The Year We (Mostly) Stayed at Home

 

 

 The past four Springs have signalled a sense of renewal. A symbol of birth and beginnings; a dawn of new adventures. A teetering on the edge of hope. This year, the appearance of daffodils and snowdrops and slightly warmer days brought with it a sense of landing. Of arrival. A feeling of settling in. And partly due to the global events of the year gone by, the adventurous energy has dimmed and in its place there’s an acceptance of where we find ourselves, of being tethered to a more secure and permanent base from which to explore.

The Covid lockdown hit a few weeks after we moved in last March. It has essentially continued in one way or another and is only now beginning to ease. I’m not going to dwell on that as it has affected all of us deeply in various ways; we’ve all got our own stories and perspectives according to our experiences. Thankfully, we’ve managed financially and we’ve stayed well. But in a year where ‘masks’ became an everyday accessory and the physical gesture of the ‘virtual hug’ between friends and loved ones became a new version of the ‘dab’, the one positive it did bring was a chance to pause.

Moving in

Instead of racing away to the four corners of the country and over the seas we were restricted to exploring the local surroundings of our new home and a once-a-week food shop. We’ve spent hours in the sunny garden bird watching, bird listening, nest spotting, playing rounders, playing piggy in the middle, skipping, practising cartwheels and handstands, adding up scores in games of quoits. Our options for walks were those that could be taken from the front door, and how grateful we are to the nearby river, stream and woods, churchyard and Arboretum and endless lanes and public footways. The farm next door has provided elderflower cheese, Devon Chutney, and fig and honey crackers for many a lazy summer afternoon. And of course, all of this ‘inaction’ has had a positive impact on our environment that will hopefully form some semblance of a ‘new normal’.

We made lemonade. Elderflower syrup. Garlic pesto with wild leaves collected from the

woods. Spent hours skimming stones at the ‘pebbly beach’, where the water changed its meander daily, so sometimes where there was an island one day, on another day there were two, and streams to jump over to reach them, or waist length pools to dip into. We noticed the blue iridescence of dragonflies that otherwise may have been missed.

The normally busy road that splits the village in two became eerily empty with only the odd car or bus passing through. Children could have played on it. Actual children playing actual games on an actual street. Imagine! Jumpers for goalposts and all that.

Unfortunately, supermarket queues were a few hundred metres long. The weeks leading up to full lockdown I patiently waited for the shelves to fill back up with hand sanitiser, and toilet paper, but they never did. I found some in small independent shops and random places like the pop-up post office, twice the price. Then it was flour, and pasta that disappeared. I suppose that’s what ‘the end of the world’ does to people. All we need is toilet paper after all, to survive, and tonnes of homemade bread!

The closure of schools heralded the beginning of a mental health recovery for one child, but for the other it stole friends, football, and the much-anticipated End of Year 6 Greek Olympics that was to be both a celebration and a rite of passage. Instead, finding ourselves thrown into a world of sudden and unanticipated ‘school at home’ we discovered Khan Academy (“My brain wants to do more of these.”) which was quite fun, and other free online resources, and spiced up English assignments by reading Of Mice and Men in awfully bad but funny southern accents. It gave us an insight into the options available if we did want to home educate, and a practise at how we might manage it, and that at least cleared away some fear of the unknown. We made a Greek vase out of paper mache; a model of the solar system out of felted wool and an old hanger; rewrote an Aesops Fable; came to understand metric conversions and weight and mass in the kitchen rather than a classroom. Like everyone, we baked lots, and contributed (about three times) to that Joe Wicks guy becoming famous! We made up our own games and played cards and board games, wrote scripts and acted them out. And Noah spent almost the entire lockdown in a Chewbacca Onesie, like many others around the world who discovered their own style of ‘Lockdown Pyjama’.

The mug says it all!

