Covid-19 – Page 2 – Middle Age Fanclub

How to survive the pandemic – 5 Top Tips that might not be all that serious!

It’s fairly safe to say and certainly not anything new to learn, but it’s been one hell of a year or so. Since news of Covid-19 broke in early January of last year, things have gathered momentum somewhat. As the virus crossed continents our moods changed and then as the world was locked down things plummeted to new lows. And since then, it’s been a rollercoaster ride of decidedly average highs and Mariana trench sized lows.

Here in the UK, we’ve been hit hard and people have been forced to battle to survive not just the virus and it’s various strains, but the boredom and isolation of successive lockdowns as well as the idiotic behaviour of their fellow Brits. As I write news broke just a few hours ago of a school hall in London being hired out and unbeknownst to the school itself, playing host to a wedding where 400 people attended. Thousands have died, but it pales into insignificance at the thought of not having your 3rd cousin’s neighbours and their postman at your wedding, right?

Aside from problems like this, something that has most likely affected a large percentage of people is the sheer boredom of it all. Within weeks I’d painted every fence panel we have as well as our sheds. I’d trimmed shrubs and trees, cut lawns regularly enough that they could have hosted Wimbledon, walked every available route around our town, read book after book, watched television until my eyes hurt, skillfully sidestepped the sensation that became Zoom quizzes and exhausted myself exhausting every possible Joe Wicks video on YouTube. I daresay many of you were exactly the same. Although, perhaps it was just me that approached Zoom quizzes with such grumpiness and cynicism.

As we come up to almost a year of living in a pandemic, it seems boredom is at its absolute zenith. We can’t exercise as much – well not in the northern hemisphere anyway; it’s bloody freezing. And just when you think you’ve pretty much learnt to live with every Covid related u-turn that life throws at you, something else comes along and smacks you right in the chops, sending you back to square one once more. So, I had a little think and I hope that I’ve come up with some top tips that you can try out to make living through the pandemic that little bit more interesting. As usual with me and lists, they’re in no particular order.

Top Tip 1

**Simon was determined to have a risk free walk…even if it meant taking the long way round again.** Photo by Jenny Uhling on Pexels.com

Perfect your ‘anti-people skills’. Avoidance tactics are never more important than in a pandemic, so these skills include: never venturing near anyone at all, including your own family, walking in zig-zags in order to avoid fellow government sanctioned fitness freaks and fresh air junkies (you may want to never get used to walking on the same side of the road for any more than a few hundred yards), squeezing onto kerbs like a tightrope walker if you can’t get across a road to avoid oncoming humans and holding your breath like a free diver whose life depends on it. Because your life might depend on it.

Top Tip 2

**Spotting that a Maths teacher had committed an apostrophe crime, Yvonne stifled a sob and prepared a suitably caustic, mocking email to her colleagues.** Photo by Burst on Pexels.com

Alleviate the at work boredom by writing sarcastic emails. This is also a lifestyle choice for me personally and there was no need for a pandemic to invoke this as a rule. However, in times of pandemic and as a teacher working alone, isolated all day in a classroom full of desks, chairs but no other humans, a slice of sarcasm often comes in handy. And while not revealing actual subject matter of work based sarcastic emails, I can reveal that the IT department remains, as always, a wonderful target. Always was and always will be. Furthermore, the silly ‘If you had to…’ style email is always a favourite.

Top Tip 3

**Shit just got real in Sandra’s house. Someone was knocking at the back gate.** Photo by Kony Xyzx on Pexels.com

Alleviate lockdown boredom by turning knocks at the door or tradesmen’s visits into a new and exciting game. We’ve done this for years in our house, as we much prefer not to answer the door to people until we’ve actually sussed out who they are. If you’re a relative you’re probably getting in…depends on the relative. So, in Covid times, imagine there’s a knock at the door or even a visit from the window cleaner. Now role play! Make sure you hide and shush as much as is possible. Shuffle on your front like an expert sniper and try seeing how close you can get to the window without its cleaner detecting your presence. I find chairs and sofas are perfect allies for this game. Try it. Next time there’s a knock at the door or you hear the rattle of a ladder, enter stealth mode and act like there’s a zombie apocalypse. Those confined to barracks hours will simply fly by!

Top Tip 4

**These days, Emma found that calling lemons ‘Shit limes’ was her only source of fun.** Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

See just how much you can get away with while wearing a mask. Local ruffians breaking lockdown rules and ‘hanging’ outside a closed off license as you walk by on a Boris appointed walk? Don your mask and stick your tongue out at them. Those cheeky scamps deserve your derision. Has a dog jumped up at you while tied up outside your local supermarket? Remember, you’re wearing a mask – it’s mandatory – so you’re free to call said dog a ‘massive arsehole’ or any other insult that you deem necessary. No one can see you doing it, no one could prove a thing. And surely no one’s going to ask if you just called that terrier an arsehole, are they? This game can also be played inside said supermarkets where volume control is your own issue, but the mask will cover your mouth so no one can prove a thing. So if you fancy making snide remarks at those supermarket dawdlers, now’s your time to shine.

Top Tip 5

**“Good evening Wembley” cried Ian before pointing and winking at the fridge. “My name is Ian and I’m on a mission to rock!”** Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

The pandemic, coupled with several lockdown situations, have robbed people of a sense of normal life. We are missing out on many aspects of our social lives and this in turn has had an effect on the mental health of millions of people. Sport continues via almost endless TV coverage but one place that remains largely uncatered for is music. Yes, various bands and solo artists have put on Zoom gigs, but it’s not the same as the excitement of attending the real thing. So I have a solution. Kitchen gigging. Put simply, ask Alexa to play songs by your chosen artist and then sing along. Are you in the band or the audience? The choice is yours, my friend. Me? Usually the singer, as you ask, but I play a mean bass guitar too. You may want to factor in other additions to add realism here, otherwise or you’re literally just singing along to songs next to a sink. My sources tell me that footstools make great front of stage monitors, brooms or mops are ideal microphone stands, while a pile of distant balloons and a squint can give the illusion of a passable audience. They tell me that the key here is to have a large enough space to dance or throw other wild shapes, a vivid imagination, no shame or dignity and to remember that the words aren’t important; this is a live gig so you’re free to go ‘off piste’ as it were with the lyrics. You can even pause said device for a bit of pre-song banter with your ‘crowd’ for added fun. My sources also tell me that this is a whole host of fun, it’s extremely cool and that even in middle age, you can play the pretend rock god. Obviously, I have to take their word for it…

So there you have it. Just when you thought you might allow the share size crisps and 12 packs of lager to seduce you into extraordinary levels of lockdown weight gain, I give you five tips to help you get through our current crisis!

I’d love hear what people thought, so feel free to let me know in the comments. Similarly, if you have a go at window cleaner zombie role play or insult the odd dog, let me know how it went. And if you have any tips of your own, I’m a very keen listener! I hoped you enjoyed the blog!

Live Lessons – My Top Ten Most Uttered Phrases.

Since we were struck by the pandemic early last year, everyone and everything has found itself having to adapt. We’ve adapted from the way we do our shopping or go for a walk all the way through to the way that we do our job.

In teaching – my field of work – we’ve had to make huge changes. Different schools have made different changes, but in the school that I work at we have the pupils in bubbles and we go to them to teach, we are obviously socially distant, we have had to change our marking policy, everyone wears masks on corridors and we have a one way system. And they are only a small fraction of the changes that have been made.

We been using Microsoft Teams for remote learning all year. At first it wasn’t used that often; certainly not for live lessons. We’d put assignments in there daily, in case students were missing and then, when bubbles collapsed and we had greater numbers of students away, we’d use it for the odd live lesson and some blended learning, where some people were isolating and on the live lesson while the rest of us were in the room. But for a while, the majority of lessons remained the same – classroom based, whiteboards, exercise books and all that jazz.

With the school closures of 2021, we’re now exclusively doing live lessons and remote learning is in full flow. I wrote about the differences in a previous blog Lockdown 3 – Some thoughts on my first week at work. but after a couple of weeks of working this way, although I’m quite enjoying parts of it, something struck me; the amount of times I utter the same phrases to a class on Teams is really quite something. Big up to my friends (in no particular order) Emma, Chloe, Laura, Gemma, Megan, Ellie, Charlotte, Bryonny, Lindsey, Em, Louise and Saba, who over the course of the last few months of doing live lessons, have provided much material and inspiration for this particular blog – oh the tales we could tell! So here, in no particular order is my Top Ten of most used live lesson phrases.

