Sunday, 19 April 2020

Lock Down Week 2


Towards the end of this week with the chocolate supplies diminishing and even the blessed, saviour   milkman sold out of his extortionately priced chocolate hobnobs, I began indulgently dreaming of toffee crisps and donuts I had an urge to join in with the local festivities and spruce up the front of the house.

Well, I say urge…

If I’m completely honest it was driven by two Facebook posts I’d seen in the last half hour from two friends who had been visited by policemen giving out Easter Eggs to bored kids on lock down. I had the bored kids but was I communicating that fact sufficiently to the world?

Their wonderful kids had drawn beautiful uplifting rainbows, filling the street view with colour and hope as well as written slogans of gratitude to NHS staff and other key workers interspersed with love hearts and flowers. A fantastical sight for all on their daily constitutional!

Our porch had a rather paltry rainbow on display one that would barely be visible from the road, my youngest son – the artist - following his big brother’s tradition of doing as little amount of work as possible for each given task (part two of the tradition is starting it beyond the last possible point it would be sufficient to begin) had under duress painted it the week before.

He enjoys it when we do these things together honest, but I have never known a kid have so many excuses and distractions or a kid who can take so impossibly long to start any given activity from picking up a towel on the bathroom floor to the incredibly ‘painful for all’ weekly SATS revision homework. (The book says 10 minute activities, I do it with him while his brother goes to football practice and is out of the house for 2 hours – we’re often still doing it on his return…)

Anyway there was no way a policeman driving down our road would spot the rainbow so I had to take action! Now I am not callous enough to draw my own felt tip creations nor use my left hand to write child-like, misspelt messages of support for our brave key workers. That thought did not cross my mind.

Spurred on by the drive for ‘bear hunting’ that week – a fun way for children and soppy adults alike to enjoy their daily exercise by spotting cuddly toys in people’s windows, I lined up a selection of teddies the kids owned in my own bedroom window.
Actually, I went nuts, popping in Dobby from the Wonderful World of Wizardry, (Nearly 50 quid on the studio tour now confined to the blanket box), Paddington (better value at the cost of 3 empty marmite jars and postage and packing!), a Yoda, a meercat a dog, a traditional bear and finally an Easter Bunny lest we forgot the reason for this charade… free police chocolate!

Needless to say, I did not receive any Complimentary Easter Eggs from her majesty’s constabulary, though maybe I cheered up a daily walk or two.


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