For me, lockdown and school closure began just prior to the easter holidays and at first it felt like a glorious break from a busy routine, giving us time to spend together doing not very much at all. It was quite liberating. Like everyone else we made plans to do more yoga, learn a new language, write a novel. Maciek was home for a part of it, and it felt like a holiday. The weather was fab. I was still working at the school, albeit remotely. However, the school closure coincided with an academy takeover: new management, new procedures, new expectations. Countless Teams meetings. Stress levels soared. Screen fatigue took over. Coping with the sudden demands of a now home-based part-time job which suddenly felt full-time along with two kids home schooling began to take its toll. Throw into that mix: a new puppy why don’t you?

Yes, the new ankle-biting yap-yap-yappy ball of fluff. Persephone. Abbreviated to Sephi. Another name I have to repeat three times and spell out over the phone! (You’d think I’d know the NATO phonetic alphabet like the back of my hand by now!). The name was chosen a year before, following an interest in Greek Mythology. Queen of the Underworld and Goddess of Spring. Extremely fitting, I must say, for she is both at once lovely and evil. A lockdown inside a lockdown, it was. Living in the kitchen, sleeping on the couch, surrounded by the constant stench of dog pee mixed with grapefruit-scented floor cleaner.

How glad was I in particular then to see the arrival of the summer holidays. The weeks leading up to them I felt I could hardly breathe. That final week was like sinking under a giant wave that thankfully pushed me, exhausted and depleted, onto the shore, rather than drowning me as I had come to believe was inevitable. Thank God for you, Summer. Happy days.

Restrictions had eased slightly by then which came by way of a more confusing and convoluted version of the original ‘stay home but go out’ message from Boris. So we stole away to the Wye Valley. Braved a camping trip with The Evil Fluff. I’d been wanting to visit Puzzle Wood since 2014 but on turning up full of excitement we discovered dogs weren’t allowed. Boo! Also, pre-booking was required, as it was with everything, which is something we hadn’t yet copped on to. It was still nice to get away somewhere different. We re-visited Tintern, and the cottage where we stayed several years ago, had some lovely meals outside in the sun, and Noah and Maciek added to their ‘wild swim’ tally on the last day.

Late August, in lieu of a planned Italian summer holiday at Lake Garda, we decided to visit the Lake District. Absolutely stunning landscape, if only we weren’t drowning in rain and being sucked under mud! People had offered polite wavering smiles and strange facial expressions when we declared we’d be camping in the Lake District. We soon found out why. Very very glad of the wellies and waterproofs. There was one sunny day where Maciek and Noah clocked up another swim.

That was the week of Amelia’s birthday, and we had planned a surprise daytrip to Alnwick Castle where some of Harry Potter was filmed. After several days and nights we couldn’t take much more of being trapped, wet and freezing, inside our tent with a muddy smelly dog, and we really didn’t want that to be Amelia’s birthday experience, so the evening-but-one before her birthday, we crouched by torchlight and in between internet connections and failures, found a hotel room near the castle, one that would take dogs (it was a small ground floor ‘house’ on the grounds). The big lure was the promise of an indoor heated swimming pool. Given the time of year and Covid prices, it cost us £200! Ordinarily we would NEVER spend that amount, but times were desperate, as we sat huddled and dripping just outside the tent, discussing, umming and arring, away from earshot of the kids.

So, we got to packing overnight bags and Amelia’s presents, ready for the drive the next day, gladly leaving the tent standing its sodden ground against the wind. We thought we’d never get away with it. Surely they’d suspect something was afoot. Surely they’d ask why we were packing all our toiletries for a daytrip. But no. They only began their suspicions by late afternoon and our decoy was that we were going to a nice restaurant for a birthday dinner. Even once we arrived at the hotel, they had no clue. Maciek and I went to check in, only to be told that due to Covid restrictions, children were not allowed in the pool. Another Boo! So disappointing, since it was the thing we knew they’d be most excited about, having not been swimming at all for months. After swallowing that bit of unwelcome news, we had to wait in the car a further 45 minutes as our ‘table’ wasn’t ready. When we finally got the keys, we found a cosy but extraordinarily and jawdroppingly overpriced ground floor flat. Nevertheless, it was warm and dry with a hot shower and fully functioning kettle along with a selection of teas and even hot chocolate! The kids were impressed. Sephi bombed about in delight. And Amelia woke up happy and warm to her 14^th birthday. The most expensive one of her life, but worth it.

