{"id":436,"date":"2020-04-23T16:32:55","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T23:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/?p=436"},"modified":"2020-04-23T16:32:55","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T23:32:55","slug":"23rd-april-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/2020\/04\/23rd-april-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"23rd April 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Feeling:<\/strong>\u00a0Ready for the weekend<\/li><li><strong>Listening to:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/UkEyQu57keQ\">Waiting (by Kian)<\/a><\/li><li><strong>Watching<\/strong>:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b03myqj2\">Great British Sewing Bee<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Woke a little earlier this morning, but not much. Found it difficult to get going for work today and hadn&#8217;t really achieved much by 10am (D points out that this is normal because Wednesday is such a busy work day for me I tend to find Thursday a struggle).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I did manage to move myself to work at the kitchen\/dining table today which F seemed to really appreciate. She did some great work this morning &#8211; she is always amazing me with how she uses words in her writing &#8211; she just seems to have a natural flair for the poetic both in terms of imagery and in rhetorical devices like repetition and alliteration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B got on with his work quite happily again and seems to be OK and not overly stressed about work right now which is good. I think the school and teachers are starting to adjust to how they need to set work and how they can do so in such a way that supports the children having a regular timetable of lessons like they would at school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both B &amp; F had virtual music lessons as well today &#8211; B on piano &amp; F on drums. Bs lesson seemed to go well, although he really needs to practice more &#8211; but he knows this and suggested after the lesson that if we feel he needs a break from the screen at any point we should tell him to go and do some piano practice (not sure he&#8217;ll actually do this but it shows willing and awareness!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve been holding back on getting F going with these lessons because she&#8217;d seemed to find some of the online lessons &amp; activities difficult to deal with. However, we talked to her earlier in the week to see if she&#8217;d be up for these lessons and she was keen. As it turned out &#8211; she did find it quite difficult and got quite upset during the lesson &#8211; but she kept going with a bit of help, and got through the lesson in the end. She can get very upset with herself when she feels she&#8217;s making mistakes but she never lets that get the better of her or show in a face-to-face situation &#8211; but with the online lessons somehow her usual coping mechanisms or defences just don&#8217;t seem to kick in. Ultimately if she can push through it maybe this will be something that turns into a strength &#8211; but it&#8217;s hard to see her get so upset when she is doing so well and really doesn&#8217;t need to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Heard from L in Chicago that their lockdown has been extended to at least the end of May now &#8211; and I have to admit I can&#8217;t see it being any different here &#8211; and suspect that&#8217;s how it has to be if we are going to keep the situation under some level of control. It&#8217;s also very sobering to hear about the need for social distancing to be in place for a long time even after the lockdown measures are relaxed &#8211; it&#8217;s going to be a very strange world for some time yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On a more positive note, another lovely day outside, and a slower work-day meant I got to have lunch outside with everyone &#8211; which was very nice. Later in the day F and I played out in the garden with a Star Wars beach-ball &#8211; until it got a huge hole in the side. I cooked the kids their favourite spaghetti bolognese for tea and F wanted to eat in the garden, but we haven&#8217;t really got anywhere set up for this (I&#8217;d originally wanted to put some decking at the back of the house but I never managed to get to it &#8211; perhaps it should go on the projects list!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cutting the hedge back has either encouraged the birds in the garden or just made it easier to see them, and we&#8217;ve all been watching them fly around the garden, collecting material for nests, as well as offer educational opportunities for the kids as they demonstrate the &#8220;birds&#8221; bit of &#8220;the birds and the bees&#8221; outside the kitchen window!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I tried to organise the new plants in the pond today &#8211; but at the moment it just looks like a really muddy puddle. I hope that the mud will settle and it will look a bit more attractive as the plants establish themselves. D is really the gardener in the house and thanks to her we&#8217;ve got some lovely flowers coming now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-instagram wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-instagram\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/B_Uqzssnt0r\/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally got some lovely looking bags of coffee beans from E and family as a late birthday present &#8211; can&#8217;t wait to try them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/IMG_4805-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-437\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/IMG_4805-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/IMG_4805-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/IMG_4805-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/IMG_4805-768x768.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/IMG_4805-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/IMG_4805-2048x2048.jpg 2048w, http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/IMG_4805-800x800.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Stay safe, stay caffeinated, stay strong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feeling:\u00a0Ready for the weekend Listening to:\u00a0Waiting (by Kian) Watching:\u00a0Great British Sewing Bee Woke a little earlier this morning, but not much. Found it difficult to get going for work today and hadn&#8217;t really achieved much by 10am (D points out that this is normal because Wednesday is such a busy work day for me I&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[19,27],"class_list":["post-436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary","tag-covid19","tag-lockdown"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":438,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions\/438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}