Week 11

Completed jigsaw

After a week off, Tom and I were back up for home schooling again.  This week it was fractions in maths and semi colons, spelling and a reading comprehension in English.  Tom stormed it this week - we didn't have any conflicts - phew!

Mindfulness was doing another 1,000 piece jigsaw and more work on his railway article.  I said no to baking this week as I'm putting on weight and wanted a week off sweet treats in the house.

Monday we drove up to Ribblehead and met up with the Raddas for a walk (Rebecca is an only child too - so with the new regulations, we are 6 and allowed out together as long as we keep to 2 metres apart - very easy in the Dales!).  It was a glorious evening, blue sky, sunshine, the countryside was shining in the sunlight.  We found a wonderful packhorse bridge and river, and then Jon took us to a derelict settlement called Thorns.  Think there were about 5 houses, and a collection of barns etc.  There was even a cobble road that ran through it.  I love places like this - wish I could go back in time to see it when it was alive, but was happy to wonder through and imagine how it must have once been.  I was really enjoying myself, until a mad woman with three very loud barking dogs shouted at me across a field for disturbing an owl?!  I could barely hear her because her two dogs were making such a din!!!!

16th century packhorse bridge

Apparently, she is up there for a couple of hours every day (including every day during lockdown), she lives in Ingleton.  She has put up handwritten notices all over the place telling people to respect the place, keep to the footpath and keep dogs on a lead - her dogs weren't on a lead?!  I didn't disturb an owl, I was quietly looking around the buildings - an angry woman - apparently she drives the taxi that takes children to school from Ribblehead every day - not sure I would want my child in her company - she used 'flowery' language with Tom and Rebecca present.  Anyway, although she ruined the moment for me, she quickly became an annecdote and it was such a lovely evening and so nice to spend time with friends at last.  Rebecca was hoarse by the end of the evening as she talked so much!

Social distancing - Dales style

Tuesday evening saw us in Settle visiting Pat and Bob in their garden for an hour or so - as we are 'clean' and now allowed to meet up in groups of up to 6 in gardens.  Once Tom goes back to school we become a risk again.

Thursday was an exciting day...he went back to school.  Ingleton Primary School opened its doors to Year 6 only.  They have split Year 6 into 2 bubbles of 10: one bubble goes in Monday and Tuesday, the school then gets a deep clean on the Wednesday and then the other goes in Thursday and Friday.  They don't wear school uniform, they are only allowed to take themselves and a coat in with them.  Everyone has to have a school packed lunch.  Each child has a desk allocated to them and on that is a tray with all their equipment including a laptop (didn't even know the school had laptops?!), a pack of tissues, a zipper bag to put dirty tissues in, books, pens, pencils and a beaker for water.

A schoolboy again!

They aren't allowed to walk around the classroom at all, otherwise the two meter rule goes out of the window.  There are footprints all over the place to keep the kids 2 metres away from each other.  They have put in extra washing facilities, and have special parts of the school grounds which only they are allowed to play in.  Tom was very excited to return - he was literally bouncing off the walls on Wednesday with the prospect.  Funny isn't it - he can't meet up with 10 of his friends and how ever many adults in the 'outside world' but it is fine in a small classroom?!  The poor boy hasn't had any childish interaction for 11 weeks and is in need of it.   

The school sent through a video, detailing all the routines so the kids knew what to expect.  Only one adult is allowed to accompany their children at a time, we aren't allowed in the school grounds at all.  Basically they want as few adults as possible anywhere near them.  Tom is going to take himself to and fro school from now on - we don't need to be there.  Of the 10 in his bubble - 7 turned up.  His bubble is all but one of the boys and 5 girls.  Only 2 of the girls turned up - they were both all smiles. The boys were nonchalant.  They were all very compliant, standing on their footprints and filed into school quietly and calmly.  Year 6 are a good bunch, so I don't think there will be any problems with them.  Mrs Colledge and Mrs Clements were obviously very excited to see the kids again.

Storrs Common

I spent the day catching up with Lily Pad Bakery.  I wrote out a cake order for later this month and then started thinking about chocolate as Gingerbugs will be opening its doors again on the 16th June as long as there aren't too many morons in the village (if there are, they will close as it isn't safe for them to have them in their shop - from both health and financial points of view!).  So it was a day of lists, spreadsheets and getting the rusty gears of my creative brain oiled again ready for use.  It filled the day though and before I knew it, Tom was back home (he finishes at 3pm now).  He had a great day - came home caked in mud so went up and had a shower straight away.  They only had one lesson: maths, and the rest of the time was spent outside catching up with each other.  Mrs Clements said that she did have lots of activities planned, but she couldn't bring herself to do them and just let them have a catch up.  He was very energised, and was happily bouncing about the place for the rest of the day.

Yamaha MT-09 - brilliant hooligan bike

Friday - Tom went happily back to school and I spent the day making chocolate.  It was a strange day, as Matt took the bike out to get its service, meaning that I was home alone for the first time in 12 weeks.  It was weird!  

I put my head down and got on making some chocolate, took a while to get going and in the routine of it, but got a fair amount done.  Matt came back just in time for lunch, Tom got back at 3 and it was the weekend.  Hurray.  We got an email from the school today which was disappointing.  They have decided to have all years return to school, as they can only have a maximum of 10 per classroom (their classrooms are too small for 15 - to think they had 36 in their class last year!!!!) this means that Year 6 are only back for 4 weeks - 8 sessions in total.  We, along with everyone else had assumed that when they went back they would go back until the end of the school term as nothing in the communications had suggested otherwise.  I understand that they need to be fair to all children, and Year 6 is getting an extra week to everyone else, but it was disappointing.  I'm hoping they aren't expecting us to homeschool them after they've left - that would be a step too far I think!

HIGH tide at Arnside

Kestrel diving

Saturday we had a slow morning, had lunch at home (when are we ever going to eat out again) and then headed over to Arnside in search for a walk without morons.  We headed to the village centre and easily found a parking space (good sign) we then thought we would walk around the coast and then up the Knott.  Oh no, bad idea...we started the beach walk to find no beach - just water!  It was high tide and by high tide, I mean HIGH tide.  We had to dance in and out of the waves, hummm, probably not a great idea, so we decided to turn off the coast walk and head up the Knott first.

This we did, enjoyed the views and then headed down to find the path that hugged the coast back to Arnside.  We hadn't done that before.  It was incredibly narrow, but luckily we didn't meet anyone else.  Was a nice mixture of woodland, bushes, sea, cliffs and sand.  We got back to Arnside and headed home - takeaway pizza was on the menu for tea.

On Sunday we had another easy morning and after lunch headed to Hutton Roof to walk around the Crags.  This is a walk we've been meaning to do for years (not far from Lupton) but for one reason or another kept forgetting about.  It was a good walk: it had everything: limestone pavement, woodland, dozens of paths to get lost in, open farmland, good views etc etc.  At one point it felt like we were in mangrove swamps, with lots of knarled tree roots, humidity, moss etc.  How we didn't get lost is beyond me (lucky Matt has his tech!).  Anyway a good walk, certainly worth doing again and taking in Farleton Knott if we had all day.

Lenticular clouds above Ingleton

And that was it - another week ticked off the list.