A bad feeling

Day 15

Today we have a new highest record in the daily death toll 😭 786.

UK total 6,159.

💔We are seeing videos from patients inside hospitals, begging people to stay at home as to not catch Covid-19. 

💔We are receiving daily death tolls and counts of the number of people admitted to hospital with the desease. 

💔We have adverts or updates on the TV, radio and even Spotify, telling us to stay at home in order to save lives. 

💔We see news teams entering into ICU wards to get an understanding of the scale of this pandemic and how it is affecting patients and staff and the families left behind. 

💔We are seeing names and photos of the nurses, doctors and other "front line" staff that are dieing due to this illness simply because they were doing their job trying to save people.

Today we had the news that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is now in ICU struggling to get enough oxygen!

Should we make it through this, I very much doubt that life will be the same. We as a nation will have lost so much and had to give up so much, just in order to slow down this desease, never mind stop it.

Stay Home. Stay Safe. 

Summer's Birthday

Day 14

My bubba girl turned 4 yesterday!

I have no idea where that time has gone!

Despite being in lockdown, I think that she enjoyed her day. A few family members has posted their gifts and sent cards, so she was lucky enough to have a little pile of presents to open.

She had some "elsa" balloons (snowflakes) and some bunting. Mum managed to have the number 4 blown up at the corner shop! Yay! I was so grateful and happy after DPD had let me down on the helium canister. 

There was a wee incident with the balloon though... 

So...Here's what happened...

We walked the dog down to the lane, and Summer took her new birthday car for a spin, we took her helium balloon with us, tied to the spoiler.

Naturally, the ribbon came lose and up floated the balloon! Luckily a nearby tree caught it.... Time for Mummy to save the day!

I took a run up and scaled the hedge, got attacked by thorns and branches in the process, then had to climb the tree to reach the balloon!

I have a few scratches and scrapes and a rather muddy pair of jeans, but a rescued balloon and a happy birthday girl! 

Annoyingly the balloon popped on the way down! Never fear, we patched it up with tape and blew it up with air!

We had a video chat with the family, where we all sang Happy Birthday and Summer blew out the candles on her cake. 

Its a real shame that we couldn't be with our family as had been originally planned, but I am so thankful that at least Mum was with us and that Summer enjoyed her day. 

A reminder

Day 11

Today the UK has had its highest death toll within 24hrs (to date) by Covid19.

684

Giving us a total of 3,605. 

I saw a post on Facebook that I want to keep as a reminder in the many years to come. Something for me to look back at (should I survive this pandemic) and something to be shown to younger generations.

Just so I NEVER forget.....Friday 3 April 2020

Diesel price at Morrison’s was £1.10
School cancelled
GCSEs cancelled
A-Levels cancelled
Self-distancing measures on the rise.
Tape on the floors at shops to help distance shoppers (2m) from each other.
Limited number of people inside shops, therefore, lineups outside the doors.
Non-essential shops and businesses mandated closed.
Pubs, theatres, restaurants are closed.
Entire sports seasons cancelled.
Concerts, tours, festivals, entertainment events - cancelled.
Weddings, family celebrations, holiday gatherings - cancelled.
Churches are closed. Graveyards are shut. 
Don't socialise with anyone outside of your home.
Children's outdoor play parks are closed.
We are to distance from each other.
Shortage of masks, gowns, gloves for our front-line workers.
Shortage of ventilators for the critically ill.
Panic buying sets in and we have no toilet paper, no disinfecting supplies, no paper towel no laundry soap, no hand sanitiser.
Bread, pasta, flour, chicken and chopped tomatoes are sold out everywhere 
Shelves are bare.
Manufacturers, distilleries and other businesses switch their lines to help make visors, masks, hand sanitiser and PPE.
All non-essential travel banned.
Fines are established for breaking the rules. Police patrolling the streets.
Arenas open up for the overflow of Covid-19 patients.
Press conferences daily from the government. 
The government throws money at businesses to try to keep the economy from imploding.  Grants and loans. The government to pay 80% of employees wages where businesses cannot continue to do so.
Daily updates on new cases and deaths.
The dead are denied wakes or funerals and barely anyone is allowed at the graveside.
Barely anyone on the roads.
People wearing masks and gloves outside.
Essential key workers are terrified to go to work.
Medical field workers are afraid to go home to their families.

