When the sun emerged on Sunday, I felt a rush of joy and optimism, so intense that it was tangible. After the drenching the ground got on Saturday, all seemed vibrant and fecund, the snowdrops a portent of better times ahead. I wanted to savour these intoxicating feelings of hope and renewal, after so much heaviness for so long.

Two winters ago now, LSB took me to see Liam Gallagher in Dublin. I was ambivalent about this trip: I loved Oasis, enough to endure a bus journey from the Europa Bus Station all the way to Knebworth in 1996, but just to see Liam on his own, pontificating about shite? I wasn’t sure. But now, can you imagine the luxury of being able to say, ‘I’m not sure if I can be bothered spending the night in a classy hotel on the banks of the Liffey with just my husband, dinner and cocktails and a gig thrown in, to boot. Oh, those halcyon days, when you could sleep on, undisturbed by cats wandering in and sitting on your bladder at 3:30am because they think you ought to fetch them a night time snack.

I digress. What I started to say, was that Liam Gallagher wouldn’t usually be top of the list of those doling out advice, but he was giving it stacks because the lunatics in the pit were lighting massive flares and he clearly didn’t want to be remembered as the rock and roll star whose audience burnt to death in 2019.

Well, today it’s me, not a Gallagher brother who is giving the advice, because I’m fed up with dickheads doing whatever they like, which is why, (and I’m sure I’ll have a rake of anti-vaxxers and tin-foil hat wearers on to me now) the lockdown isn’t working as it should.

I was in Sainsbury’s on Monday, and in trots a man, nice shirt and jumper and all on him, and the security chap says: ‘Would you wear a mask please?’ and he says haughtily, ‘I’d rather not,’ and ploughs on in. He had no more notion of social distancing, leaning over an old woman as she chose her carrots, and later on hovering, like a seagull outside a chip shop, at the reduced section. Now, I’ve an acerbic tongue on me, (hence the moniker SWB), and I was tempted to tell him what I made of his attitude, but I desisted as I didn’t want to face a barrage of invective.

There was another clown in M&S with no mask on her either, chatting away on her phone with great animation. She was taking her time, pawing over the ‘Dine-In’ selection, lifting up item after item and setting them back, like a one-woman infection machine.

The Mothership assures me that it’s as bad in Bangor and that it’s as well she’s ‘light on her feet’ and can skip sideways when other shoppers crowd her. So that’s the shops covered- no one doing what they’re told.

My greys are becoming increasingly visible, and a FB friend happened to remark that her hairdresser is doing ‘homers’. ‘She’s never been busier!’ she crowed. So, opinions on this please. Salons aren’t allowed to open to the public, yet some hairdressers are merrily going into several private houses a day? One can only hope that they are taking the necessary precautions, but we can’t be sure. Call me slovenly or drab or but I don’t give two shits whether my highlights are overdue: I’m 41 and I’m stressed to fuck, and if it shows in my hair, then so be it.

Even if the Executive would do a TV ad on how to effectively wear a mask, since this seems to be beyond the average person’s abilities too. Everywhere I look, people are just covering their mouths and not their noses. I totally get it, we aren’t familiar with masks so they feel uncomfortable, and thus the temptation is to fiddle. But by touching the front of the mask where the viral load has gathered, it transfers it to your fingers, which inevitably comes into contact with your face and eyes. People clearly aren’t ‘staying home’ so at least if we were more adept at wearing a mask it would be a help.

My point is this: it feels like finally we can begin to look forward to an end to lockdown. But it hasn’t happened yet. As a teacher I might be asked any day now to go back into schools and as I’m not vaccinated, I don’t feel safe to do so. The combination of some good weather, lockdown fatigue and the inconsistencies of the government’s approach have, IMHO, made us feel as though we can relax the rules. I just wonder if I’m alone in thinking that it’s too soon to get ‘carried away with ourselves’ as The Mothership would say.

I put up an Instagram post on Wednesday and people began to wonder if my account had been hacked. It was a picture of a miniature daffodil which had bloomed in my flowerbed. Oh, full of joy was I, happening upon this tentative show of spring. I proceeded to document it, embellished with happy little emojis and positive affirmations.  My mood was buoyant for I had also completed a five km run in the park without needing a defibrillator. I had bumped into a friend and oh, the delight of spontaneously meeting someone outdoors, where you can stand and chat, unlike last week- when I spied a pal in the booze section of Sainsbury’s. No sooner had we enquired after each other’s health and considered the merits of pairing a German Riesling with the M&S takeaway box to celebrate Chinese New Year, than anxious shoppers were giving us the evil eye and we had to shuffle on, in our sad, company deprived way.

