2 month isolation milestone

We thought it was time for another update as 4th May marked our 2 month milestone in isolation as we began our self-isolation earlier than the official "stay home" lockdown on 23rd March. Since our 5 week self-isolation update, we've celebrated another birthday in isolation. Miss T turned 8 in April and she didn't let the current situation spoil things for her. She simply announced that she's going to have two birthdays this year and have a party once the COVID-19 situation is over. 

Her birthday usually falls in the Easter holidays and this time it was very close to Easter too so we had a whole weekend of celerations with an Easter egg hunt in the garden the next day. Our usual tradition is to go to Granny and Grandad's house for the egg hunt each year but for obvious reasons that wasn't an option. They were with us in spirit though and had even organised the eggs for the children to find by dropping them round on our doorstep previously.

Miss T continues to enjoy plenty of arts and crafts - often choosing "art" or D&T lessons for homeschooling rather than, say, Maths or English.

You may remember that J became the world record holder for Crossy Road last month with a score of 2506. Well, by the end of the month on 30th April 2020 he had continued to improve and beat his own world record with a new high score of 3303! Wow! His determination, dedication and commitment is impressive.

Although Richard is busy working on the COVID-19 Rheumatology research study, we have tried to make time for board games together as a family. Perhaps Monopoly wasn't the best choice though as it went on for hours!!!

Our cat, Star, continues to be our emotional support when days feel tough. He's just so in tune with our emotions and we all adore him so much.

And some days definitely feel more emotional than others. I seem to manage 2 weeks of positivity at a time before I have a weekend of overwhelm. Last weekend was the low weekend and so I couldn't even bring myself to write this 2 month milestone post until today rather than on 4th May.

When the days are difficult - we found that cake helps! (Baking has always been the thing I do whenever I'm feeling low).

And my sourdough starter has really come into its own. As well as enabling me to bake bread daily without the need for shop-bought yeast between grocery deliveries which are sometimes more than 2 weeks apart, I've also been able to make sourdough scones, sourdough chelsea buns and sourdough iced buns (the iced buns are the exact same dough recipe as the chelsea buns but shaped into fingers). I've also used sourdough for pizza dough and garlic bread. The possibilities are incredible!

Den building and reading have proved popular...

And we've just gradually begun to go outdoors a little bit again but deliberately finding the quietest times to keep the risks as low as possible for Miss T.

I hope the world will be in a better place by the time I write our next update because sadly here in the UK things have got far worse in the past month. So from 4th April to 4th May this is what has happened - it is hard to comprehend and so sad. As someone said to me recently just imagine what a different situation we would be in if everyone had isolated from 4th March as we did when there had not yet been a single death in the UK.

4th April 2020  41,903 confirmed cases
4th April 2020  4,313 deaths

4th May 190,584 confirmed cases
4th May 28,734 deaths

7th May 206,715 confirmed cases
7th May 30,615 deaths

Let's hope wiser decisions are made from here on.