This is the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic, declared March 11th, 2020.

Life is precious and not to take the things we dearly love for granted.

We have so much!
Be thankful. Be grateful.
Be kind to each other - love one another - support everyone.

Life is uncertain right now. 
Stay Home! Stay safe! 

Just keep sweeping

Day 4

Gravel and toddlers don't mix. 

It's a recipe for disaster, so with that in mind Mum started to sweep it up!

It is just as well that we can't go anywhere and have nothing else to do. So we did it, we swept the entire driveway, Summer included and she even scraped her knuckles on the gravel in the process... Hereby proving the danger!

I braved the infectious world outside by going to the local shop for some essential food items. I had to queue up outside, 2 meters apart from the next person. There was a member of staff at the door, allowing 4 people to be in the shop at any one time. As soon as someone left, you could go in. 

It felt eerie.

 Like I shouldn't be there.

 Like it was wrong. 

In the afternoon we took the dogs out, having our one daily exercise outside. It was another beautiful day! 

You can find the pictures on Instagram @amy.r.n

Sock Toss

Day 3

It was another glorious day!

Once again we found ourselves on the front steps.. Myself rather red raced from the day before. 🥵

We had a relaxing morning, just keeping each other in high spirits and Summer entertained. 

We played a game of Sock Toss, earning points depending on where the sock landed. Great fun!

We threw the ball endlessly for the dogs and Summer found some bits and bobs laying around.

Our exercise was a wonderdul 2 mile walk in the sun. Its technically "round the block", however the positioning of Mum's house, makes it a rather big block.

Find pictures on Instagram @ amy.r.n

😁 Day 3, survived! 

Sunny Afternoon in Lockdown

Day 1

We were fortunate enough to have some sunshine on the 1st day of our UK Lock down and so my mum decided to clean out her car!

We sat on the front steps on the driveway, soaking up the sun and naturally we drank lots of tea. I watched Mum hoover the car and then Summer joined in when it came to washing the outside.

I drew some circles on the floor which Summer had to jump in, making her way from one end of the driveway to the other without leaving the circles... She loved it so much that we ended up with 50!!

Our one form of daily exercise comes in the shape of dog walking, and I have made it my mission to take a photo everyday and share it to the social media world. Find it on Instagram at amy.r.n

Thanks to the lovely weather, our first taster of the lock down didn't seem too bad. 

Keeping Calm... And carrying on.

This is something that everyone struggles with from time to time, especially those with toddlers... And now thanks to the growing epidemic that is Covid-19, we find ourselves in a very stressful situation.

We, as parents are worried, stressed, concerned, tired, angry and upset. We want to protect our families from this evil disease, we want to do our best to help others, to make sure that we can pay the bills etc and we now have the task of home schooling our children too! 

They are with us, inside our homes, 24/7. . They are either old enough to understand and therefore feel similar to ourselves or are too young and are blissfully unaware...

My daughter will be 4 next week, so she is in the "blissfully unaware" category. She knows that there are germs outside and that's why we have to wash our hands and why the park is shut... But of course she doesn't fully comprehend the scale of the issue.

This makes life difficult at times, such as when I'm trying to watch the news and she's jumping around, or when she wants to go out and do something, but of course we can't because of the lock down. 

Thanks to the range of emotions listed above, I don't always have the energy or the positive attitude to play tea parties, my little ponies, build a den or play Lego. Sometimes I just want to curl into ball and pretend like everything is going to be alright... But I can't.

Life carries on. We need to keep calm, and we need to carry on. Summer needs me to be up and active and keep her occupied. We should have a bit of fun together, if nothing else, then to just be grateful that we still can...  when so many others have lost that opportunity to this disease.

I am going to post a few blogs of our activities, walks, dinners, whatever it is that we get up to during this lock down... Some days, it may not be very much, but that's okay! 

Please share with us what you have been doing, or how you are feeling.

Stay Home. Stay Safe. Stay Sane.