“Can you mute your mic please?” As a rule, I have my students muted. In class during regular lessons. Just kidding. But on Teams, while I don’t actually mute them, let’s just say I encourage them not to unmute and talk to me. Hey, this is my show, after all! To be fair though, the reason that I have to say this phrase is the things that you get to hear. In various classes, a kid has unmuted and the whole lesson can hear their television as someone’s sat there (please let it not be my pupil) watching loud daytime TV. In other cases we’ve been met by a positively imperfect symphony of screeching relatives. I can mute them pretty quickly, but what I hear leaves me massively worried about the environment that they’re working in. And I guess that’s part of the problem. How can some of these kids get anywhere near the same quality of education at the moment? At other times, some students just seem to want to quickly unmute and make a silly noise and others do the same in order to just say ‘Hi’ and despite repeated warnings, it’s surprising how often it still occurs. So because my pupils seem unable to click a button that has a picture of a microphone on it, that phrase is definitely one of my most used.
“Just bear with me a second…” There always seems to be something that crops up that I have to deal with. There’s always a snag, a technical hitch or just yet another of my own deficiencies. One such hitch is when my movement sensitive lights go off on one side of the room. Now initially this might not seem like a problem that needs me to have a class “bear with me”, but let me tell you why they need to wait. I always have my camera on – I think being able to see their teacher might add some much needed normality to proceedings for my students and of course, I have a friendly face *coughs* – and so when the light goes off, it leaves one side of my face in shadow. As an English teacher I imagine it makes me look like Mr. Hyde, the monstrous side to Dr. Jekyll and that is not a good look or a friendly face for my students! So, just bear with me…
“We’re just waiting for a few people to join…” We’re not, we’re waiting for half the class! They all knew when the lesson started but they just couldn’t make it on time. I’m going to have to call them aren’t I? I’m hopefully sounding cool, calm, friendly, but I’m not. I’m quite irked, to be fair. The lesson times don’t change. It should be easier just to roll out of bed and pop a computer on than the usual whole ‘getting to school on time’ routine, but it would seem not.
“Can we pop an answer in the comments? This is me saying, ‘I DON’T WANT YOU TO SPEAK!’ It’s also me saying ‘IS ANYONE STILL THERE?’ Live lessons rob us of the face to face interactions that we usually have and so asking kids to put answers in the comments is the next best thing as well as being that thing that comforts you when you’re just imagining your entire class has logged on then left the room to watch telly or play X-Box. And before you even think the thought, no, I’m not opening up everyone’s mic so that they can all call out the same right/wrong answers at the same time. So ‘Can you pop an answer in the comments?’ is all I’ve got.
“Can you let me know if you can hear me?” or “Is this thing working?” There’s always someone who can’t hear you or can’t see the PowerPoint that’s being shared. I have no idea why. It’s there, on screen! And there’s always that bit of self doubt that nags at you as a teacher and whispers ‘You can’t use the technology properly’. Or is that just me? Oh, just me. The good thing – and I don’t mean actual good – is when you ask the first question and only about 8 kids respond in the chat and you’re left assuming they can hear, but that typing the three letters of the word ‘Yes’ is just a bit much to ask.
“Can you just use the chat for questions and not emojis and winding each other up or bickering, please?” Safe to say that some of our younger classes haven’t quite sussed out the chat etiquette yet! Sometimes it feels like they’re not really tuning in for the lesson, just the chat. And then when you’ve stopped the nonsense you’ll inevitably get at least one of them typing, ‘Sir, what we doing?’ in the very same chat. Or failing that just, ‘Eh?’
“Ok, I’ll just give you another 2 minutes on that.” Often, while a class are working I’ll mute my mic and turn off my camera, just to enable me to do something else, like read some emails or a bit of planning. I’m never, ever ready when the timer goes off and we need to move on, so I’m always adding time. Without the students in front of you it’s not only strange and a bit lonely, but also easy to get distracted, and so I’m forever pondering images to put on PowerPoints or thinking I can fit in one more email which always, always leads to me pretending to be kind by adding time on!
“Are you still there? Am I talking to myself?” It’s definitely easier for your students to avoid the questions when they’re on the end of an internet connection and that silence can get quite ghostly. It’s lonely and isolated enough staring out into a room full of chairs that are still up on tables, without the kids in the computer ignoring you as well!
“Can you make sure you’ve got the text open please? It’s in the assignments. And I’ve pasted it into the chat. I can post them out ahead of the lesson if you need. Send them on a pigeon?” Ok, so the latter part of that isn’t true but we could easily have just had the comment as “IT’S IN THE ASSIGNMENTS MAN!!” Suffice to say, it can be very, very…very frustrating getting students to open up the texts they’ll need for the lesson. It doesn’t matter that you posted the assignment days earlier with the instruction that they’d need to have the texts open. It doesn’t matter that you’ve sent it to some of them on email. It doesn’t matter that out of the first 5 things you said when welcoming them to the lesson 4 of them were “Can you make sure you’ve got the text open please?” And it doesn’t matter that you reminded them, in the chat, 12 seconds ago what the text was called, where it was and what they should do with it. 30% (at least) of your class won’t have a clue what you’re talking about! But it’s Ok. You’re the consumate professional who can stay calm and remind them AGAIN, YES A-BLOODY-GAIN in your best Disney teacher voice, what it is they need to do. But thank the lord there’s a mute button! Which brings me on to…
“I’m just going to put myself on mute/turn my camera off/both” The ultimate censor, enabling you to karate kick every chair off every desk, walk outside and scream at the sky, open the window and throw marker pens at passing seagulls (they deserve it…the nearest sea is miles away), curl up into a ball, flick ‘V’ signs at the screen, shout things like ‘Which poem are we going to annotate? Which f*****g poem? The one we did last week! Definitely, definitely, not the one we’ve been doing for the last hour!” or volley the same kids’ books around the room. I just tell them it’s in case a colleague walks in and I have to have a chat when in fact it’s because I’m having the kind of spectacular meltdown that you thought only hungry toddlers were capable of.

It’s been a tough old academic year so far! If you’re a teacher, I’m sure you’ll have uttered all of these phrases and experienced all of these scenarios many, many times since September. If you have any I’ve missed out, then please let me know in the comments – I’d genuinely love to read them!

Regardless of what you do for a living or how you’re getting through these ridiculous times, keep on keeping on. I’m so full of admiration for so many people and their stories since March or so last year. Stay safe everybody – I hope you enjoyed the blog and that it managed to put a smile on some faces.

Lockdown 3 – Some thoughts on my first week at work.

Here in the U.K., on the evening of Monday 4th January, it was announced that we would be entering lockdown once more, this time for a period of around six weeks.

As some of you will know, I’m a teacher and lockdown has meant that schools have closed again. Last time this happened, because I’m classed as being vulnerable to the virus (bit of a heart problem and asthmatic) I wasn’t allowed to come into work to help out with vulnerable students. So the first lockdown, despite various work-related IT problems and the paranoia that surrounded the whole virus thing, wasn’t that much of an unpleasant experience. In fact, faced with days of great weather and lots of time to go out for a run, work in the garden, or just do some actual school-related work with no pressure at all, it was downright pleasant at times.

Things have certainly changed this time around. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not unpleasant, but there’s a definite change. Schools have once again been closed, but this time around, armed with greater technology and greater know how, students are generally being educated remotely online, via live lessons.

At my school I’ve been given the option of actually coming into school to teach my lessons remotely and so far I’ve done just that. I’m mulling over what to do for the rest of lockdown and will probably work from home occasionally, but for now, I’m in school. So I thought I’d get my first week and the experiences of it down in a blog.

On Monday night, when another period of lockdown and school closures was announced, I felt a little bit of panic. It wasn’t about the virus or anything particularly; I’d left my laptop at school, meaning that working from home – with two children doing the same – was going to be ridiculous. Luckily, I was brought gently back down to Earth a short while later when our Head Teacher floated the idea that we could actually come into school to work. Given that the technology is here, as well as things like registers and student details, it made perfect sense. I had a short discussion with my wife, who was going to be working from home, but now with the added responsibility of two children, and we agreed that it made a lot more sense for me to actually go into work. So, on Tuesday morning, that’s just what I did!

The Prime Minister also announced that there would be no exams for Years 11 and 13, meaning that for the second academic year running young people would be faced with teacher assessments based on a shorter time of working at their subjects, to grade them. This might seem like great news. Being 16 or 18 and not having to sit vital exams, avoiding all of the stress etc. But it isn’t really. Our students will be geared up for the exams. Some may feel that they need more time to get to the level that they want to be at or have been told they need to be at. Now, they don’t get the opportunity to show exactly what they can do and for a lot of them, that’s devastating. So a lot of the next 6 weeks will be about supporting our older students and reassuring them that actually, things will work out for them. And in order to do that, I would be better placed in school.

