Normally this blog is about family life but this week seems to have been dominated by the national news of a new lockdown and international news with a final result in the fractious American presidential election. Family dinner table conversation has been about these topics and has given us a real chance with particular regards to the U.S. election to discuss some big themes, democracy, equality, representation. It sounds a bit heavy but the conversations have been presented in child friendly ways and I am proud of the values our children are developing.

This is also a week where my work has seeped into home life too. Lockdown 2.0 has meant loads of additional work due to the unique nature of our setting and its been long days, late nights and doing a few hours on my days off too.

Here are a few highlights from this week

I read …

I have read Bella Mackie’s Jog On and it is a really interesting and thought provoking read. Given the title, running is a theme through the book, but it looks at anxiety and wellbeing too. Given Lockdown its a pertinent read and a timely reminder to look after ourselves.

I ran with my daughter …

I am genuinely becoming very concerned about the long term effect on children’s wellbeing in lockdown. We have been out every day during both lockdowns for long walks, cycle rides or in sunnier times, swimming in the sea but I am aware that my children don’t get the hard, physical challenges they used to, some close contact sports are banned and there are no after school sport clubs, competitions etc… To try and counter this we’ve tried to be more physically active at home, Mr S has been out in the garden with Little Man this week to play football and I have run some 5Ks with Little Miss. I do like these runs, I get to talk and listen with my girl and she always feels so much better at the end of a run. On one of her runs she said that she was missing parkrun and playing team sports like netball at school, its all a little heart breaking. However, we can’t focus on what we can’t do but enjoy what we are doing now and the runs will continue in lockdown 2.

I paused to remember the war dead …

Again, another very strange experience for Remembrance Sunday. For the last five years, Little Man has always been part of the parade through scouting. He is military mad and Remembrance day is a big thing for him. He was so proud last year when he got to represent his school at the children’s service and plant a cross for a soldier. This morning, I walked him up to the war memorial to observe a socially distanced 2 minute silence at 11am. It was respectfully observed, the location makes it easy for people to spread out and there was no service just a lone bugler to start and finish the silence. On this morning’s early run I did run up to the memorial and just pause, the memorial looks out onto the sea and on a dark, misty morning it felt eerily peaceful.

I followed the American Presidential election …

Whilst it became a bit of a marathon, so many page refreshes, with no result until Saturday evening, I have been following the American election so closely this week. As an aside, James Naughtie back on Radio 4 was great and Twitter was superb, my friends and I were sharing lots of tweets with articles, gifs etc.. It didn’t seem an election just to elect a President, but a culture. Thankfully that culture of respect, democracy and equality seems to have prevailed. I felt so much love and optimism with the result and the future feels so much brighter. I’ve become a total fan girl of Madam VP, Kamala Harris, the role model we need all our children to have.

And finally

If all goes to plan, I am going to stop and rest this week with a minor procedure on my foot. Although its painful, I am secretly looking forward to 24 hours in bed resting my foot. My whole week will hopefully be at a slower speed, as I simply cannot keep up with the pace of this last week.

Have a good week.