I don't like looking back on the COVID isolation period. I think we were fed a lie about the viciousness of the virus, although we could see how bad it could be. I am a true vaxxer, but it was a mad panic, and our useless government made it worse. It was an awful period and mercifully hastened the demise of my marriage, which lasted about a year after things got back to normal.
I haven't spoken much about that. And I don't want to mention it in the kids' blog sections. I was miserably unhappy in the marriage for years. Part of this blog is to write my ex-wife out of the narrative in such a way that it doesn't detract from the story. I will say that I was very impressed with the way that she got on with things during COVID. Living under those circumstances was too much. We didn't really like each other.
After we separated in July 2022 I went looking for a shrink in the neighbourhood. They were all busy. I think COVID destroyed many marriages.
I've left the we in this post, all the other posts he had the "we" replaced with either "I" or "me".
I have decided to be a lot more prolific during the isolation
period (I've broken my first rule about blog posts - rule 1 NEVER START
A POST WITH I). There's a lot to write about, and possibly a little
more time to write than before. We're OK here, we live in a biggish
house and the kids have a fair amount of space to move around. This is
obviously very unlike the overwhelming number of people who don't have
those kinds of privileges. We have decided to set up a routine for
ourselves and the kids and the three other people that live on our
property. If it helps you, I'll run through it
The kids are still at school. The school is making a massive attempt to ensure that the lessons are delivered to them from Google Classroom, this is all very well but they still need to be supervised. With both parents and our helper (affectionately known as the Magic Black Woman
- I can't escape my massive Peter Green obsession) around to supervise,
it's a little easier. But we all have to work too. The trick here is
the routine
- The kids need to start school at 7 or 7:30. This means that they
are dressed and have had breakfast and teeth brushed at that time. They
will have an hour and a half of supervised school work. My working day
will now start at 10 to accommodate this
- They then have an hour to play or run around or do some activity
- Classes resume at 11 until 12.
- Break for lunch
- They must then entertain themselves for an hour or so. As my wife
says - they need to be bored and learn to be bored and figure out how to
cope with this
- Half an hour to catch up on what they have done
- Then they are on their own
I think this routine is going to be more involved than this. We still
don't know how to manage our own work schedules yet. But we are going
to be rigid in this routine during the weekdays. Weekends will be
different. If we don't find ourselves quarantined because we have
picked up the virus then we'll take them to the park, go for rides on
our bikes and throw balls around, without talking to anyone
The other thing that we feel very strongly about is supporting local
businesses. There are a number of restaurants in our neighbourhood.
Obviously money is not flowing. But we need to find ways to support
them. I can see that we will need people to go shopping for us for
small items. Hair still needs to be cut. Newspapers (other than
iqbal's - we are proudly an iqbal-free newspaper house) need to be
bought.
I'll keep on publishing our (hopefully) progress. Tempers are going
to fray. It's a matter of looking beyond this isolation and coming out
the other end with a modicum of sanity. What I do know is that the
world will change substantially as a result of this virus. Ways of
doing business will change. Already I have seen companies taking a lead in getting classes to people on the other end of an IP connection. I'll write more on this in the days to come
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