School without pupils – and indeed a lot of the staff – is a strange place. It’s calm and really quite pleasant, but there’s a certain eerieness that I’m not that keen on. It feels a little bit dangerous being in the building during a lockdown. But then again, it’s a lot more of a danger to my health when everybody’s here!

It’s noticeable on the first morning that the traffic is a bit lighter. And unlike the previous two-week lockdown that we had earlier in the year, there are a lot fewer people on the streets. Driving through town back then I’d see gangs of men heading to an industrial estate for work and wonder how this was possible, given the nature of lockdown. I mean, the clue’s in the name. That and the fact that it was made clear that only essential businesses should remain open. Now, I struggle to see anyone walking through town and it’s a lot more reminiscent of our first period of lockdown.

When I get in, I get the heating on in my classroom and start setting everything up. There are no resources to photocopy or give out, no behavioural issues to give a lot of time to, and of course no students. Everyone – even vulnerable students and those whose parents are key workers and are in school – is being taught remotely. I guess the big question is, how many will show up for their live lessons?

Despite my air conditioning being turned up in order to heat the room, the one thing I cannot escape today is that it’s freezing cold. Everywhere. It’s bitterly cold outside and as a quick email reveals, it’s bitterly cold in everyone else’s room. It seems blankets will be the order of the day with my female colleagues from tomorrow. I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do; a blanket seems a little extreme. I do, however, consider wearing running tights under my suit trousers!

Today, I have two lessons. Since September and with the need for social distancing and all the other precautions around Covid-19, we’ve been doing two lessons of 2 hours and fifty minutes per day. The students stay in one zone and we go to them. So now, I have the advantage of being in one room, but the ‘problem’ of relying on the internet working for almost three hours for everybody in the lesson! Oh, and did I mention that being in my room is a little bit like being in a walk-in freezer?

As it turns out, the lessons go well. My Year 10 group is a dream and take to remote learning really well. They’ve had a little practice when their ‘bubble’ collapsed earlier in the year, but credit to them; today we get through almost every slide of the PowerPoint and lots of them submit their work straight after the lesson. There’s no silliness with people unmuting microphones, no childish comments in the chat; it’s a generally good lesson. There are a few suspicious absences , but the majority of the group are up and ready for 8.40am and plough through almost three hours worth of work on English Language and Fiction Texts. I then have my Year 7s in the afternoon, who although they work well, are a lot more fussy and at times, silly. Some repeatedly leave the call then come back a minute later, blaming technology problems. Others clearly aren’t listening and keep asking what we’re doing using the Chat function. Typical Year 7s then! We get through it though and before I know it, we’re done.

Wednesday brings more freezing cold weather, which I confront head on by wearing a jumper! It helps in keeping my body warm, but by the end of the day, when I still can’t feel anything from my ankles down, it’s clear I’ll have to make an adjustment.

I only have the one lesson today, albeit a three hour one. However, it’s with my Year 10s and again goes smoothly and I make sure to congratulate them on their brilliant attitude and thank them for their hard work when it’s over. I have the rest of the day free, so knuckle down to a bit of planning and working my way through a list of jobs I made at the start of the day. Some of these are computer based, like preparing resources or feeding back to students who’ve submitted work, but others are more mundane, like getting Blu-Tac off the walls after most of my posters fell down over the Christmas break! In the middle of the lesson a couple of colleagues come round to my room. They have a tray of teas and coffees and have obviously been busy calling around everyone in the academy. It’s great to have a nice hot drink, but actually even better to see faces and have a minute or so’s interaction with two other human beings. It’s also nice that kindness seems to be at the forefront of so many minds in our school. It feels good to be being looked after in such troublesome times.

In the afternoon I have a meeting about my risk assessment as a vulnerable member of staff and it’s agreed that it’s fine for me to keep coming in as I’ll be out of the way for all but about 5 minutes every day. My classroom is outside of the buildings in a new unit at the back of school, so I rarely see people anyway, but during lockdown it’s really only going to be me and whoever’s using the room next door.

Two things strike me pretty much immediately at the end of Wednesday. The first is that this is a lonely way of working. It’s just the teacher, that’s all. Even the kids on screen are represented by an icon or their initials. It surprises me how isolated I feel and although I wouldn’t say I feel low or down, I realise quickly that this could cause a bit of strain mentally over the next 6 weeks. The other thing that strikes me is that teaching this way feels a bit dull. I’ve always viewed my job as just being showing off with the pinch of intelligence thrown in every now and again. And now, I have no one to show off to. I’m sat at a desk, I’m not up and wandering round a classroom, interacting with my class. The performance aspect of my job feels like it’s gone. The faces I might pull, the voices I’d put on when reading a text, the (bad dad) jokes I might crack or the gestures and body language that are involved in my job are all gone. I miss that already. It’s going to be a real adjustment to make and another thing that will be tough, mentally, over this half term.

I notice another thing as I walk to the car that afternoon too. This sitting at a desk is no good for my knees or ankles! It seems that everything has seized up and I hobble a little to get to my car! I resolve to take some walks round my room when work is being completed tomorrow. Remote learning’s desk based nature does not suit this old fella!

By Thursday it’s noticeable that quite a lot of staff seem to be teaching from home. It makes work an even lonelier place to be, but I can fully understand why you’d do it. No commute, for starters. But for me, with two high school aged children doing remote lessons and my wife working from home, I think the distractions would prove too much, not to mention the risk that technology might just fail me there too, as it did for almost the whole of the first lockdown.

Looking ahead, Friday will be the day when I’m most likely to work from home. I only have one lesson, meaning I’d be finished by 11.30 and provided I had at least my Monday planned, I could have a free afternoon to maybe sort out a few things around the house or even go for a long run, depending on the weather. Or I might to just take the chance to indulge myself in even more planning or creating resources! Or Netflix. There’s always Netflix!

As for the first Friday of lockdown, it would be hard to describe it as anything short of fun. We have a staff briefing – containing news of I think, the fourth different way of doing a register this week – which brings us up to speed about developments in the way we’re doing things. And that’s something to consider, if you’re unaware of how schools work (and especially if you’re one of those people who seems to have dedicated their life to criticising teachers). Things are changing by the hour in schools and of course with the guidance we receive about teaching in the pandemic.

We have regular briefings, daily bulletins and a raft of emails to get through in order to keep up to speed. With that brings the necessity to change what we’re doing or how we’re doing it on a regular basis. So you might spend hours planning a lesson and then just have to abandon it for something else or find a different way of doing it. The impact on our students can’t be underestimated either. While you might imagine sitting at home listening to your teacher talk you through a lesson would be simple and straightforward, you’d be wrong. Some kids are genuinely struggling with the stress of it all and even logging on to the Teams call leaves them terrified. Some don’t have the technology. For some, their internet connection means they’re regularly crashing out of the lesson and struggling to keep up. As a teacher, it’s my job to just act as if all of this is the most normal thing in the world, stay calm and make learning as interesting, fun and stress free as I can. And already, I can feel it’s taking its toll. By 10am on Friday, part way through a lesson, I’m yawning and rubbing my eyes. I genuinely feel like I could close my eyes and sleep.

However, I’m not looking for sympathy. Being able to teach remotely is still a privilege. I do get some interaction with my students and today’s Year 9 lesson is successful and in all honesty, a bit of a joy really. We get through the work, but we laugh together regularly too and that feels like I’m lightening the load a little for both my students and myself.

After that, I fill my afternoon with various tasks – from tidying up both the room and the storeroom and recycling old worksheets to responding to the work that students have sent in and planning things for next week.

It’s been a frenetic kind of week. Lots of planning, lots of reading various pieces of guidance or information on students, subjects and protocol and a full week of remote lessons. I imagined that lockdown and remote learning, bringing with it the promise of no actual students to deal with, would be easier and quite a relaxing way to spend my working days. It isn’t. It’s stressful and frustrating at times, infuriating at others. But it also has a feelgood factor. The fact that hundreds of students are logging on and listening to our lessons, contributing to online discussion and then sending their work in is a truly wonderful thing.

I end the week very tired. I feel like I’ve learned a lot though and I can definitely say that I’ve enjoyed myself. It’s very strange working on my own for long periods of time in a classroom that would normally have up to 30 students plus support assistants in for a lesson. There’s barely a noise now. I’ve seen my friends even less than usual and been left a bit forlorn when they’ve been working at home. And did I mention that it’s freezing cold, like working in a walk-in freezer? Here’s to 5 more weeks, at least!

Stay safe everyone!

Poetry Blog – ‘Unused in Pandemic.’

