I’m high but I’m grounded.
I’m sane but I’m overwhelmed.
I’m lost but I’m hopeful, baby.
What it all comes down to
Is that everything’s gonna be fine, fine, fine…

Thursday

Started work at the usual hour after breakfast. The kids are waking up later and later. By the time all of this is over, they might as well be teenagers given their sleep pattern. Meetings were attended, decisions were decided. I’m increasingly glad of the hour’s calendar block around lunchtime, getting a little time away from the desk to see the sunlight and talk to the kids. This time we even managed to put in a little light gardening, moving the runner bean that’s been on the windowsill into a much larger pot outside, topping up the compost on some of the potatoes, and thinning out the carrots, which are going mad.

Yesterday I promised Sleeper Jr. another bike ride, so after dinner we headed out on a three-and-a-half mile ride, a bit faster this time. On the big downhill stretch he got up to a whole 11mph, much to the annoyance of the few car drivers that were around; not that I cared, I positioned myself to prevent stupid overtaking and gave a wave of thanks when the drivers did overtake in a safe manner. The less said about the idiots who went the wrong side of the traffic islands at pinch points, the better. Got home and got him ready for bed in time for the 8pm weekly applause session, then got a decent amount of grown-up time for a change.

On returning from our ride, I noticed from my phone that D had been trying very hard to get hold of me; he’d just come out of a meeting where he felt like he’d been given impossible choices. I lifted his spirits somewhat by giving him an extra option which had the benefit of being easy to implement and fulfil all the requirements he’s trying to juggle.

Friday

Slept awfully. Adding to the lockdown stresses we’ve had a concern about the house that could potentially cost thousands to get put right. Today we had a structural engineer coming to visit to prepare a report. I sent the kids out for a walk while he was here, and I discussed his findings with him before preparing lunch. It’s been a great weight off my mind to be told exactly why we’ve had cracking appear around an external door frame; it turns out that there’s nothing we need to be concerned about other than a little light redecoration. I’ve never been more delighted to pay someone a fair sum of money for what will be very little direct benefit.

Made lunch for J and the kids while they walked home and spent some time enjoying the sunshine before heading back inside for a bunch more meetings, including a second-stage interview which went very well; the only snag is that the candidate is probably asking for a little too much salary-wise.

The kids dragged me into doing PE with Joe with them while I was supposed to be making paella. Fun for the doing-something-togetherness, but maybe not so much for the actual exercise; I prefer to be out of doors with the wind in my helmet. Maybe tomorrow I’ll manage that. In any case dinner wasn’t massively late, and I’m sure it helped to tire them both out.

Feeling a lot better today mentally. Sleeper Jr. has some emotional literacy work from school which I think is helping him process things. Spent the evening kicking back with various old and retro video games, finishing off 198X, with the first of my non-alcoholic beers from Big Drop. Looking forward to chilling out a bit tomorrow.