Feest Isolation Days – 22 June
Yesterday was Fathers’ Day! It’s been fourteen weeks since we’ve seen any family and yesterday we finally spent real face to face time, not Facetime or Zoom or any other new media, with four of the grandkids and their fabulous parents. It was wonderful to SEE and be with them!
We cleaned and cooked and sorted garden furniture and made everything ready before they arrived for lunch in the garden. It was an exhausting pleasure! Normal! We included chocolates and Pringles and diet coke and the lemonade they like on the food order from Mr. Sainsbury. We had corn on the cob and chicken and baked potatoes, I baked a cake – Terry made a special only ever made at Christmas and big celebrations pudding. They were more than delighted.
Wonderful to see them! And yet…
When they left we were both feeling a bit flat as we were reminded once more of what the new normal is. Social distancing. There were no hugs. There were no stomping feet on the stairs, no kids voices yelling up and down. Minimal clicks of pool balls in their games room down in the basement. The kids and their parents didn’t come into the house except through their door into the basement to use the downstairs loo. We won’t head down there for three days.
Since when did our family become people we can’t touch, can’t hug, can’t sit next to? Since this damn virus arrived! I can’t imagine what it must have been like for families to send their ill folk off to hospital and never see them again. This isn’t remotely like that and it still hurts.
The visit WAS special and yet we are reminded what we still face as we move further afield into life as it is now. What will happen in the winter when we can’t sit outside and there is still no treatment or vaccine? What will happen when the world tries to unlock and the two metre distance for socially distancing is slashed to one metre? These are still questions that are with us and once again we need to adjust our expectations and try to live with the virus as it still circulates.
Normally when the kids are here everyone helps serve and wash up and that camaraderie is an important part of the visit. Part of being with grandparents is the impromptu conversations with the grandkids without the parents around when you’re clearing the table or taking the rubbish outside together. Our home is a place for parents to let go while we sort out the kids and they watch a football match or read a magazine and generally retreat from their ups and downs of life. Our home is usually a sanctuary from all that is unpleasant and we couldn’t offer that yesterday. Not anymore. Not now. All of these simple pleasures that we hardly ever noticed before are now coronadashed. This damn virus!
One hundred days today and it’s transition time…again! We WILL see the kids and the grandkids again and next time we will be ready for the new normal. Being outside for the next few months together is going to be different of course, but we will adjust. There will be new ideas for the next visits, as we all get used to this new normal. Strange times!
Transition periods offer us time to think and plan differently and just as there are changes to our family life my musings will change a bit as well. As weekends are going to be busier from now on with family visiting us or our travelling to see them, socially distancing in their gardens, my writing will continue – but not daily. I’m not going away just yet, but I am going to ease my foot off the throttle a wee bit. The government stopped doing Downing Street Press Briefings awhile back on the weekends, and I am going to follow suit as I end my weekend writing. Monday through Friday I’ll continue my daily musings, but from next weekend, my weekends will be family centred. Nice! We must be getting somewhere- even if we aren’t there yet.
The next phase of our lives will not be the same as the last and who knows what tomorrow will feel like and be like? Stay tuned for the weekday thoughts from this corner of the world.
It was the most unusual Sunday, yet one we won’t soon forget. It felt wonderful being together yet strange that we still had to remain apart. As life continues to change, we hope that there are systems put in place that work to keep everyone safe as they move further into the world once more.
We hope that over the coming weeks and months the kids can get back to University and resume their lives, the little ones can get back to school, those needing jobs can find them and one day soon we can have those all important hugs.
Until then, it’s time to get back to our routine, alter it slightly as the world we find ourselves in alters, and carry on.
We are not over this thing yet. Not by a long chalk.
Kisses, hugs and tremendous amounts of love. And to all you Fathers out there, feeding your babies is a great thing to do! Happy (belated) Fathers Day. Enjoy!
Do take care, we are.
With love
Kathy x