2020 has been one hell of a year. Of course, we can put that down to just the one thing; coronavirus. Like something out of an unbelievable Hollywood blockbuster, a pandemic struck killing well over a million people worldwide. With it, our lives and lifestyles changed almost beyond recognition.

Confined to the house for a lot of the time, I did a lot of writing. The blog posts increased, but I also found myself experimenting with writing poetry. While the subject matter of the poems was often wide and varied I couldn’t help but keep coming back to lockdown and coronavirus.

It occurred to me that there a lot of things that I could no longer do. Simple things like work, see friends and family and attempt to have some kind of interests in life. But it also occurred to me that there a lot of everyday things that were simply off limits during the pandemic. Cash, for instance. Even my window cleaner had us paying by internet banking. I worried that I wouldn’t remember how to fill up the car when the time came for me to do it again and it even concerned me that simple things like shopping in the supermarket would be almost unrecognisable once they went back to normal. Out of all this came a poem about the some of the redundant objects that were now in my life.

Unused in Pandemic

Pandemic itself was a word rarely used round these parts. But to paraphrase a great man, these parts they are a-changin’. These days, as well as bringing death, fear, paranoia and the strange bumping of forearms by way of saying a more hygienic hello, it leaves in its wake a number of redundancies.

I’ve learned to live, for the most part, without a car. In turn, I have rediscovered my feet. I have left lonely shirts hung up, ironed or bundled on a shelf, crumpled and lifeless. Ditto suits and ties. However, in a U turn that any politician would be proud of I have begun to adorn my middle aged frame in undignified, clingy and regularly mismatched leisurewear.

A similar thing has happened in the shoe department where brogue is now rogue, usurped by a much plainer choice of trainer. Eschewing technology for horticulture I have ditched the fucking infuriating laptop and transformed, all too early sadly, into my father via spade, weeding implements, lawn mower and trowel. The planner is no more, replaced by an endless stream of envelope mounted bullet point lists. A laissez faire version of keeping organised and meeting targets.

Some days I don’t even wear socks, just pad around our pad barefoot, like some kind of castaway from society on an unchained island, occasionally seeing a speck on the horizon and imagining it’s my ticket back to normality. But it’s usually just a pebble, dragged in on a trainered foot. How long before I forego clothes altogether and embrace wandering round in the altogether during daylight hours. A second wave? A third?

For now I will continue to gaze in the direction of my passport and hope that should naked days come, I’ll have used it to head for warmer climes and a more continental acceptance of an out of shape, hairy white body.

I hadn’t looked at this poem in a good few months and it turned out to be a little less polished than I’d have liked. Not quite unfinished, but definitely in need of attention. In fact, at the side of the page there was a long note scribbled about my Nectar card, which was itself massively unused in the pandemic. I liked what I’d written but it didn’t fit in the poem when I’ve looked again and so I’m going to sit down with those notes and write another poem…about my Nectar card. Tragic really.

Anyway, the whole poem reminded me of how carefree things were when we were locked down. There was definitely something altogether healing about the whole process despite all of the negatives. I hope this tone came out with the clothing section. It was actually strangely liberating not to have to be ironing work shirts or wearing a suit and tie every day, even though it’s actually something I like being able to do.

For anyone who knows me and is actually feeling a little concerned, don’t worry; I’m fairly certain I’m not going to resort to naturism any time soon. I’m certainly not shy in terms of the human body, but I’m kind enough to realise that it’s not the time to inflict mine on the world! Had lockdown gone on another six months though, well who knows…

As ever, I hope you liked the poem and I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts, so feel free to leave a comment.

Poetry Blog: ‘English in the Tech room’.

Some of you will already know that, when I’m not writing the type of nonsense that regularly populates these pages, I’m a teacher. I teach English in a high school. So far, so straightforward, right? Well, no. This is the bit where things get a little complicated.

Unless you’ve been time travelling or hiding in a cave for the last year or so, you’ll be aware of Coronavirus or COVID-19. You’ll also be aware that it’s caused quite a lot of disruption to our everyday lives. (Someone get the Understatement of The Year klaxon, quick!). So it’ll come as no surprise to non-teaching readers to learn that life in schools has changed massively.

I wrote about some of the changes in my previous blog about our second lockdown so I won’t bore you with it here and now. However, one thing I didn’t mention is that because of the introduction of Covid-safe year group bubbles in school, our kids stay in the same area for each day and us teachers have to go to them. Oh, the joy of not having a classroom of my own again! Lugging everything you need for a whole day to the other side of school – one of the rooms I have to move to is literally as far away as I could go while still in a school building – and then invariably realising you’ve forgotten something 5 minutes into a lesson, dropping books along the way, forgetting to go via the one way system and finding that nothing IT-wise works when you get there. Yep, it’s been a tonne of fun!

Anyway, two of my lessons are now in Science labs, while another is in a Tech room, as in the kind of room where people make stuff out of wood, metal or plastic using dangerous tools and great big machines. It was here I got the idea for a poem. I mean, this wasn’t really the ideal place to be teaching Priestley or Dickens! Then again, I do love a challenge!

‘English in the Tech Room’

Beneath the desk I’m immediately struck by the presence of a pair of rig boots, loitering. Handy, I think, if I’m carrying the complete works of Shakespeare; such a weighty tome could break these toes currently entombed in just a pair of brogues. Handy too if this pandemic takes a bizarre twist and we move to zero gravity.

My students are perched uncomfortably on stools surrounding wooden work benches adorned by vices, And thus, the reading of any text, from Dickens through Owen to Heaney will inevitably be accompanied by an incongruous metallic jangle as child spins handle, or whatever they call that bit.

Further distraction will come in the form of various examples of heavy machinery. A lathe, several nasty looking drills, an enormous cutting tool… Dickens would spin in his grave as we learn of Scrooge’s redemption surrounded by the collected works of Black and Decker and every kind of saw that man could care to mention.

Warning signs will catch the eye, while shavings of wood and a range of glue assault our nostrils, making concentration a bit of an afterthought. But then a friendly baked rock cake, delivered on a tray from the adjacent cookery room serves to change the teacher’s tune and lighten up this lesson’s mood.

When all said and done, these alien surroundings may not actually matter if we just allow the words to do their work. These benches are our stalls when sharply written literature calls and in these extraordinary times this slight adjustment we must make shouldn’t be a bind. As every English teacher keeps in mind, the words win every time.

So there we are. A poem about sacrifice or just a poem borne out of an old bloke having a bit of a whinge because he’s been told to move from his precious classroom? I’ll leave you to come up with an answer. And whatever the answer might be, I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I’ve enjoyed putting myself to the test against whatever the virus throws at me, workwise. Feel free to leave a comment and if you liked it a lot, having a little click at some of the posts below!

Lockdown 2 – the sequel no one wanted!

As the UK enters its second period of lockdown due to a disturbing rise in numbers of cases of Covid-19, I’ve found that there’s a hell of a lot to think about. And rather than throw myself into a world of sleepless nights, I thought I’d write about the current situation.

I spent the first lockdown isolating because of a couple of underlying health conditions which marked me out as vulnerable. This wasn’t something I was particularly comfortable with, but I had to swallow my pride and live with it. I’ve always thought of myself as fit, healthy and strong so the label ‘vulnerable’ doesn’t sit well with me. They’ll be labelling me as ‘not altogether that butch after all’ next! Anyway, in the end I was away from work – as a teacher – for 6 months.

This time around lockdown seems distinctly different and it makes me feel more than a little scared. The one major difference, for me personally, is that I will be spending this period of lockdown at work. This alone is responsible for a great deal of lockdown stress! Schools aren’t closing and whatever our views on that, it makes me anxious about coming in to work, where before Covid I looked forward to almost every day and almost very minute spent in the building.

Since September though, I’ve felt safe and largely looked after at work. My employer – being a school – had done their homework, so to speak. A risk assessment was prepared for myself and any other vulnerable members of staff who would be returning to work, so I was familiar with the way things would be before I had even entered the building. And I’d had a couple of ‘how are you’ type catch up calls and Teams meetings too.

We’re actively guarding against the virus. We wear masks, we wipe surfaces down before and after use, we have hand sanitiser readily available, we are socially distant where possible, we keep the kids in year group bubbles and a common sense approach has been employed across the board. I’ve felt safe. And you’d think that’d be the case across the board with schools, but I’ve heard tales of places where such protocols are simply not followed.

Things are different now though. It feels far more like the situation we encountered in March with rising positive cases, rising death rates and a general sense of confusion that is frankly quite frightening once again. And let’s face it, we shouldn’t still be confused about something that’s been around for such a long time. It’s not the fault of my place of work, but now, every day it’s a case of gritting my teeth and getting on with it in the face of quite a bit of trepidation. It’s practically the only place where I mix with people and although in theory we’re safe, it’s beginning to feel like keeping schools open might not be such a great idea.