So back to Ash Wednesday. Feeling uncharacteristically chirpy, I popped on the radio and embarked upon a cook-a-thon, the children outside playing happily and me, stirring away happily with three meals on the go: a bolognese,  a pot of vegetable broth and Chinese braised beef and ginger in the slow cooker. Having raided the reduced section, I had picked up a bag of carrots for 9p and a selection of mushrooms. I was thus chopping and slicing, determined to boost all our immune systems and eke out the tiny packet of organic mince I’d bought. I also decided to roast myself a tray of vegetables- aubergine, cauliflower and tomatoes, to which I added chilli oil, lemon and lots of black pepper. The rest of the family aren’t mad for this so I thought to myself, I shall do my bit, and compensate for their unwillingness to embrace a plant-based diet. Into the oven it went. Oh, very virtuous I felt.

My friend Rhaiza lived in Dubai years ago and had the most horrible time. Her partner was always working so she was was often home alone, plus it was tricky to get hold of a glass of wine and she didn’t find the people overly friendly. The person to whom she most regularly spoke was the man on the beach who offered camel rides. She was very fond of the camels, even after one of the fuckers bit her thumb and she ended up in the A&E requiring a tetanus jab and two stitches.  Rhaiza is an amazing cook, but a funny thing happened to her in Dubai, because everything she made tasted rotten. She couldn’t understand it, and concluded, eventually, that her misery seeped its way into the food; her frustration and melancholy leeching into her soups and stews. ‘I even cocked up a salad once,’ she told me at the time. ‘Like how is that even bloody possible, I ask you?’

With this reasoning in mind, the meals I prepared on Wednesday ought to have been sumptuous, given my ebullience.  Alas, it was not.  The soup was dismal and bland: I had added two packs of soup mix and hadn’t adjusted the stock accordingly, so it was basically just mushy veg swimming in liquid the colour of sewer water. I tried adding an extra spoonful of Marigold Bouillion, but it still tasted rubbish. At least it was edible though, unlike the beef stew. LSB may be taking to a veggie diet yet after almost choking on a piece of meat so tough it lodged in his gullet and I had to thump his back. Six and a half hours that beef shin simmered in the slower cooker, and it still resembled boot leather. And my vegetables. Heavens. My friend Aisling has become the most remarkable cook. Gone are the days when she adds lemongrass to Shepherd’s Pie and dished out meatballs still raw in the middle to guests.  Her roasted veg, with tiny oozing balls of mozzarella, would rival anything a Sicilian Nonna would set down to you, in a bowl of steaming linguine. They are unctuous: a thing of wonder. Although I tried to emulate her recipe, (and fuck me, but how hard can a tray of roasted veg be?) it just wasn’t nice. And it made my stomach crampy. And windy.

And that’s only the start. At considerable expense we had an old rug dry cleaned and put it back down in our front room to make it cosy and inviting. The man returned it, all fragrant and lovely. The children rolled around on it in glee- how much nicer than cold floor boards, (especially for launching themselves off the furniture onto. ) Approximately 3 hours later and the  cat, (the fat one who moved in,) thinks to himself, ‘How lovely! A new toilet!’ and takes a large shit in the middle of it. That was some job, I can tell you- sorting that mess out. After setting to with scrubber, I went to make a nice cup of tea and opened the dishwasher for a clean cup. Everything was all wet which is a sign, apparently, of the filter not working. Down came LSB  and started buggering about with it, opening up the innards and taking a look. YUCK. The filter was definitely not well of itself. On went the gloves and more cleaning ensued. All around me was shit and detritus.

And this is us, apparently off the drink for Lent by THURSDAY evening I was already bemoaning my decision and all my triggers were on red alert.

So, just to fill you in, my serenity was short-lived and gloominess has once again descended. SWB is back and sourer than ever. If you have given something up and haven’t a mission of sticking to it- no judgement here, that’s all I’m saying.

*Image shamelessly stolen from Waterford Whispers. It’s hilarious, and sadly very accurate.

Hear me out here folks, but we’ve almost reached half-term and although we aren’t going on any of our usual jaunts, I still feel more than a frisson of excitement. The girls each have a wicker basket which slots neatly into a dresser in the kitchen. I am making sure that come Friday afternoon, every single book and pencil and ruler are fired into the receptacles provided where they shall remain for a solid week. I do not want to hear about seven times-tables or think how to punctuate a sentence correctly. I am weary of my own voice, droning on ad infinitum, boring myself rigid.

I want to make tacos at lunchtime without checking what shite they have posted on Seesaw without showing me first. I want to watch two episodes of Gilmore Girls instead of one so they won’t be grumpy, tired little feckers in the morning. I want to take my laptop upstairs to write without a child bleating that they need to read a story on ‘Bug Club’. Next week, I am fervently hoping for more sun so I can open the door and boot them out to play before they have the chance to annoy me.