The next surprise was Alnwick Castle which wasn’t actually open (except for the grounds and one or two rooms by pre-book which we hadn’t known about). Also, dogs weren’t allowed. RAAAA! So, only three of us went in. It was still good, and the main thing is it made our girl very happy (also it was the first time she tasted coffee!). And from the ramparts, far off in the distance beside a river, we spotted a ‘man with a white fluffy thing’ which we identified as Daddy. So, in a way, he was with us!

On the drive back we had lemon cupcakes on a section of Hadrian’s Wall between showers. The plan to have dinner a Polish restaurant didn’t eventuate so then it was Chapter Two: The Dreaded Return to the Soaking Tent. Oh well, it wasn’t a holiday, it was an ‘experience’, so to speak, and one we would have missed out on if it wasn’t for Covid and we’d been stuck with Lake Garda as planned (By the way, Grasmere is lovely – Amelia wants to live there!). And just for Noah, driving back to Devon took us via Liverpool. Of course, tours were closed, but a wander around Anfield has to be one of the highlights for Noah!

Over the summer were many more daytrips – beach and moor – and Maciek experienced wild camping and survival skills on Dartmoor with some friends, crossing a freezing river in his undies and sleeping in a hammock. If you know Maciek, you’ll know that the river/undies bit is an extraordinary achievement, along with all his other wild swims! His tally for 2020 was 13!

Living beside a farm gave us the amazing opportunity to witness calves being born in the field beside our driveway, in August. Six in one viewing, once. That’s that bit of education covered.

Another semi-lockdown came in November, and another full one in January/February/March, brings us to now; a gradual removal of restrictions. Things are slowly opening back up. For how long we don’t know. Through all of it, the lack of socialising and feelings of isolation have had a profound effect on many. Being alone became a new norm. It felt weird talking to people again, meeting up with friends, after such a long time feeling like there are no friends. Feeling like this little village is the world, which perhaps is the way it needs to be, if we’re to make a positive impact on the health of the Earth.

We’ve been given a good length of time to stop and smell the roses (or in my case, apple blossoms – so pretty! And good for bees!). And having this extraordinary time to spend with the kids, to be together without the bombardment of external expectations has been an introvert’s dream! Although, we are a little bit excited to be going to a cinema again. Just one of the quiet local ones, mind.

Broken

 

This weekend marks four years since we left Perth. Four. Massive. Years. They seem to have flashed by like an express train, pulling carriages brimming with heavy baggage as well as so many joyful moments. So many that it will be impossible to recount. The places discovered. The visits from overseas friends and family. Daytrips and holidays. New friends made. Four changes of address. Epiphanies had. Conclusions reached. And not.

This past year has been an uncertain and worrying one for everybody. And for us personally the two prior were two of the most difficult and stressful years of our adult lives to date. I could just gloss over it, but I’m not going to, because pretending isn’t something I’m good at.

It’s been three years since I last posted on GrubsaboutAgain. That in itself is an indication of the kind of journey we’ve been on. We’re not so ‘about’ these days either, and not likely to be very ‘about’ in the near future. Essentially, we’ve been in lockdown for a year. For Noah, that’s about a tenth of his life. Limited to school and not very much else. Oh, how we’re missing cinema, theatre, libraries, cafes, football matches, daytrips. Wearing a mask has become a normal way of life, sadly. On the bright side, it’s a chance to practice smiling with your eyes! When restrictions eased for a time last year we managed to go camping twice to the Wye Valley and the Lake District (where we nearly drowned in our tent!). We also skipped over to London for a day and a night to sort out a passport situation and if felt so exciting after months of being ‘house-and-village-bound’. Fortunately, we moved into this lovely place just before it all happened and are grateful for the space inside and outside, and the various walks available – river, stream, woods. It’s a blessing really. If we’d had to endure it in our previous little box of a house I think we really would have lost the plot. And we’re grateful to have stayed well through it all. Others haven’t been so lucky.