Away from work though, it feels like a general sense of boredom and, dare I say it, a sense of entitlement is beginning to rule people’s thinking. You could feel it towards the end of the first lockdown. People had had enough of the same four walls and unfortunately it started to manifest itself in a lot of stupid behaviour.

Despite the one way systems in shops, the obvious need to wear a mask and the constant knowledge of what social distancing was, people decided that there was no need for any of it anymore. In the town where we live, as bars began to open again people began to congregate in ridiculous numbers both inside and outside of the premises. The message seemed to be ‘sod the virus, I haven’t been tanked up in a public place in far too long’. And while I’m no prude, it all just seems incredibly selfish. Is an afternoon drinking really worth it? The ignorance of people that can recognise what two metres looks like for only a certain amount of time is quite something. And they’re attitude to the one metre+ rule is just staggering. Rather than stand a decent distance away from someone or maybe just refrain from going out for ten pints, it just seems to have become easier to blame semantics and say that you can’t imagine what one metre+ looks like because it’s not an actual measurement.

As we settle into Lockdown 2 I fear that the attitude will continue. I wonder if people will reject the lockdown for the simple fact that it has an end date. I mean, what’s the point for four weeks, right? If you listen carefully you could probably hear someone saying it right now. I can imagine people doing four weeks very much on their own terms; like only locking down properly until the boredom sets in.

Then there’s the approach of the festive season – which isn’t actually that close at all. I feel certain that there will be a raft of people who decide that their pre-Christmas socialising is far too important to give up, even though we should be out of lockdown in time for it to commence at the right time anyway. Any excuse for a barbecue in the garden with your friends though, especially when your precious human rights have been infringed for so long! And anyway, you’re outside so it’s all OK!

It’s the thinking of simpletons and it worries me that I could be even more vulnerable to the virus because of this type of selfishness.

The second spike of the virus means that things that are dear to us all will continue to be out of reach too. Gigs, football, theatre to name but a few; they’re all out of reach. Then there’s loved ones. I haven’t seen my parents (or my sister for that matter) since December of last year. I don’t feel that I can visit as they’re both extremely vulnerable and with three of us in my immediate family mixing with lots of people in schools every week, going to see them would be utter stupidity. It hurts not seeing them and it hurts them too. But my parents are sensible enough to say that we shouldn’t visit, even just to stand in the garden and I’ll be respecting their wishes. But at the back of my mind, as things continue to get worse, I do genuinely wonder if I’ll ever see them again. They live over 100 miles away, so even going round to stand in the garden is a bit of a trek. It’s a thought too horrible to dwell on, but it’s the kind of thing that makes me even more angry at those who are determined to just carry on as normal and either deny that this thing exists or make excuses about the number of deaths.

Recent reports of a new strain of the virus make things worse and yet there are still people – and there in fairly large numbers – who happily deny its existence. There’s not a lot I can say about that that’s probably not already been said or that would be original, but it’s a frightening thought. During the first lockdown I overheard a conversation between two neighbours in their gardens blaming Bill Gates – apparently as it was his fault he “needed stabbing” – and was just astonished. These people are real! At one point they even blamed Brexit and even though I heard the explanation I couldn’t really work out what they meant. I imagine the idea of a second lockdown is being swiftly rejected by them and in fact a couple of days into it they were in their garden, mixing with another member of the family not in their bubble, letting off fireworks!

The long and short of this story is that Coronavirus isn’t going away. We’re not controlling it, we’re not coping with it and in fact, some people seem to be totally ignoring it. At the start of it all I laughed out loud at people panic buying toilet rolls, before being left without a smile when I was sent home from work as I was too vulnerable to be there and was subsequently away for 6 months. Now, as we get back to lockdown, there’s nothing about this virus that can make me smile.

Poetry Blog – Teams Meeting

This is a new poem about a fairly modern topic – the online meeting. Now, I understand that they’ve been around for a while, but my point is more that they’ve never before been so widely used. As Coronavirus struck and lockdown ensued across the globe, businesses and other organisations were forced to find new ways of keeping in touch with employees and clients who were now being forced to work from home. And thus, words like Teams, Zoom and House Party, among others, all took on a new meaning.

I’m generally left deflated by even the mere mention of a meeting and, probably as a result, I’m inclined to simply drift off. I’ve fallen asleep in more than one. But if people insist in reading entire PowerPoint presentations back to me, word for word, then I reserve the right to get bored.

Lockdown and working from home felt, as much as anything else, like time off from meetings for me. And then someone mentioned Teams and Zoom. And so, as I sat in my first ever Teams meeting I made sure that I was paying attention – they could all see me, after all, but kept a notebook out of site after realising that there could be a poem in this! So here you go – the secondary result of my first couple of Teams meetings.

Teams Meeting

A little blue circle floats and spins, taunting me with my lateness. Usually, said circle is laughed off, commented on with a half-baked witticism, something like, ‘It’s thinking about it’ accompanied by a knowing smile, a raised eyebrow. But not today. Today’s blue circle is a slow death, evoking only many muttered expletives.

After what feels like hours, but is probably only minutes faces emerge, framed in their own rectangle and assembled in front of you like a gameshow panel in a strangely decorated studio. There are welcoming smiles and the possibility of others yet. Who knows amongst an array of webcam settings? A nose here, a chin there, the very top of someone’s head. Who knew that a chair could be sat on in so many ways?

It’s orderly at first. One voice with instructions, an agenda and, worst of all, jobs to delegate. Maybe that explains the top of someone’s head? A cunning attempt at work avoidance that clearly I should have thought of first. I consider sliding down into my chair until I’m sat beneath my table.

Virtual hands are pointed out, to wave at the thought of a question. Mine will therefore be very much more virtual than others. Some things never change. Despite virtual hands, still a tangle of voices ensues as we relax into the familiarity of it all; the agenda temporarily capsizing in these rapids while the meeting floats aimlessly downstream. Familiar voices bring warmth, a smile and I consider something juvenile to get noticed, extend the laughter and take the meeting out of reach and off towards the sea. But order resumes, our professional heads fixed firmly in place as the bullet points are ticked off and a department is run at a distance safe enough for all. Strategies discussed, ideas shared, virtual hands waved and questions asked. After such a long time, even meetings can be enjoyable.

But all too soon it’s over and we settle back in our home ports, perhaps, like me, wondering what the next weeks and months hold and longing, ever so slightly, for just a few moments more.

I thought I’d conquered Teams after dipping my toe – my real one, not virtual – for the first time and being able to use it with ease. The first stanza tells you that I was wrong. Teams took forever to connect for my second meeting and I actually ‘arrived’ late, which in truth is much more like the real me anyway. In this instance though, it was nothing short of torture.

Once I was in attendance I took a look at my colleagues – the ladies I refer to as my big sisters – who I hadn’t seen in months. And while it was great to see faces, it was a veritable puzzle working out why they couldn’t use a webcam! It meant that for a good portion of the meeting I was just puzzled and distracted by the fact that someone was sat with just the top of their head in view, while others were so close to their webcam that I could just see a nose or an eye!

Despite the presence of virtual hands for people to raise when they had a question, our meetings would start in an orderly fashion, before descending ever so slightly into a gaggle of voices talking over each other. As usual in meetings, I kept quiet and observed from the safest distance I’ve ever managed in a meeting. But I realised, after a short while, that just being in the meeting was lovely. These were not just colleagues, but friends with familiar faces and voices that just relaxed me and made me feel quite normal for the first time in the months of lockdown. Even when we got back to the agenda I was enjoying the meeting.

In fact, I’d enjoyed it so much that when it ended and faces began to disappear from the screen, I felt more than a little bit low. And then it was back to isolating and trying to find enough things to do in order to keep myself from going mad.

Feel free to leave a comment about the poem and if you really enjoyed it you might like to click on the links below to have a look at some of my other stuff.

Back to School again…

This time last year I wrote an article about how it might feel for teachers returning to work after their annual – and much begrudged by anyone else in any profession, ever – 6 weeks summer holidays. Despite the holiday, I felt stressed about the prospect of returning to work and having worked in the industry for so long, I know that lots of us feel the same way. I looked at things like the anxiety dreams that we would be no doubt suffering from, the clothing I’d have to wear and even getting overwhelmed by stationary. It’s on the link below if you fancy a read, but you know, one at a time!

https://middleagefanclub.wordpress.com/2019/09/01/its-time-for-a-new-teaching-year-and-im-stressed-out-already/

This year, the return to the classroom is days away and I’m more than a little anxious about my return. However, with all that’s happened over the last year, I’m anxious in a whole new way than ever before!