The odd thing is, and I wonder if anyone else has experienced this phenomenon, but I actually feel a sense of relief not to be going anywhere. Has Stockholm syndrome set in? I’m not even talking Covid here, although I’ll never feel the same about a sauna again. I’m just reflecting on other irksome things that happen on holiday; like having to queue for breakfast, then being shown to a mediocre table and horror of horrors, for a family with a wailing toddler to plonk down beside us. My children can be very irritating, but at least they’re past that stage. I want to drink my own, good quality coffee that LSB makes in the morning, instead of the piss they serve in hotel restaurants. Can anyone enlighten me how they actually MAKE the coffee in hotels? Is it just one great big vat with some poor scullion stirring in tablespoonfuls of Maxwell House? It’s always weak, watery and lukewarm.  And, top of my list of things to be grateful for, is not having to set an alarm, to leave the cosy hotel bed, to get into the flipping swimming pool at 8am. Yes, I know no one is holding a knife to my throat to do this, but it’s either that or venture in later to be bashed and splashed by obnoxious little bastards flailing those great foam noodles in your face.

I don’t want to have to drop my pets off the ‘pet resort’ where the proprietors demonstrate all the warmth and congeniality of my grumpy tortoiseshell when I sit on her by accident.

I’m relieved not to have to pack, as inevitably I forget things and then have send LSB beetling off to pick up toothpaste/moisturiser/hairbrushes. Who I am trying to kid? Let’s not forget the warm coat I had to buy in Limavady when I went up with only a jumper on me last October. And my worst faux pas, when I said I’d take care of the packing for a trip to Kenya in 2010 and left all of LSB’s boxers sitting on the kitchen table. He had to go looking in a   department store in Nakuro, and they only did a range of Y-fronts in bold, primary colours which weren’t particularly fetching.

I am seeing a silver lining here, and frankly, I’m as surprised about that as you are. By nature, I am keen on a gallivant, but right now, not so much. With everything closed this half-term our options are greatly limited and I’m thinking ‘Thank f**k for that’. It means not having to traipse the children to the Folk and Transport Museum for an edifying experience. It means not having to squeeze my thighs into a pair of tailored trousers for an evening out. It means having a bona-fide reason NOT to meet that person you always say you’ll hook up with for drinks when secretly, you’d rather remove your liver with a butter knife than enduring an evening while they talk about their child’s lactose intolerance. You just can’t, Boris says no, simple as that. Hallelujah- first time I’ve been grateful to that gobshite for anything.

Today, even though the frost sat three inches thick on my windscreen, I didn’t mind because I didn’t have to go anywhere. As the Older Child read ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ the sunlight streamed through the window illuminating her in a pool of golden light. On hearing how rubbish I felt last week,  a neighbour rang the bell and handed me instructions, on how to make fat balls for the birds, along with lard, birdseed and cord. There are signs of light and life, and if we just get a week of respite, then we’ll be able appreciate them, wherever we are.

I did an interview with The Newsletter this week on the topic of home-schooling- here is the unedited sweary version for SWB readers…

Anyone know the Crowded House ‘Four Seasons in One Day?’ Well, that’s my life at the moment, except replace four with eight, or maybe ten. I ricochet back and forth between feelings of exhaustion and ennui, gratitude and griping, busyness and boredom.

The most stressful element of my day is definitely the home-schooling. I quickly get frustrated when I see that my children’s academic progress has gone into a swift decline since lockdown began. When I look at what they are producing presently I turn into a raging harpy. ‘Have you ever HEARD of a full stop?’ ‘Yes, fifty-five take away fourteen IS  forty-one but since that is a PLUS sign the answer is sixty nine.’ FFS. There is much sniping and sighing when I have the audacity to point out these mistakes. When I asked  my nine year old to give me a couple of adjectives last week, the little s**t replied: ‘Mean and nasty’. How very encouraging.

I dug out some of their school-books from previous years, and there was yet more evidence that my home-schooling techniques are rubbish. A quick flick through and I saw  positive comments and gold stars- ‘Go you! Amazing! Wow!’ What is abundantly clear is that that they lack both the inclination and ability to concentrate at home with me.

Last lockdown LSB used to blithely say ‘Send them up to me!’ when he heard raised voices below. Since then, he has installed two large monitors on the desk where they used to sit. ‘Not much room for them here,’ he says. Since January he has a significantly larger number of meetings for which is attendance is, apparently, mandatory. Obviously, I am not remotely suspicious about any of this. Useless f**ker.