Before all of that there was a wedding in Poland; both a summer and a winter holiday in Austria; a Christmas in Germany; several camping trips and countless days out to awesome places and of course our ‘two-year-mark’ trip back to Oz (this was meant to be our ‘decider’ but unfortunately didn’t yield too much clarity). Since the close proximity to Europe was one of the strong draws of living here, the past year of restrictions stretching ahead for the foreseeable future are a little hard to bear.

Moving into a permanent home a year ago meant opening boxes that had been stored in various garages since they arrived in 2018. It meant revisiting treasured things, things packed for the kids not knowing it would be three years until we’d look at them again. Most of it made it across the oceans and two house moves unscathed, and unpacking brought back so much of what we’d left behind. Some things didn’t survive the journey so well. Amongst them was a musical carousel of Noah’s, a gift from Mum when he was born. Cracked to seemingly irreparable bits. Bits I couldn’t bring myself to part with. Bits that lay on his window sill for almost a year, determined not to be discarded.

I cried. I know, it’s just a music box. But I cried for the memories in it, the stories, the little voice at bedtimes, the hope and the dreams that it symbolised. If you know anything of the struggle we experienced in the two years before lockdown, you might understand why I held the broken carousel in my hands and wept.

We made the blog of our Austrian adventure into a book that now sits on a stand in our kitchen. It’s read aloud often and is a lovely momento for all of us, but for the kids it’s a wonderful snippet of childhood to keep re-visiting. Those stories were full of humour – the kids were little, they said funny things, did funny things. The decisions we made then were not so impactful on them. And somewhere underneath was the knowledge that it was just a year out, a ‘not-forever’.

Having not opened GrubsaboutAgain since I wrote the last post, I’ve just read a few. They were quite funny too, some of them, words full of hope and humour. There’s a sense of the ‘not-forever’ in them, as it was before our ‘decider’ trip. I always intended to keep it going, if only for us, and as a diary for the kids. But a lot changes in three years. I just never had any spare time or any spare energy or any spare emotion. It was all taken up on surviving. Sounds dramatic, but that’s what it was. Not survival of the devastating kind: we weren’t homeless, dying, divorcing or starving. Just pure emotional exhaustion. Treading water and working desperately hard to keep afloat. To that point where you’ve barely anything left.

I’m 46 this year. I remember Mum’s 50^th. Dad turning up. He was 48. I was newly married with a beautiful 4 month old daughter. Life stretching infinitely before us. That’s what you think isn’t it? Life is infinite. You don’t think at that point of babies growing up and all the dreams you had for them fading away. You don’t think of the rug being pulled, over and over again.

In one of my last posts (30^th March 2018 to be exact) we had just received a letter that was to be the piece of the puzzle that everything else depended on. An offer for Amelia at the only secondary school available where I believed there was a chance she’d be okay. A swap of like for like. The one I’d spent nearly two years trying to secure a place for before we even moved here. When you have a child who has such difficulty in almost all social situations, a traditional school environment is a frightening place. So you get a bit picky about these things. You have to. The lead up to her start was tough, as it always has been in any new situation for as long as I can remember. The school offered transition days before the summer holidays that went terribly. So, come September, we were on tenterhooks. The first two days were horrendous. Foetal-position-on-the-floor-of-car-and-not-being-able-to-move horrendous. But miraculously, by the end of the week things seemed to be improving. We had a drink to celebrate (such was the relief!). That relief lasted five days. And then things began slowly sliding down hill. By October, the school itself began falling apart (the what why and how is a long story for another time). A good friend had been made and she’d left. Things went from bad to worse, worse than I could have imagined, and from then until the first lockdown, life was a dark tunnel that allowed an occasional pinhole of light to shine through. To see the spark in your wonderfully bright and capable child fade to almost nothing, listening to her question the point of her being alive at such a young age, to see no joy emanate from her apart from the most sporadic of glimpses, leaves a pain inside you that can’t be described. You don’t know how dark that tunnel is until you’ve spent some time out the other side and had the opportunity to look back. The puzzle piece didn’t fit. We had to imagine a new puzzle altogether. And in that one respect, lockdown was a Godsend. The absence of school allowed her to untangle and begin to come alive again. Home educated now, and thriving in her own way.