Wednesday March 17th 2019 is a date that will stay with me until I decide it’s time to stop the world and get off. Or someone/something decides for me. This was the date that I spent my last day in school for the 2019-2020 academic year. I haven’t been back since.

As we got into March of this year, Covid-19 was beginning to make a name for itself (actually I imagine scientists made the name, but you get the picture). Around school, pupils were starting to ask about closures and fellow staff were, in truth, a little giddy about getting a couple of weeks off work. I mean, we hadn’t even had a snow day, so a little bit of time off would make anybody giddy, surely. Because that’s what we imagined it would be. This was a bad case of the flu; it would pass. and before we knew it, we’d be back in work.

However, as the month wore on, the changes were glaringly obvious. People were preparing themselves for the worst by buying entire supermarkets worth of paracetamol, cold and flu drinks, dried pasta and anything that they could lay their hands on to then put on said hands and clean them. Oh, and some folk were clearly imagining that their houses were going to fall down and that they would recover from this particular blow by building igloos out of toilet roll. At least that’s what I think was happening.

In amongst all this madness, I was starting to worry. A little, tiny bit. As much as I ever do about anything, apart from my wife discovering the true size and cost of my box(es) of ‘To Read’ books. (If you’re reading this my love, my life, that’s just a little joke for all of the other readers – just never go into the loft.)

I have a couple of health issues that seemed to make me a little vulnerable to the virus that I was reading about. Firstly, I’m asthmatic and much to my embarrassment have been on the ‘At risk’ list at our doctors’ surgery for years. To add to this though, a couple of years ago I was admitted to hospital with a heart complaint and ended up having surgery to correct a couple of things a month later. I was born with heart problems too, so as much as I don’t like it, the fact is I have history with a bit of a major health issue. Bang goes my plan to live forever.

And so, after discussing the problem with my wife, I went into work on March 17th promising that I’d speak with our HR department. The first colleague I met as I went into the building that day almost shouted at me – ‘You shouldn’t be here!’ – which in truth is not that unusual, but as I was on my way to speak to HR, I didn’t feel too hurt.

I remember my exact words when I got there – “Julia, I’m not sure I should be here.” Yep, dynamic as always! However, I was ushered into an office, told Julia my concerns and asked to go and teach until she’d got back to me. A couple of hours later I was back in the office being told that today would be my last day. The situation would be re-assessed after the Easter holidays, giving me four weeks off. I won’t lie, I was as delighted as I was relieved. Not only could I stay safe, but imagine the amount of episodes of Homes Under The Hammer, Bargain Hunt and American Pickers I could watch!

Anyway, four weeks came and went and I was told to stay away from work. For my own good, not because no one likes me. Because people like me – I’d use up almost all of the fingers of one hand if I had to count them.

Weeks later, I was informed that, in all likelihood that was me done for the academic year. Schools were closed and any re-opening wouldn’t need to involve me. Because no one likes me. Not really; it was because I’m such a sickly weakling. Clearly, if someone were to sneeze in the same room as me it could be fatal.

I return to work in less than a week. When I do it will have been 174 days spent at home. That’s 4176 hours or 250,560 minutes, if you prefer. Or if you like, it’s almost as long as the gestation period of a baboon, but only around half of what it takes to make a baby sealion, llama or alpaca. Whatever way you look at it, it’s a long time away from the classroom and a long time in mummy’s tummy.

As my return approaches I have very much mixed emotions. I swerve wildly between feeling really excited and an extreme sense of dread about the whole thing. During lockdown it felt like I’d never have to go back to any kind of normality and so such a drastic change is going to take quite a bit of getting used to, I suppose. It’ll be brilliant to see people – pupils and colleagues – again, but then again I’m really not used to seeing people. So I suppose mixed emotions are to be expected.

Ironically, the lockdown life should have been the life I dreamed of. The solitude, the days stretching out ahead of me with little in the way of plans, the lack of pressure for any kind of face to face interaction. Not having to work for a living was something I’d long ago fathomed out was perfect for me. I’ve often thought that I might well have been swapped at birth and that my rightful family – noble of lineage, rich, idle, better than you and knew it – didn’t want the poorly specimen they were presented with (that’s me) and instead helped themselves to the athletic baby in the next cot. I could never shake the feeling that working just wasn’t for me. Harry and Margaret weren’t my actual mam and dad. The life on the Tyneside estate wasn’t what I’d really been destined for. So being able to do what I want, when I wanted through lockdown should have been perfect, or at least a bit more to my liking.

To an extent, that’s exactly what it was. But the name tells its own story and lockdown meant no travel and not a whole lot of freedom. Within a couple of weeks I’d painted all of our fences and both sheds. The gardens were looking good, I was reading and writing more and discovering Netflix. Our house was even beginning to resemble the type of place that people would want to live and not just the kind of place that was being photographed by the police having been freshly ransacked by burglars…and bears. But I missed going into work. I missed my team, my friends. I missed the kids, the random things that they’d say and the bizarre situations that you’d inevitably find yourself in.

So now, at the time of writing, I’m days away from heading back to work. And although some things will be familiar, the structure of lessons and the day has altered due to COVID and I don’t even know if I’m allowed in my own classroom yet. I’m excited about going back. As I’ve already stated, I’m honest enough to say I’ve enjoyed having time away from work. However, the bit of me that likes feeling like I’m making a difference to people can’t wait to get back in. I think it’ll be good for my own self-worth too. It’s nice to feel like you’ve got a purpose and for 6 months my purpose seems to have revolved around things like being Joe Wicks’s imaginary best friend and being able to make nice sandwiches for my kids. Try as I might I can’t really say there’s a future in either of those things (although I reckon Joe Wicks would be really impressed with my efforts, if not my hair.)

I’m excited about standing in front of my Year 11s again. I’m excited about coming up with new ideas to help my department out. I’m excited about speaking to a class, explaining things and watching the penny drop with kids who were adamant that they didn’t understand (it happens, on average about three times a year). I’m excited about sending sarcastic emails to our department. I’m excited about sending stupid emails about the ideas that swim around my head all day to our department too. I’m excited about meeting deadlines for projects I’ve been working on for months. I’m excited about taking staff briefings and slipping in silly jokes or daft pictures to a PowerPoint. I’m excited about attending meetings…alright, I’m not excited about that; I’m not some kind of pervert.

On the other hand, I’m terrified. I’m terrified of the risk to my health. I’m terrified of hearing the news that someone has tested positive. I’m terrified of the amount of people. I’m terrified that after all this time, I simply won’t be able to do the job. I’m terrified of the exhaustion that I reckon I’ll be feeling in about three weeks from now. I’m terrified of the new routine. I’m terrified of messing up with COVID procedures. I’m terrified of the new routine, the longer lessons, the pressure on Year 11. I’m even terrified that I might get part way through the new term and find that I’m just not enjoying what I do anymore. I might want to return to my royal duties instead! I’m terrified that a department and a school that has done without me for so long might simply not need me.

In short, my head is swimming with it all. From genuine concerns and excitement like those above to silly things like the fact that I haven’t worn a suit, shirt and tie for so long that it’ll just be strange. I also haven’t worn proper shoes for six months. I’ve spent most of it in shorts and trainers (and a t-shirt just in case anyone who knows me finds their eyes are burning at the image that their mind just conjured up).

I’m fully aware that lots of people have worked all the way through lockdown and the trauma of COVID-19. I know some of them and have heard of the strain that this past 6 months has put on them. So I’m not asking for sympathy. But on Monday, as I find myself in a school again and on Tuesday, as I stand in front of a class for the first time in half a year, I will feel physically sick. I’ll wonder what I’m doing, if I’m doing the right thing, if I’m safe.

After over twenty years as a teacher, next week I will enter a classroom both more experienced and more uncertain than I’ve even been. And that is as exciting as it is terrifying. No doubt next week I can tell you all about it. Until then, wish me luck!

Lockdown Holiday!

When lockdown first took hold of our lives and the government applied stringent rules to anyone who wasn’t Dominic Cummings or at least working closely with him, we decided against booking our usual Easter break. It seemed sensible and we felt it would be a small compromise and that we’d soon be able to travel again. Well, we all know how that turned out. Later, our summer holiday was cancelled too.

Each year we head to North Wales and the Llyn Peninsula for a week long break at the start of the school holidays. Now, we were being told that the infrastructure wouldn’t be able to cope with tourists and that essentially, North Wales was being closed to visitors. It was understandable, given what we were experiencing at home in a much more built up region where the facilities and infrastructure were set up to cope with a much greater number of people. The longer that lockdown went on and the longer that we worked from home, the more we just accepted our fate. There would be no holiday this year.

