Routine, smoothies and soup

I consider myself one of the lucky ones. I have a job where I can work from home. There are many others with no job, no work and no pay and I am fully conscious of that as I write this.

My brain needs routine. Don’t get me wrong, I can do random, I can do spontaneity but I do need structure, unless that one rainy day comes along and I can lie in until bed time…

I found myself in week one of lock down making healthy smoothies (I bought too many bananas) and soup, soup and soup (bought too much veg) but that was last week.. week 2 and I’m smoothied and souped out, the crisps and cheese on toast have crept in.

It is important for me that I keep to the routine of work at home. I get up at the same time I usually would, wash my hair, make up on, get dressed, grab a coffee and be ready to start work at my desk at 8.30 ameach day. Even though Leapfrog had already encouraged taking ‘work from home’ days, they were for a ‘day’ singular, not ‘days’ plural. Finding myself 5 days per week for the foreseeable working from home with no office banter, no new faces coming through the door is an experience I can happily handle for a couple of months, but permanently? I like people, I like faces, I like smiles and I like laughing and although I can see my team mates on Skype every morning, it’s not exactly the same is it?

Luckily I can ‘go to work’ in our studio next to the house, so I make my coffee, take 7 (I’ve counted) steps across the decking, open studio door, lights/computer on, ‘to do’ checklist, start work, Office Skype links and the rest of the day work, calls and emails as usual !

I have a 12 year old who comes in every hour to complain he is being made to do school work, to ask when he can go on his PS4 (hint number 3,042… after school work), to let me know his PS4 has now been unplugged and removed (Me - why is that? Him – because I’m not doing anything I’m asked to do!).

I would love to say he is accessing on line fitness classes or the myriad of ideas for on line educational entertainment I have given him if he is ‘bored’ (see also school work and see also large supply of books), but he isn’t…yet. Maybe that will change in the next week as so many other things are changing on a day by day week by week basis.

I would love to say that every day we skip and laugh ourselves around Rocquaine Bay for our 2 hours exercise, absorbing the beauty of family of life and having magical connections, but we don’t …and that is fine. It’s life, real life and everything is not all rose coloured and twinkly, to quote OASIS ‘ you gotta roll with it…’

All of us in the house all day, every day, working /schooling from home can be tense at times, it can be shouty, it can be calm, fun filled and then it can be shouty again. I’m working as normal so I still have structure to my day/my week. My partner is not able to do his job from home so he’s constantly trying to find things to do (bad time to have just finished renovations!). My 12 year old is trying to do a little as possible to get maximum PS4 time and still hasn’t worked out that is not how it works…

But – every now and then I get a hot sausage roll brought in silently and left on the desk. We go for daily walks, climb to the top of the hill, pick up fallen pine cones, breathe in fresh air, faces lifted up to the sunshine and laugh until someone throws the first pine cone…

All the team at Leapfrog are ready to help in whatever way we can, if you want help/advice/tips or a rant – give us a shout!