Alongside all this I sat beside the bed of my lovely Nanny P, held her hand while she breathed her last breaths. In the same week as Amelia started school, my stepmum Rita died. The heaviness of not being there, not being able to hug my Dad, had to be painfully contained so I could support my child through the hardest time of her own young life. During the second lockdown, being unable to attend the funeral of my grandad and visit my grieving Nan. And all the while carrying the guilt and sadness and grief and questioning, constantly, if we’d done the right thing.

At the risk of sounding too poetic, we’ve sunk to the emotional depths of the sea and soared the emotional heights of the skies. We’ve felt so many moments of pure gratitude. We’ve come close to unravelling. We have unravelled. We’ve loved and hated and everything in between. We’ve broken down. And put ourselves back together, countless times.

I know, it all sounds very gloom and doom. And possibly full of woe-is-me. I know people have experienced much worse, and I’m thankful that our family is relatively happy, healthy and safe. But our own trials in life are relative and valid. And you can’t know the difficulty of a situation unless you’ve experienced it yourself.

We do live in such a beautiful part of the world. Step outside to a view of rolling green hills illuminated by a wintery sun. There are walnut trees and mulberry bushes and elderflower in the garden, and a 12^th century church a few hundred metres away that chimes the hour. Our neighbours are lovely. We can buy eggs from local families down the lane who keep a few chickens. We can buy cheese made at the farm next door, and fresh milk in glass bottles, and local meat from the butcher or farm shops close by. But then there’s always Tesco with the unrecyclable packets and blueberries from Spain tempting you with convenience!

All about me, but what about the others? Well, Maciek of course has been on the same journey, but he’s enjoying his work here, and outdoor pursuits. He works in some amazing properties and often sends me photos of these awesome landscapes captioned ‘my view from the office’. And I send him one back with a view of the kitchen sink just to remind him of what he’s missing! Noah’s been on his own tricky rollercoaster which has added many cracks to my broken heart. And football being the thing he most loves to do, lockdown has been difficult for him.

Last summer Noah found a badger’s skull in the garden. We cleaned it and bleached it and kept it in a tub, for it’s teeth had fallen out and needed to be glued back in before being fit for display. It was left in that tub for months, in the downstairs loo. Its presence eliciting nagging reminders from me, ‘Will you fix that badger this weekend please?’. So last week I bought new glue. No excuses now.

And I went away dusting and sorting. And when I came downstairs there were my three favourite people at the table, with the skull, and all the broken things, being put back together. A ceramic owl sitting atop a pile of books, a snow globe carousel from Amelia’s christening, a family Christmas ornament with all our names painted on it. Amelia was holding the roof of the music box till the glue dried, and the band players had been returned to their circle playing their instruments. Those irreparable bits from the window sill back together in one piece. It’s not without chips and visible cracks. But it works. And the memories are still inside it. The music plays as beautifully as it always did, albeit with a slight tilt, and the story is different now. 

Sometimes, when you’re expecting the magic of Switzerland, you instead find yourself suddenly and without warning landing in Holland. It takes some adaptability to accept a less magnificent outlook, to appreciate that where you’ve landed is just as extraordinary and beautiful, in its own wonderfully unique way.