And then, out of nowhere, at the start of July we received an email from the owners of the cottage that we usually stay in. Wales was opening up to tourists again and, if we still wanted it, our holiday was on. After a lot less thought than I imagined we’d have, we emailed to confirm – we were off on holiday! We decided that our mantra would be ‘four different walls’ and took the plunge. Having been stuck at home since March, even four different walls would feel like a holiday. Anything to break the monotony of the previous few months.

In terms of lockdown rules, Wales was slightly behind England, so a lot less was actually going to be open, including pubs, but we were glad of the change. One of the bonuses of Wales still being largely closed was that we could probably pack less though! No going out for meals would mean less clothes. We’d still have things for the beach and there’d probably be more books and magazines to take, but overall the car wouldn’t be fit to burst this year. Maybe the kids could sit in actual sitting positions, rather than having to tuck their legs up to accommodate extra bags! (That’s not actually true for anyone considering calling Childline.)

Before we knew it we were indeed heading down the motorway in a car that was a little lighter and also heading for the first problematic part of our trip. We’re creatures of habit in our family and so every year, on the way down to the cottage, we stop off in Colwyn Bay (as an aside, we can never remember whether it’s Colwyn Bay or Conwy, but we know it’s near LLandudno!). The problem here was that with public toilets closed we would need somewhere new to stop and while this doesn’t sound like much of a problem – motorway services anyone? – it was actually quite traumatic. and kept us busy deciding where to stop for far too long! In the end, we found a services, followed the social distancing guidelines, stuck to the one way systems, popped into the toilets, armed ourselves with coffee and ate our picnic in the car. Not quite the same as always, but then this always was going to be a slightly different holiday.

Porthmadog was noticeable quieter than usual when we arrived. It’s normally a bustling little town, but now there were far fewer people on the main street. It was hearetning to see that some of the local shops and businesses were open and relatively thriving though.

This was our third stay in this particular cottage and it felt lovely to walk through the door and find that little had changed. Things like DVDs, books and board games had been removed and there were notices re health and safety on several walls, but this was still very much our little cottage. And there was also the added bonus of the owners signing up for Netflix to alleviate the situation with DVDs and board games – more than a fair trade, I’d say! A definite plus point for the global pandemic!

One thing that definitely wouldn’t – and didn’t – change was access to beaches. The village where we stay has a huge beach and so we knew we’d be able to comfortably stay at a social distance from others down there. Getting to our favourite little beach might well be more problematic, but more on that later.

There would be no pub visits either. Unlike in England, pubs in Wales were yet to open, although it would be possible to eat outdoors. Usually we have a rota of pubs that we visit and we generally always eat out, but Covid-19 meant a change of plan. Luckily, some of our regular haunts were operating a takeaway service and so, for our first evening we ordered a Sunday roast from our favourite pub and popped down into town to collect. What we got was an absolute banquet fit for about 12, meaning that the holiday got off to a great start, even if it was quite a fat one!

This was a theme that continued throughout the week. We’d order food from one of our favourite pubs and go and collect. Despite the pandemic and the sense of paranoia, there was always a warm welcome and it was clear that those running pubs were just pleased to be getting any custom. Everything was brilliantly organised and customer and staff safety was obviously at the top of all agendas. We were still told of some visitors who’d actually complained about not being able to go into the pubs though and it seemed strange that they had missed any news whatsoever of a pandemic and the fact that practically everything had changed!

In terms of trips to the beach, we spent the first full day on the local beach, Black Rock Sands, a vast stretch of sand, where as well as people you’ll find dogs, cars and even the odd ice-cream van! Needless to say, social distancing wasn’t a problem.

It’s such a big beach that we always make space and time for some family sports. This year there was beach tennis, baseball, football and a curious game that involves a ball and two kind of big plastic half-cylinders (I’m sorry I’m not eloquent enough to explain exactly what they are!) and of course even more space than ever. We also made time to just laze around, reading and watching the world go by. Lockdown restrictions or not, this is still a holiday and there’s nothing better on holiday than just to sit and stare at nothing in particular!

Before we travelled we were reticent about visiting our favourite beach, given that the only access to it was via a long narrow coastal path. This was also the coastal path that ran along the whole coast and thus dog walkers and hikers were a common site. So, the chances of making the journey to and from our beach without bumping into people and indeed squeezing past them, were slim.

However, by the second full day, with great weather forecast, we were wiling to try. We prepared a picnic, packed the car as usual and set off for the short drive to the end of the coastal path. It was busier than we’d imagined when we arrived, but most people seemed to be hanging around the harbour having a drink or an ice cream. We did pass one or two people on the long path heading for the beach, but it was just a case of holding your breath and squeezing in a bit as there was literally nothing else for it other than throw yourself in a hedge!

On the beach, despite it being quite a small cove, people were very respectful of social distancing and there must have been 7 or 8 metres between us and the next family on the sand. Buoyed by the weather and the conditions on the beach, we had a brilliant day and even spent the next day there too.

We’re usually quite fond of a day out on our Wales holiday. It’s home to many a castle and an amazing coastline and so there are lots of choices like Harlech, Cearnarfon and Barmouth, where we’ve had some brilliant times. This year though, with some lockdown restrictions still in place we felt it was safer to stay close to home – or actually at home – and so were robbed of such trips. The weather didn’t really help either – it was pretty much miserable for the last few days and although we managed one more day on the beach, it was fairly cloudy and not particularly warm. Defintely no need to get the beach body out!

We did attempt to salvage something on the rainy days too, rather than just resorting to lazing around watching Netflix. On the first of these days, we took a picnic down to Black Rock Sands only to find that it was akin to sitting in a sandstorm. This meant that we had an express picnic in record time, huddled behind a large sand dune with no one allowed to mention the extra sandy crunch of their sandwiches! On the other day we misjudged the weather conditions, walking the length of the beach before turning round to head back…just as torrential rain started! We could have swam back and been drier! Needless to say, both kids – the pre-teen son and teenage daughter – took both days in their stride, handling them with good humour…

(Actually, both took moaning about the weather to dizzy new heights, if the truth be told. In fact, such was my daughter’s level of sulking as we ate our picnic that I spent the whole time in fits of giggles trying not to choke on my food. She took this well though. Actually…well, you get the picture!)

By the end of our holiday we’d had a lovely time. I’d totally recommend this area of North Wales to anyone, especially families. The lockdown restrictions made things a little more difficult, but people were as friendly and accommodating as always.

We usually spend our last morning having a wander down Porthmadog high street going in and out of the shops hunting down souvenirs, but given the social distancing problems we gave it a miss and were on the road in record time.

We’d had a lovely time. The beaches had their usual relaxing effect and it’s always nice to get some sea air. We hadn’t got to do our usual eating out, but had taken advantage of some brilliant take out options. In the end we’d come for four different walls and had certainly got that and then some! We’ll try to do it all again next year, fingers crossed without the looming shadow of Covid-19!

101 Things I’ve Learnt in Lockdown (give or take quite a few things for the sake of a title)

Given some of the reading of dystopian fiction I’ve done over the years and some of the television I’ve watched, lockdown or quarantine has surprised me. We were ready for the apocalypse. And when I say ready, I mean that my tendency to over-buy, ‘just in case’ meant that we could have existed on a diet of Weetabix and shampoo for quite a while yet. As avid viewers of The Walking Dead over the years, we were also confident about how to stave off zombies or even rival gangs led by over zealous culty types.

So it came as a surprise when none of these skills were needed. There was disappointment too that my son’s baseball bat would not be customised and pressed into some Negan style action. Instead, it became an exercise in ridding myself of guilt at being unable to work and then staving off boredom. We figured out new ways to look at things and also worked out how to get through what was a pretty challenging situation. As a result, I feel like I’ve learnt a lot – about other people and about myself. So here we go; 101 things I’ve learnt during lockdown (give or take quite a few things for the sake of a title).