I did not choose to join a religious order because I didn’t fancy a life of servitude, but this appears to have happened anyway. I am now bringer of breakfasts, server of snacks and deliverer of the Key Stage Two Curriculum. Sometimes I try to do put the laundry on while they ‘work’ but have discovered that this is a complete waste of time.

Does anyone else feel as though their brain is being hacked in half with a blunt machete? The See-Saw app is fiddly AF, so if I’m not at their shoulder to oversee what they’re doing they merrily press ‘send’ and send their teacher a load of rubbish. Some of the work coming home is new, and while teachers patiently and with enormous effort, post explanatory videos, I still need to sit with them as they do most of the activities.

Afternoons are spent with my trying to avoid a visit to A&E as they treat our living room furniture like a jungle gym, vaulting over tables and hanging off the banisters. Last Lockdown LSB had to screw the leg back into the sofa and so far this time we have bid farewell to a kitchen chair. Sometimes I feel like a life in a convent would be preferable; at least it would be quiet.

And yet, when I am not strung out multi-tasking, I often feel a sense of relief. Latterly when I was teaching in a local grammar school, I was aware of the pressure which staff and pupils alike where struggling under. It was an absolute f**king melt. This was the result of not knowing whether exams were taking place or not, and students were doing their nut about what they had missed. Tensions ran exceptionally high. Peter Weir is as qualified in the role as Educational Minister as Trump was in the role as President. Not a notion does he have, and running his own party’s agenda to boot.

So are there any upsides? Well yes, of course. When it snowed this time two weeks ago it seemed like a gift- we took the girls to the local meadow with their sleds and played for hours. I didn’t have to navigate icy roads and sit at home wondering whether the school would be open or not.

There is also the sense of celebration when the weekend arrives. Late afternoon I escape, lighting a candle and doing some yoga. Even if it’s just a fifteen-minute practice I feel like it’s something ‘just for me.’ Also, just for me, is the can of wine which I crack open every evening at seven. These are tough times, and if you can’t savour how the flavours of elderberry and green apple marry together in a sparkling white now, then when can you?

I realize, that although life is strange and frightening, that I am lucky. Annoying as they can be, I have a family and a menagerie of pets to keep me busy and (sometimes) amused. Being on my own would be infinitely worse, so when I feel myself close to losing my temper I try to remember this. I try. People I try. But let’s face it, I often fail miserably, please tell me you do too. Solidarity is key for my sanity.

So today is Groundhog day and you may be forgiven for thinking, really, isn’t that every day at the minute? Or perhaps you’ve been reading my posts on Instagram and you’re thinking to yourself, fecking groundhog day again, she’s still on about the bloody environment, for the twentieth time this month.  You see, over January I came over all David Attenborourgh and did a series of posts about reducing waste. They were supposed to be daily updates, but I lacked the fortitude.  Hell, that was one LONG, torturous month, wasn’t it? But in addition to my being tired and fed up, I didn’t want to annoy people by posting every single day. Life, you may have noticed, is a bit on the shite side right now, and you are probably already pulled in seven different directions, and having someone harangue you about saving up your crisp packets might just have you on sipping gin with your toast of a morning. When stretched to your absolute limit, the thought of washing out period pants might just be beyond you. And that’s ok. As the statistics show, a million people making a few changes is better than a few doing everything.

However, I thought the posts might be useful for those of you who may have some extra  time or if your change in circumstances allows more flexibility. Last spring for example, I sent LSB off to B&Q to buy a water butt. We’d thought of getting one before but hadn’t bothered, then a neighbour mentioned how easy it was to get one and install it one. Since we had such a dry spell during the lockdown we made it a priority. Had we not both been at home so much, I know we still wouldn’t have one.

It was the same with the period pants – it was easier for me to make the switch to using them all the time because I wasn’t in school. No one wants to test drive bamboo pads when you’re standing in front of a class of year 12 boys and discover you have blood trickling down your leg. (Might I add here that this is MIGHTY UNLIKELY, because you’ll be changing them just like any other sanitary wear, as your flow dictates. The Mothership though, if she’s reading this, may be quite likely to have a mini-stroke: ‘Is there any NEED, Helen,’ she will say.)

Do you know what I really want though? For all this bullshit about periods being mystifying or embarrassing or dirty to be quashed underfoot. That is the DREAM.

