Things I Learnt on Lockdown - Part Two
/The big question in lockdown seems to be - what are you doing with your time? We are quite busy actually. Both the Big Man and I are working from home most of the time and the kids have school work so the days can seem quite full but very same-y. I must admit I do love the lack of commute but it does mean there are now three extra hours in the day that need to be filled and, whilst some of that time is spent cooking endless fucking meals and sweeping endless dirt from the endless floors, there is still plenty of time to kill. I have always advocated for a consistent routine but this consistency is beginning to take the piss. Then I stop and think why we are doing this and remember it is an act of love for our fellow humans and that puts it back in perspective a bit. I am currently sitting here counting the minutes until the school mum zoom chat starts so I can wrench open the gin and glug the lot with abandon. It’s nice to know which day is Friday.
My currently mantra is ‘We are so lucky’. We have a house, a garden and live next to some stunning woods studded with many public footpaths. The bluebells have been doing some sterling work lifting our spirits in the last two weeks, though I do make Big Kid sick with embarrassment by chiming ‘Bluebells!’ in my best Joyce Grenfell voice every time we see a clump. (This is, of course, why I do it.) I know that things are really really tough for other people at this time but I am trying to keep upbeat so I will keep this frivolous. Today I would like to talk about what we do in lockdown - the things that are getting us through.
Firstly, telly. God bless telly. Let us bask in its warm, glowing, warming glow.
I inhaled Tiger King in about four nights, having been assured that it wouldn’t hurt my heart like that kind of sensationalist documentary usually does. The sheer unremitting awfulness of everyone involved did prove quite the barrier for empathising with them. Mind you, I did raise an eyebrow that it was easier to prosecute Joe on the grounds of animal cruelty than the sexual coercion of young men; I suppose it was just easier to prove but it still felt pretty bleak to me. And, once again, the internet proves fertile ground for meme based mysogyny. I am aware that Carol Baskin is not a good person but why, internet, why is she the poster child for everything terrible in that show instead of one of those profoundly creepy and abusive men. Anyway, I bloody loved it in a way that I normally wouldn’t. I think.
After I had wrapped up Tiger King, I felt I needed something in keeping with that level of drama and terrible, terrible people, so I am watching the 1970’s I, Claudius. It is fantastic. GBAs (Great British Actors) chewing the scenery with gusto and Brian Blessed has the cold dead eyes of a shark at exactly the right time in every scene. Sian Williams as Livia is amazing. She is my new spirit animal - the household has been much quieter since I started channelling her energy and now I know that poisoning is the solution to literally every problem that may arise. For example, after all the amazing programmes and now all the online learning stuff available, if I hear anyone whinging about paying their BBC license fee I will poison them and enquire about the colour of their vomit with great interest.
We have decided that we are not using the tv to try and educate the kids - they are stuck on the internet for school work and using the available BBC resources to great advantage so we like to use it for shared relaxation. Brooklyn 99 is a joy to watch with the kids. Small Kid appears to have developed a crush on Boyle - which is surprising. I love that delightful little oddball and I respect her life choices. There are worse choices she could make than a sweet, kind and clumsy beta male. It is so fantastic to be able to share a programme that is relentlessly funny in so many ways - there are high art references for Big Kid to hunt down, great word play and delightful slapstick to make us all guffaw. There are so many different flavours of people in it - so many gorgeous personalities to get to know and love. We love our police family.
When lockdown was looming we broke and got Disney Plus. We have made it through most of The Mandalorian which I am really enjoying. It has a lovely comic book feel to it and the world is both unexpected and very familiar at the same time. The plots are simple but effective and if you don’t love the baby yoda then you are dead to me. (Probably by poisoning.) Obviously, we are also hitting the classic Disney films quite hard but also making time to watch the Studio Ghibli collection on Netflix. They are such different flavours of animation and it is so great to see my kids thrilling to stories with almost no peril like Kiki’s Delivery Service and relatively few dead parents in comparison with the Disney canon. It’s quite nice to remind children that you don’t have to be an orphan to have adventures.
Other than that I’ve mainly been watching crafting shows like Kirsty Alsop’s and the Great British Sewing Bee and their ilk. I haven’t started Grayson Perry’s Art Club yet because I am saving it up for an emergency balm against sadness. This leads me to the next set of activities - crafts.
Some of these are for the kids and some are for my sanity.
With the kids, I have found usually the ones they discover for themselves work best. They are a bit too old for organised, mother-led fun these days but they can knock it out of the park with their own creations. (Including my brilliant home made birthday presents) Some are for school and some are done sullenly when I ban them from screens for half an hour but usually they become engrossed and don’t come playing hunt the iPad for much longer than the time I have banned them for.
Meet Spoony!
Obviously, their favourite crafts are the ones I am in the middle of doing, so they can come in and mess up my work a bit then claim it as their own. Super. Mind you, a bit of needle-felting related self-inflicted stabbing managed to discourage them from this lark so I have managed to find some peace and quiet.
I have mainly been writing ( all of it is terrible but I am learning to accept that as part of the process) and felting. I am planning on trying some nail and string art in half term, which should be satisfyingly noisy and any craft where you get to use a hammer is a win for me. I am also spending considerably more time in the garden. The weather for the last few weeks has been a gift and I have started growing new and exciting things. It is far too early to know if any of this will come off but I am aware many plants will die for this hobby and I have made my peace with that. I am also discovering the unexpected delight of finding that the plants I thought i had massacred last year are now shooting and growing with renewed vigour. I love a hobby that allows for long periods of neglect and incompetence. Gardening is much more forgiving than writing.
Terrible to relate, but I have also found myself reduced to making cupcakes again. I fucking hate making cupcakes. Once Small Kid skipped through the school gates for the first time, I swore I would never make cupcakes again. And yet, in this world turned upside down, there is definitely a place for activities from days gone by, that root us and give us a small sense of security and a little sugar rush to boot. So here i am buttercream smeared on my top and glitter sprinkles crunching under my feet, mixing the dry and wet ingredients like the last three years never happened. Small Kid is still way more interested in licking the bowl than doing any of the actual cooking. Bastard.
The main way in which we have been using our creative crafting skills is under the direction of Little Alex Horne and the Taskmaster team. Twice a week Alex sets us something to do, like create an iconic film scene, or make a big version of a small thing, or turn your bed into something different. (Little Mermaid on a rock, a giant chocolate button and a fortune teller’s tent respectively.) The joy of these tasks is that, once the school work is out of the way, the kids can go upstairs and plan what they want to do - usually with much cackling and a surprising amount of thumping and then I can tweak it into something film-able that would’t need a full Weta Workshop team to achieve, as so many of Big Kid’s plans seem to do. Children have fantastic imaginations but very little pragmatism. I may start looking for online courses for special effects artists if this lockdown goes on much longer.
If you are in any way interested in seeing our creations you can check out my instagram or twitter accounts. If you want to see actually talented people doing them, check out the Taskmaster channel on YouTube. We haven’t made it in to a montage yet and I am doing my best to show the children that it doesn’t matter, that we are just doing the tasks for the fun of it. (It does matter to me a bit though.) Having said that seeing what other people have created is simply brilliant. There are so many funny, clever, creative people out there, all doing something a little bit silly and bringing delight into each other’s lives. I am proud to be part of the taskmaster extended family and I hope my kids will continue with it for years to come.
Stay safe out there and make good choices.