I love a bit of quiet. I work as a teacher and thus, working amongst 900 children as well as my sometimes over excitable department can sometimes be a bit noisy. At last count I worked in a department of 436 women – or it might have been 10 – and when they laugh, screech or encounter anything drag queen or dog related, it can get loud. I tend to stick to my classroom. I’ll look forward to finding myself right in the middle of it again sometime soon though. I miss those gals! Lockdown, with its lack of people, has meant lots of being out in my garden, pottering with nothing but birdsong for company. We live about a mile away from a busy motorway, but for a few months it couldn’t be heard. The quiet has allowed me to think, to contemplate, and to create, although that last bit has mainly been in the form of mindless poetry, so maybe there is a cloud to this silver lining! Whatever has gone on elsewhere, I’ve enjoyed the silence.
It’s actually not that difficult to lose track of the days. I haven’t worked for months. Not in the actual work environment anyway. As a result, my routine has been knocked sideways and as much as I’ve tutted at people in the past for claiming to not know what day it was, I’ve found that at times I’ve really had to think hard just to work out if it’s a Tuesday or a Sunday. It’s usually been a Wednesday though.
The four of us can actually live together in some kind of harmony. I imagined that we’d kill each other. Or that I might just snap and leave the house, Forrest Gump style and run for a couple of years until I reached Alaska or somewhere. None of this happened. None of it ever looked likely either. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve not been like The Waltons (Google them, younger people) but we’ve been quite the harmonious group. I’ve adjusted to home school-related tantrums, the bouncing and shouting that go hand in hand with Roblox, the daily updates on celebrities that I’ve never heard of and their latest moment of Instagram related glory (you’re cheering on people having their photo taken, young people) and even my daughter’s ever more angry explanations of why her phone is vital for school work. We’ve all adjusted. We’ve all coped. There have been afternoons of board games, TV marathons, family walks, baking, Wii Sing, learning of languages…all sorts to fill the time. And we’ve survived.
I can live without football. Younger me would be appalled. But when football closed own at all levels, I coped. I’ve been around the game all my life – playing, coaching, supporting – and I adore it. But despite my horror at it being taken away, I didn’t find it difficult at all. I missed watching my team, Newcastle United. I missed coaching my Under 12 team. But within a few weeks, its absence was normal. I sought solace in exercise; working out, walking, and running and so the element of competition about me was sated quite easily. It’s helped that as a Newcastle fan, I’m used to information coming out of the club being a rarity. The fans don’t matter at NUFC and so we were fully used to hearing nothing. Even when on the verge of a takeover that would make us the richest club in world football, nobody bothered to speak. And after a while even that became normal. I just occupied my time with other things; something I would have never thought possible. Football? I’ve hardly given it a thought.
I love being able to watch football every day! And then they brought it back and I was hooked again! Since Project Restart began there has been football on our screens every day. I haven’t watched all of it. But I’ve managed to sneak a look at some of it probably most days. The empty stadia haven’t mattered. I’ve even turned off the fake crowd noise in favour of the shouting of 40 or 50 people in the stadium and the occasional hilarious bit of swearing. Grassroots football has also resumed and so my Under 12 team has trained once again, albeit under very different, very strict guidelines linked to Coronavirus. No matter – it’s been amazing to be out on the grass again. Football? Inject it straight into my veins!
Driving your car is now an acceptable eye test If you’re not from the UK or you’ve spent lockdown hiding under a rock, the name Dominic Cummings won’t mean anything to you. Quick explanation – he’s the chief adviser and political strategist to our government. Anyway, during lockdown he seems to have decided to visit his parents 264 miles away while the rest of us were confined to our homes. When he got found out he concocted a story about his wife showing signs of Covid19, which subsequently meant that he had to drive 200 miles to ensure childcare in case she was really poorly. Because, of course, he knew no one with any influence who could have sorted him out an emergency babysitter. He definitely didn’t just think he was above the law and fancied a visit to see mummy and daddy on their country estate. No way. Not a chance. Part of his crazy story involved the fact that he then developed a problem with his eyes – some guys have all the bad luck, eh? – and so in order to test his eyesight out, he chose to drive some thirty miles with his now not ill wife and not destitute child in the car. Thus, in the UK, we all learned that if you have a problem with your eyesight then the government’s chief political adviser says, “Go for a drive!”
Barnard Castle is the new Lourdes. Cummings from number 6 again. Barnard Castle was where he drove to and miraculously cured his poorly eyes. He cured his eyes by spending the entire day there. And did I mention it was his wife’s birthday on that day? So, I suppose it was a fitting present from a loving husband to take his wife somewhere where they could cure her of a virus that was killing thousands of people across the globe. So really, he’s just a regular guy who turned hero in the midst of a global pandemic. Definitely not a privileged dickhead he thought he was a great deal better than the rest of us. So, if you’re ill and don’t fancy all the crowds that would typify a trip to Lourdes, head to Barnard Castle in County Durham. Tell them Dominic Cummings sent you. And if anyone asks, he did nothing wrong.
A surprising amount of people can’t follow a one-way system or read a No Entry sign Despite having to self isolate for health reasons I’ve had to go to the supermarket on a few occasions during lockdown. Sometimes, with my wife’s work commitments, there’s been no one else. It’s been quite harrowing. I’ve had to stand in queues like something out of the Cold War and then when you get into the shop there has been an even colder atmosphere. People don’t look at you. Some practically crawl around the place forgetting that there will be areas where a 2 metre social distance just isn’t possible. And sadly, there are far too many absolute tools that refuse to follow the rules. That’s them, tootling up and down the aisles like they own the place, refusing to follow a simple one-way system or take any notice whatsoever of a massive No Entry sign plastered all over the floor in red. Arrow blindness! My local supermarket had ends of aisles railed off, big green arrows on the floor, and actual No Entry signs in red and white and yet some people still managed to get lost and conveniently wander down every aisle the wrong way. The irony a lot of the time is that they’re the ones wearing the masks! They might as well wear it over their eyes!
I like my neighbours I’ve never been one for cozy chats across the fence. In fact, I’d probably have gladly put up a bigger fence in the past. However, throughout lockdown, my elderly neighbour has found a way to appear noiselessly while I’ve been pottering and then just started chatting whether I’m looking or not. One day, he crept up so stealthily and started talking so loudly that I actually threw what I was holding in the air, such was my shock. He just carried on chatting like nothing had happened. Despite this, I’ve found myself warming to him and I have to say, it’s nice to have good neighbours. Apparently, everybody needs them.
I’ve glimpsed retirement…and I love it! No rules, no routine, no commute, exercise when I feel like it, no suit and tie…I’m more than ready for that pension!
Me and IT don’t get along My work laptop won’t attach to the internet. It won’t let me look at documents from work. Its USB ports are all broken. It is essentially a fancy typewriter. My home laptop picks and chooses which internet sites it will find – you’d be amazed at the number of times that Google is unavailable. It also won’t open Word documents. Or PowerPoints. Or Excel. And it runs as if it’s on dial-up. All of this has made working from home incredibly stressful. Even thinking about it makes my blood boil. Anyway, how either laptop still exists is beyond me. My relationship with IT has seen me develop new and wonderful swear words, but I am yet to attempt laptop surgery with a hammer. I must have mellowed considerably.
When someone knocks at your door in Lockdown it is utterly terrifying. It’s bad enough at the best of times when it might be someone trying to sell you something. However, during a global pandemic, when no one should be out and about and a knock at the door could just be a cunning zombie trying to lure you out with politeness, it’s heart stopping.
Whatever the cause, people banging pots and pans with spoons is actually not all that necessary. Here in the UK the public took to their doorsteps every Thursday night for weeks in order to applaud and show solidarity with our NHS workers, who were putting their lives at risk every day. It was nice; a chance to show some appreciation for our often unsung heroes, while also feeling part of your local community. And then it turned into a competition. People turned out in fancy dress, there were fireworks, air horns…and of course pots and pans. Now I don’t want to be a killjoy here, but I’ll say it anyway. The air being filled with the sound of pots and pans is not nice. It’s not a fitting tribute, either. If, when I die, people turn up at my funeral banging pots and pans together, I will find a way to haunt them. I’d like to think that doctors and nurses thought it wasn’t necessary. I’d like to think they were all just thinking that it was nothing short of a racket!
The town where I live has some real surprises. In Lockdown our government sanctioned an hour of daily exercise for families. So out we went, every day or night, often walking for 3 miles. It meant that we explored our town quite a lot. Without doubt, the best thing that we discovered was that in one of the more well-to-do households, where they have a very big back garden, they’ve got an entire railway track running around it. We’ve got a washing line, two sheds, a very annoying trampoline and a small football goal. Flash Harry up the road has got Thomas the Tank Engine and friends!
The empty roads are an open invitation for dickheads to drive badly. Some people – mainly young men – mistook exercise for going out in their car. Some people – mainly young men – mistook a deserted road for a race track. Some people – mainly young men – are dickheads.

So there you have it. I learned a lot during Lockdown. I think we probably all witnessed human behaviour at both its best and its worst. Or at least its most selfish. But where there are negatives, you’ll most likely find positives. And it’s always good to learn from your experiences.

Did you learn anything from Lockdown? Let me know what you learned and what you thought in the comments.