But today, I am talking cardboard, or as those media types are now referring to it as: ‘beige gold’. We have an actual global shortage of paper, because we’ve all been buying our booze and frankly, everything else online. We won’t have any fecking forests left at this rate. I also believe I’m married to the main culprit, because LSB, despite my protestations, is never done ordering random shit off the internet. Often from Amazon too, and you know how much I fecking hate Amazon. I mean surely, SURELY, some clever people could work out how to reduce the packaging they use or have a returns policy organised with Prime? Those vans are never off our streets, so would it be too much of a stretch to hand them back some of the boxes and say, ‘give that another whirl?’ It would be easier than say, chopping down swathes of the Amazon? Just a thought. A friend ordered a pair of knitting needles, and not only were they delivered in a box large enough to fit one of my children in, but they were so wrapped in yards of paper. ‘What sort of eejit did that?’ I wondered to myself.  Probably some poor fecker who’s been working an 18 hour shift in a warehouse and pouring every remaining ounce of their energy  into maintaining the will to live, I imagine.

Anyway, rant over. Hopefully you don’t all think of me as a sanctimonious git running round in a sack cloth (I know it’s nearly Lent so I now have the image of John the Baptist in my head.) These are strange and frightening times but some of the comfort I glean is from studies which show a reduction in carbon emissions and the fact we can hear the birds better as their wee cheeps and caws aren’t drowned out by all the traffic. If we can at least keep up some of our efforts, then a tiny bit of good may be salvaged from this period of gloom.

I had two very uncomfortable pregnancies as a result of breaking my pelvis in my twenties. As the babies grew bigger it became difficult for me to stand for long and walking became a fecking ordeal. I had to stop teaching well over a month before my due date and sat at home watching the History channel and thoroughly depressing myself. I mean who the f**k does that? What an eejit- someone prone to dark thoughts watching programmes on the Holocaust, while pregnant and emotional. I would ring LSB at work in tears, lamenting about the world we were bringing our baby into. ‘Turn off the television,’ he would say, as firmly as he could without me dissolving further into hysteria.

Anyway, back to the pelvis. The thing about it was this: in the morning, I would wake up and when I couldn’t feel pain radiating outwards from my lower back I’d be delighted. ‘I can walk!’ I would exclaim, like the lame fella at Bethesda. However, within thirty minutes of pottering round the kitchen it would feel as though a small elephant had been hooked to my coccyx and I was pulling it along behind me. Call it either optimism or stupidity, but I’ve gone the same way with this home-schooling lark. Almost every day, particularly on a Monday when the week is all shiny and new, I think to myself that it will go better. How naive of me: wouldn’t you think I’d learn?  This week I even made some changes: I created a centralised zone, or a ‘learning area’ if you will. I located stationery and arranged pens and pencils (sharpened) in little pots. I made sure we had the class novel and ALL the jotters and ALL the booklets in wicker baskets, which slotted neatly into a little dresser in the kitchen.

Well would you believe it, but it still didn’t work. They would take their stuff and hare off up the stairs with unparalleled vitesse because they wanted to do it ON THEIR OWN. Books were then swiftly lost, left down the sides of beds, rulers were mislaid.  My children appear to have the attention spans of a gnat. I tried to make sure the laptops were charged but twice I discovered that the actual plugs weren’t in the socket because we basically exist in a labyrinthine tangle of leads.

‘It’s a BLOODY CONSPIRACY,’ I told LSB, almost weeping in frustration.       ‘I JUST CAN’T DO THIS.’

It’s demoralising, so it is, when you are an actual teacher, and your children respond to your attempts to teach multiplication using dried pasta made from lentils (that was so disgusting that you kept it specifically for educational purposes such as these) with utter derision. And the whining. The f**king relentless whinging from the pair of them. At a rough estimate I think they maintain their good humour for about one activity a day before they start peering at me out of slits of eyes with all the warmth of a rattlesnake.

And the irony of all this running away is that the SECOND I get the laptop out or lie on the sofa and stick on Radio 4, they appear, annoying me. ‘Would you like to hear a joke* mummy?’

No, I f**king wouldn’t because my life is presently a joke.

Or this morning’s treat: ‘Do you like my llama? She’s wearing a dress. I’ve called her Twix. You know, after the biscuit? Or do you think Malteser would be better?’

Dear God.

But listen- it’s all ok, because this Saturday morning Boris has offered us all solace and encouragement in the form of an open letter. Apparently, he is in AWE of how we’re coping and would like to congratulate us for our ability to home school our children. Well, I for one will feel infinitely better knowing that. Thank you Boris. Perhaps if you had exercised some wit and taken appropriate action at the time as recommended by your advisors, instead of flip-flopping about, then we all wouldn’t be in this miserable situation.

1. *Diner: Waiter waiter, there’s a button in my soup.

Waiter: Yes sir, it’s off the jacket potato.

2. What’s black and white and bruised all over?

A penguin who’s fallen down the stairs.

Boom Boom.

Tell me please, Dry January. Is anyone still even trying? Actually don’t answer that because I hate hearing other people’s success stories. Why I contemplated this in the first place, in this current shambolic climate, is beyond me. While one doesn’t want to descend into full-blown alcoholism, now is not is a period for self-denial, and the subsequent self-flagellation when you fail.

