I try to do a post each week on the simple pleasures I have enjoyed entitled ‘This week..’  Life is very different at present and over the past two weeks, I have been focusing on looking after my family and trying to make sense of all that is happening in the world.  In a crisis, I am practical and calm.

I work on the SMT of a special school which will remain open and I’ve been contributing to our planning at work.  At times the amount of information we have been processing has been intense but we end this week with a strong plan for the coming weeks.  I have also been able to organise Mr S and my part time working hours so that we will be working our contracted number of hours and looking after our children ourselves, despite both being on the key worker list.  I’m quite excited at being teacher mum, I have schedules ready, little projects etc.. I genuinely love being a teacher and teaching my own children is going to be fun! (If I say this enough times, I’m convincing myself,  I won’t need to resort to my behaviour management skills)  Mr S is job sharing with me, I hope he’s as good as my last job share partner. Ten years later we still work together but its leading our department now not just one class!

I want to focus on just a few little things I’ve done to show that even in times of crisis, there are little rays of sunshine.  So this week ….

I have run …

On Saturday, I went to our local parkrun.  There was a quiet resignation that this was our last meeting for a time but there was such a lovely feeling of community and strength.  When the parkrun was introduced, there was a cheer, which seemed to be a thank you to everybody and at the end, quiet acknowledgements that we would see each again when it was possible.  I also managed to run my last miles of the 100 miles of winter challenge this week.  That was a tough challenge, we have had such bad weather and storms and my running was severely limited in February.  However with frequent runs in the past fortnight, I ran my miles with 5 days to spare, yippee!

I have watched …

The daily government briefings at 5pm have become part of our routine.  It does add a war time feel to proceedings.  I was still at work on Wednesday waiting for the school closure announcement and my colleague and I were huddled around the screen, watching and trying to work out what it meant for us.  There is definitely a sense of community in these uncertain times.

I have supported …

The Coronavirus crisis has the potential to destroy our local community and this week, I made a conscious effort to further support local businesses ( I can always manage another coffee!)  I always go to a local cafe for lunch with my friend on Wednesday, they are an amazing independent business but can now only offer takeaways.  We had our takeaway soup and bread on Wednesday and I returned the next day to buy a takeaway coffee simply to show my support.  I will do this as much as I can.  I love this cafe, it can’t shut, its such a little hub for us all. I also continued with my nail appointment, there were stringent hygiene measures in place but if we don’t support our local businesses our town will become a ghost town.  Our local businesses have also come up with some great initiatives to support the vulnerable people in our community, shops working together, cafes making meals on wheels, whilst we are collecting for the food bank at work and I have spoken to all our neighbours to ensure that everyone has the support they need.  This is our time to be show our community spirit.

Next week is the start of our new normal.  Realistically I don’t think the children will return to school until September.  After a fortnight of speculation and planning, it will be good to start our new routines and learn to embrace the new normal.  It is a time of change and challenge, I trust that as a community, local, national and global we will emerge stronger, wiser and kinder.