May 4, 2020

Having just read my team mate Kate’s brilliant blog about her working-from-home life in lockdown (well done on the running Kate, I’m very impressed!), I have been inspired to reflect on my own furloughed not-working-from-home-but-very-much-working-at-home life in lockdown.

Funnily enough, there are many similarities between mine and Kate’s experiences so far – I really miss my team mates, I miss our clients and knowing what’s going on in their worlds during this bizarre time, I miss some of the small businesses that share our office space (not so much the person who brushed their teeth in the kitchen sink) and of course the fabled my mustard biscuit table…. Like Kate, I also make several visits to the fridge every day, however this is where our experiences start to differ.

The contents of our fridge seem to be in a state of constant depletion as my sons eat us out of house and home. I find myself meal planning rather than campaign planning, and my role as Advertising Team Manager is a distant and dreamy memory. Instead I find myself being teacher to an eight-year-old who is expected to learn fronted adverbials, Greek Myths, decimals and electricity (who knew that’s what AC/DC stood for?) and that’s just Monday. Meanwhile, I am teaching my six-year-old phonics, multiplication & division all whilst rewriting Jack and the Beanstalk.

Every day.

For the next two weeks.

My caffeine consumption has gone through the roof to sustain the pace. I am having to take deep breaths and count to 10 (2+2+2+2+2 to you, darling six-year-old) several times a day. All I can hope is that I have done enough to keep my sons learning on track but not so much that I am broken by the experience and have put them off learning for life.

My eldest had to write a summary of the Greek Myth ‘Pandora’s Box’ today and I was struck by how apt the message was for the circumstances in which we find ourselves. In all this madness and uncertainty, what we do all have is hope. Hope that we get to see our friends and loved ones soon and of a return to some form of normality, which gets nearer with every day that passes.

Perhaps I am learning as much as I am teaching at the moment. Now, where are my running shoes?

Nadine