I am the kind of person who lurches from treat to treat. I go to bed longing for the taste of my freshly brewed coffee when I wake up, and my day is then punctuated with the thought of cake for elevenses, (to be fair closer to ‘twelve-ses’ in this house). We’ve taken, over this lockdown, to eating at the table and I like the ceremony of pouring a drink  with my dinner, marking the end of the chores and obligations and settling into the evening. Let’s face it, it’s not as though I’ll be rushing to do any of my usual activities. There’s a scarcity of other pleasures  and thus my epicurean habits are one of the few things left.

Having said that though, it’s far too easy to knock back a glass of Sauvignon the size of your head at 6pm while you ‘stir the pot’ and then drain the bottle. I have thus arrived at a compromise: to cap myself, I crack open a can of ‘We are the Uncommon’* wine. I spotted these pretty cans of loveliness in M&S, and am considering asking our local framer to do something fancy with my empties.  It just seems wrong to be chucking a can boasting a giraffe wearing bow-tie and a bowler hat into the bin. Each can contains about two flutes so it’s enough to give me a bit of lift. (As Gerry Anderson said, one drink only annoys you.)

But January did make me take stock after Christmas, and reconsider my habits. In Lockdown it’s just hard isn’t it, especially when I’m home-schooling and suddenly want to take up smoking so I can flee outside for a fag to stop me blurting out obscenities (again) as the children ferret about under the table for a f**king rubber for the nineteenth time that morning. It’s imperative that I have something to which I can look forward everyday, or I’d become even more barking than I already am.

Have you discovered ‘The Letdown’ on Netflix yet? It is an Aussie show which takes an unflinching look at modern parenthood, and while being highly amusing, it isn’t afraid to tackle some meaty issues. In the penultimate episode of Series 2, one of the characters  feels like she’s becoming a bit too reliant on the old ‘Pinot Gri’ as the Aussies like to call it. Enter Scott, a reformed drug addict, who promises her to take her through the steps at record speed. (He’ll even, for a reduced fee, ‘leave out the God stuff.’)

Perhaps you’ve already heard of the concept of a ‘rat park’, but I hadn’t. It’s based on an experiment, involving rats, oddly enough. If, your park, as Scott so succinctly describes it, is ‘shithouse and dull’ you will drink to cope with the monotony. The rats who had a fun-filled cage had no interest in a pick-me-up, while the bored rats just got off their whiskery wee faces on the morphine. So, basically, we have to find our own version of a ‘ratpark.’ Even if you’re not trying to wean yourself off the booze, I just love this concept. I for one, have decided to take back my Saturday nights (for an hour or two anyway). The children have developed fondness for ‘The Masked Singer’ which is  several lightyears beyond my level of tolerance. (I know, I’m odd. I can’t be doing with ‘The Voice’ or ‘Love Island’ or ‘I’m a Celebrity’ with all their bluster and the overacting. I HATE all that bollocks, they actually make my teeth hurt.)

Thus while my children munch their dinner in front of the TV,  I take myself upstairs and chat to someone over a can of wine. Last week I caught up with my friend in Scotland: we go back 29 years and don’t chat nearly enough. The week before that I was on the phone for almost two hours, in animated discussion with a fabulous local poet with whom I’d only had the briefest of interchanges before. Over Facebook we realised we had more than a few things in common, one of which was our dislike of shows like ‘The Masked Singer.’ ‘Seven shades of shite’ was how she described it.

I’m rabbiting on. Anyway. Ratparks- totally essential. Find your own version, be it chatting or dancing or reading or stretching.  And check out The Letdown.’ I  loved it, and as you’ll gather from this, I’m hard to please.

*I feel I have to add here that I am not being paid to promote these guys. (I wish I was, obviously as their wine is LUSH.) But it’s such a great wine and adds a frisson of fun in these dull times.

You know when you’ve left guacamole out of the fridge and it has turned brown and looks a bit like dog faeces? Well, I reckon that if someone was to insert a camera inside my ear and plunge it deep into the limbic structure (the part which controls emotions, apparently) of my brain, it would look a bit like that.

I thought I’d feel better this lockdown because I don’t have to teach from home. I am, temporarily jobless, aside from home-schooling, home management, cooking, cleaning laundry, (always the F**KING laundry) and looking after the animals. So, like, yeah, not busy at all. But last time in March, being plunged into a new situation overnight and learning how to teach via Microsoft Teams when I have all the technical ability of an amoeba, was an excruciating experience. I’m not sure I’ve sufficiently recovered and suspect that my liver most definitely hasn’t.

