. I thought it was both thoughtful and thought-provoking.

Reading

Some teachers at my school have started a book club, and our first book is The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel. I recently read Station Eleven by the same author and really enjoyed it, so I’m excited to read another book by her. I’m only a few chapters in, but so far so good!

In the news

For once the news is not dominated by coronavirus, although the reason for that is much, much worse. This blog has never really been a place where I share political or ideological views, so I will leave it at that. And I think Trevor Noah has said it much better than I ever could!