Things I Learnt on Lockdown - Part One
/NB - this was going to be a single post based on my endless navel-gazing over the last month or so but apparently my navel is very deep so I think this will be three or four instalments instead.
Well, this is a bit of an odd time and, seeing as I am paying for this website, it would seem remiss not to remark upon the historical event that is currently swallowing us whole. Covid-19 has made its presence felt around the world and is the number one priority for all leaders, some of whom are handling this better than others. *Pours out some morning chardonnay in libation for our American friends*. It is immensely strange to be caught up in this worldwide pandemic whilst my world has shrunk to the size of a pin. My home is now my entire existence - moving from bed to sofa to garden and back again with one walk in the woods per day to break the monotony. This has led to some quite significant navel gazing and introspection along the way. So here are the things I have learned in lockdown.
1 Food is important
This really should go without saying. but food has become enormously important to us all in the last month. It is how we structure our day and offers little islands of pleasure throughout this trying time. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to our supermarkets and the people who produce and deliver our food. Seeing empty shelves in those first few weeks was really quite shocking but it is impressive to see our collective act of will turn this around and lead to quite civilised shopping experiences, considering the circumstances. It’s easy to dismiss as idiots those people who fell prey to panic and started hoarding items at the start of all this - it’s not a great impulse but it is a human one and compassion is also an impulse that we should all be indulging in at this time. I would also imagine that some of the supply issues were to do with people who regularly eat out suddenly being faced with cooking and eating all their meals at home for the forseeable future - this would definitely lead to a wobble on the axis of food delivery. I think we are incredibly privileged to still be able to access such a wide range of foods at such a difficult time and I am grateful to all those who make it possible.
On a more personal note, I have discovered that I have allowed my children to accept a remarkably bland range of foods and now I am paying for it. We have always enjoyed sitting down for family meals about three to five times a week with foods we all enjoy like roasts and curries and fish and chips but now we are doing a minimum of fourteen meals together every week I have realised just how limited my children’s palates are. The reason it’s fourteen meals and not twenty-one is because I tend to hide in bed whilst they fix their own breakfasts - clawing out some alone time for myself at the start of the day stops me shrieking like a banshee later (most of the time).
In the past times, when there was an outside and extra-curricular activities and variety in our lives, I would usually chuck the kids something beige and oven baked before haring off to the next event and then I could eat a civilised meal with the big man in the evening. Now we eat together for almost every meal, this has completely changed my weekly menu. I would tattoo ‘Stay Indoors’ on my eyelids just to be able to eat butternut squash, feta, cous cous, courgettes; just something, anything that isn’t a bloody ham wrap for lunch. The kids need predictable comforting foods - now is not the time to be trying daring new recipes for spatchcocked guinea fowl. Instead it is mainly carbs and something easy to chew like mince. I could use this time to help small kid progress from eating peas only if they are still frozen but, quite frankly, I can’t be arsed.
Eating alongside the kids for every meal has drastically reduced the repertoire of what is worth cooking and also what I actually eat. My meat consumption has risen but my snacking has dwindled impressively - if my feral horde actually saw how many biscuits mummy can eat in one sitting, the cries of ‘hypocrite’ would crumble the foundations of the house. Also, I think a lot of my snacking links to how much I am using my brain and how stressed I am feeling and, as I am not at work at present and I have nowhere to be, I am not doing a huge amount of thinking and I am remarkably unstressed on a day to day level (as long as I don’t think about the virus too much). I am sleeping better than I have in years - which is not having the magical regenerative powers for my hair skin and eye-bags that I thought it might - and I am eating much more healthily; choosing fruit over biscuits, crackers over crisps. Heck, my wonderful parents-in-law sent us some amazing brownies as a care package and I think they will last the whole week - rather than giving the kids a couple and then the Big Man and I cramming them down out gullets once they are in bed which is what would have happened in the outdoor times. In short; constant, judgmental surveillance is what I need to change my unhealthy eating habits. Thanks kids.
However, there is still joy to be found in our indoors life. We are part of the sourdough sect - you can watch our pet sourdough starter’s adventures on my instagram feed. Big Kid has greatly enjoyed harvesting parts of her and learning how to make his own bread, supervised with endless patience by the Big Man. Fresh bread made from yeast harvested from our own air is joyful. On the flip side, I have found myself baking cupcakes again - I swore that once Small Kid turned five I would never bake another cupcake again. I didn’t however bank on a global pandemic and a little bit of regression does us all good in these dark days. I am even quite enjoying it.