So why now, when free from that arse-ache, is my head still like mush and everything still feels like a massive effort? Since a vaccination for this bastard virus is at least in sight and a return to ‘normal’ no longer feels totally outlandish, surely I should be feeling more optimistic?  But despite this, I have virtually no concentration skills and the effort it took to get to even write this post was bigger than Trump’s ego.

Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that today is ‘Blue Monday’, a date statisticians worked out when we would feel the most depressed during the year.  If even in non-pandemic times people are typically feeling lousy, how the heck are we went to fare this January? Christmas, and the break it afforded us, (no matter how small this year) has all but receded in the rear view mirror and we’re perhaps still recovering from its excesses, be that the extra pounds on the scales and lack of in the bank account. That, coupled with the dismal weather and the fact that we can’t book ourselves a holiday, could leave us all feeling less than chipper.

Do you know what I’ve just done though? I had a word with myself. ‘Stop being such a grouch,’ I said.  Firm, I was too, because you have to look for the sparks, the joy and the inspiration SOMEWHERE: they are not just going to come flying at you out of your coffee. So, I opened the old Instagram feed and there it was: Martin Luther King Day.* Today, the third Monday in January, is a Federal holiday in the US, to celebrate his legacy. Now, there was someone who didn’t just sit on his backside bemoaning his lot and watching Judge Judy in his y-fronts of an afternoon. ‘Use your voice,’ said MLK, ‘Even when it shakes.’ Be more MLK, I said to myself.

Thus, with King’s deep resonant voice in my ears, I’m going to use my voice on this platform to suggest three things we can take comfort from this week:

1. With the inauguration of Biden on Wednesday, we should be seeing some real, positive changes coming from the States, namely with regard to the Paris Agreement, tensions with Iran, Covid measures and a renewed focus on equality and civil rights. I’ll sleep a bit easier knowing that the leader of the free-world doesn’t want to actively hasten our planet’s demise, aggravate a wannabe nuclear-power, ignore a pandemic and incite racial violence. Having Biden in situ in the White House just makes me feel less defeatist about the state of the world.
2. Last week I wrote a post about people being absolutely useless and leaving their dog shit everywhere. readers then got in touch to tell me lovely things they were doing, picking up litter, visiting house-bound neighbours and supporting local charities. It was so tremendously up-lifting. There are many stellar individuals out there, doing small but purposeful things to help others. Diane picked up some shit that would otherwise have wound up tramped into some one’s living room. Susan took a bag out and collected a pile of rubbish; Rose baked a little girl a cake. See? Lovely stuff, everywhere.
3. The days are lengthening, and this has a massive impact on me because the dark evenings make me  lethargic, my creativity dwindles and I’m ratty as f**k. That extra hour of daylight has a profound impact on my psyche. Suddenly I want to try a new recipe and get out for a jog, not because I feel I should, but because I want to. Everything in winter requires more effort. I feel I should mention here that there are plenty of pictures of me on social media looking active and chirpy, because much of the time I am. I also though, spend rather a lot of time lying in bed beside my fat cat or curled on the sofa. You just don’t get a lot of ‘likes’ on Instagram for pictures with the hashtags ‘lazy’ and ‘introspective’. So, I am looking forward to a boost in my energy levels and more equanimity. (One can always hope). Life eh? I suppose it wouldn’t be nearly so sweet if we didn’t have the sour moments too.

*If you would like to give yourself a bit of time-out this week, you should consider a session with  the girls of Still I Rise Storytelling, where they will be learning all about inclusion and diversity, no doubt with a wee nod to MLK, what with the week being in it.

Do you want to hear about my morning? Shite, so it was. Firstly, trying to get the children to do any sort of meaningful work was impossible. I’ve had bikini waxes that were more fun than doing ‘number sequencing’ with the Small Child. Then the Fat Cat was mewing at me with belligerence because he doesn’t like the fishy selection we’d bought. Raging, he was because the other cat was munching away happily. The dog needed walked so she was following us about with a big face on her and so I said ‘FINE I WILL LEAVE THE MATHS AND GO TO THE F**KING SHOP.’ The Older Child said she’d come for the dander and so we Ieft the other one with her dad and the instruction to: FINISH THAT SHEET! (Spoiler alert- they’d done f**k all when we got home. Naturally).

Now is it just me, or is there an unprecedented amount of dog poo everywhere? When we turned the corner onto the street below us we practically had to hop-scotch our way round all the shit. One pile looked like something a horse might have left. Then there was the litter.: coke bottles and sweet wrappers and then I noticed that some dirty bastard had had a McDonalds and just dropped the wrapping as they’d walked along. Now, I’ve been trying to do eco-friendly things this month and I had entertained the notion of bringing my litter picker and gloves but in my haste to get the hell out of the house I hadn’t. (Plus, I can’t find the litter picker: it’s probably languishing in the shed with the rest of our detritus). So in the absence of appropriate litter lifting equipment, I used a doggy poo bag as a glove and started lifting the rubbish. I got a few bits and put them in someone’s black bin but in doing so dropped the poo bag. So now, I risked looking like one of those ones who lets their dog defecate everywhere. I searched my pockets for other poo bags, but to no avail. I sighed, deeply.

‘Hold her,’ I said to the Older Child, passing her the dog’s lead as I tried to hoke out the poo bag. I am five feet tall and wheely bins are large and cavernous. Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t reach it.

‘Please get out of the bin,’ said the Child. Looking up I saw a woman’s head in the window. She looked perplexed, as well she might have, in fairness to her.

The whinging continued: ‘Just come ON!’

I acquiesced. Happily, I then  remembered my rucksack which I had brought to carry the cat food home in. I checked and there was a whole rake of bags. ‘Phew,’ I said.

But does it seem to you that there is a different sort of a malaise about at the minute, apart from the obvious one? I’m talking about a general kind of ‘dan’t give a fuck-ness’. Either a form of nihilism has descended, or people have just stopped caring, but there is more rubbish and more dog shit and more nastiness than ever before. I can’t even look on Twitter because within a minute of scrolling someone will have declared they’ve had to leave because of the toxicity of the comments directed at them.

I never, ever want to sound didactic on here but it feels as though the goodwill we showed each other at the beginning of all this has dissipated, and now it’s just every person for themselves, in a dog eat dog world. Except where I live, it’s just a dog shit world. Small things really do matter. As any parent who’s had to pick the shit out of of their child’s trainer with a tooth pick should know.

* I would like to thank Sofia Tucker-Blanco for the image of her bull dog Jason.

Lads, totally disgracing myself here, or as The Mothership would say, I am ‘letting myself down a bucketful.’ * But, my children. Dear God, my children. Here’s what mornings are like: They get their books out (or I locate the books after they’ve feen fired under a table/sofa/bed and show them what they have to do. They start and I get told to ‘Go away,’ and off they go. I try to intervene and be helpful which is met with opprobrium. They are working on my laptop so I can’t write anything myself, so I don the marigolds and start to clean. Hearing much chortling and sounds of ‘carrying on’ I go and check their progress. They are rolling about the floor, giving the dogs treats and wrecking the place. The Maths programme on the computer is bleeping away to itself, merrily. ‘DO THE WORK,’ I say, retreating to the chaos that is the kitchen.

Next there are wails of hunger. ‘We didn’t get much for breakfast,’ say the Older Child in a mournful tone. This would be because the Older Child can’t fix her arse to a seat long enough to ingest the food in front of her. Getting her to eat Muller Fruit Corner is an achievement. (And yes, I hate the f**king plastic but it’s the only yogurt they eat and I don’t want them to have a calcium deficiency.) I dole out toast. The worktop is now cluttered and covered in crumbs.

I give up on cleaning and fetch the laptop. The little b*****ds have sneaked lychees out of the fridge and the keys and screen are a revolting, sticky mess.  Cue much shouting. I fetch work books and make them toil the old-fashioned way. Once again, I am told to ‘leave them alone’.

Then, in they trot: ‘Finished!!’ I look. It’s pile of shite. I fetch the rubber and set to.

I have now taken to supervising them. They are not getting near my laptop unless I can see there are no foodstuffs upon their person.  I mean, I’m an ACTUAL teacher. I have also done home-schooling before, like everyone else. Why is it still making me want to gouge my eye ball out with a tooth pick in frustration?

They have been playing outside in the rain too, because I am a great advocate for ‘fresh air’. I am not, however, a great advocate for muddy leggings and wet sock and knockers stashed under beds. They have gone feral. ‘SHUT THE FUCKING DOOR,’ I yelled yesterday, in true fishwife style as they raced in and out in their bogging welly boots for the zillionth time. ‘You shouldn’t use the f-word to your child’ said the Small One, primly. ‘You shouldn’t leave the fucking door open,’ I replied.

I know. It’s terrible. I’m awful. I’m just so bloody tired and stressed and everything is dirty and sticky and there doesn’t seem to be any end to it. HELP ME. Send me kind thoughts. Share me the profanities that you have not only muttered but directed at your children. Make me feel less of a rubbish mum. Please.

*I wrote this post a few years ago when I still called The Small Child ‘Father Jack’ because she was such a fierce three year old and used to run around looking for her bottle shouting ‘ MILK!’ in the sort of enraged tone Father Jack demanding ‘DRINK!”