Gingerbread Familia - Juli 2020

Time Together

Yes, it has been a weird year.  Yes, we are in the middle of a pandemic. Yes, I am on holiday and want to make the most of it. No, we aren’t allowed to go anywhere.  The government has opened “air bridges” but as people are relaxing on the beaches or in tavernas they are closing the bridges with hours of notice.  To avoid this we have decided to stay home and make the most of the amazing destinations on our doorsteps. First things first we decided to have a picnic, we chose to visit Roughlee, it has a lovely little picnic area by a babbling brook which leads to waterfall.  It’s a village we have visited before, which is steeped in history and has a monument to Alice Nutter one of the Pendle Witches.  For us it was somewhere close by for us to visit so we could have a well deserved (on my part at least) lie in.  It was nice to relax and spend time together chatting, laughing and making memories. Here’s to more trips together and more memories to make.

Fostering

We have been assigned a social worker and have had our first ever Zoom meeting.  The benefits of Covid19 are that we will be having our weekly sessions via Zoom and so they can take place whenever and whereever we want them to.  The sessions will cover our individual life stories, why we want to foster rather than adopt, 

Gingerbread Life - Juli 2020

While it’s probably not true, it feels like the rest of the country have just had four months holiday.  During the pandemic lockdown I have worked everyday, making resources, uploading lessons and calling children to check on their welfare.  It has been hard, I’ve worked harder and longer than if I was in the school building.  I have tried not to get in to any bad habits, so I have been waking up at the same time, having my meals at the same time and have documented everything I have been doing.  For the last eight weeks I have been on the Essential Worker/Vulnerable worker rota meaning I have been back in school.  Initially I worked with groups of children but as they stopped coming(self isolation) I became a glorified mover.  I single handily emptied two reception classrooms and a huge nursery of furniture and resources.  There is a bigger story here about lazy coworkers but I’m not really ready to discuss that, yet. Baring all of this in mind I can’t believe we’ve made it.  It’s the end of the weirdest school year ever.  On top of the global pandemic which has wiped out a generation of children’s academic year, we’ve dealt with a restructure which has meant saying goodbye to some amazing staff.  I have “warned” the senior leaders that I am planning to leave as the commute is really hard.  Particularly when I now know that it can take just over half an hour.  This is because a lot of council staff are working from home (until at least the new year 2021) and because the major flood prevention works has finally finished, after four years of work. Goodbye 2019-2020 I am now on holiday and while I can’t visit family and friends, I intend to make the most of my time at home with my One True Love. 

Gingerbread Haus - Juni 2020

We have been so lucky during lockdown to have had the chance to be in our own home.  Thinking about the houses/places we lived in together I am glad we are here.  We have lots of room to have space on our home, we have access to a front garden and a back garden.  We have used this time improving and tweaking the kitchen cupboards, dining room, garden and have started to refurb the big room. We had picked up a couple of beds on Facebook just after we moved in but the room took on a musty odour. GO said it was the house I was convinced it was either the beds or the mattress his mother had given us.  We decided to sell the beds, we made £50 profit which we used to get the gutters professionally cleared. Once they had gone it was obvious that smell was due to mattress.  We are waiting to find out if we get approved to foster before we make any big purchases.   It all depends on the age range. 

Gingerbread Travel - Juni 2020

Back to work for me so we haven’t really travelled.  The daily commute has been halved because everyone else is at home in lockdown.  The press has really gone for teachers calling us lazy.  What really annoys me is that most of those are tucked up safe either furloughed or working from home.  Once society reopens let’s see how quickly they return to their workplaces.

Gingerbread Life - Juni 2020

Well it was with great trepidation that I headed back in to school.  I had been sent home in March to shield, as an asthmatic, but had found out that I wasn’t asthmatic enough.

I have to say I was so happy to be working for the trust that I do.  Their priority the whole time has been the health, safety and well being of staff and pupils.  Everything that was put into place made me feel so safe and at ease and that meant the children and parents also felt safe and at ease. It was a bit strange but I was initially only on a two on three day off rota until some of “my” children came back in.  I enjoyed lunch with my colleagues watching Batgain Hunt and Antiques Road Trio. Then we only had a couple before they had to self isolate and didn’t return.  I was then placed in lifting and shifting duty, which I honestly didn’t mind, until I realised that no one would be helping as I emptied two reception classroom and a huge nursery.  After three weeks my back gave out at 2.30 on the last day!  

Gingerbread Familia - Juni 2020

We were watching the news when the host mentioned that during lockdown it had become more obvious that there was a worrying lack of foster carers.  Children weren’t getting the help they needed or deserved.  “That’s so sad isn’t it?”  I asked GO, his reply shocked me, “It is, so sad, that’s why I have applied to become a foster career.”  In some marriages that fact that one spouse has applied to become a foster carer without discussing it with the other could be a problem, for us though it was such a pleasant surprise.  Fostering has been something we have discussed, we applied to adopt which didn’t work out for us, we wanted to help children.  We want to make a difference, selfishly, fostering is a way to have a big family.  All the joy spread out (I know I’m a dreamer).  We don’t know what is ahead of us just yet, will our previous attempt to adopt be held against us?  Do we come across well on video?  COVID has made a difference to how the process proceeds most of our meetings will be on Zoom.   All that aside, for now, we are excited for our future.

Gingerbread Life - Mai 2020

We Will Remember Them

Today we will remember them, our thoughts are with them, their families and loved ones and all of those affected. I will never forget hearing the news.  How devastated I was, how devastated and shocked everyone was. People I know were there.  People I know, knew people who were there.  Families were shattered, lives were forever changed, loves were lost they will not be forgotten.  The world will not and cannot be the same.

22-05-2017, Manchester’s 22 Angels

Gingerbread Familia - Mai 2020

Happy Mutter Tag

I feel like I should be saying it’s a strange one but for us it’s normal to only see each on Skype and to pass greetings via social media or text messages it’s how we have lived our lives for over twenty years.  For the last 9 we’ve been living in three countries always apart but always together in our hearts.  

Happy Mother’s Day to the funniest, weirdest, feistiest and lovely mother’s I know.  She is great at her job (mumming) and has, “even if I say so myself” done a wonderful job of raising two decent human beings.  Lovely you lots Mamilein.

Gingerbread Haus - Mai 2020

We are massive Marvel fans, it’s not something that we introduced each other to it’s something that we discovered together.  One thing we always said is we’d love to have the time to watch all of the movies in chronological order.  Well, now we have the time, we will not do it in one sitting but will spend weekends making our way through them all.

Gingerbread Travel - April 2020

As travel has been put on hold for the foreseeable we had a chat about where we would still like to travel.  As I am now one country behind I get to choose the next country we visit.  Our lists look pretty similar (I’m the first ticks) to be honest.

Tokyo ✔️✔️

Morocco ✔️X

Cuba ✔️ ✔️

Iceland ✔️✔️

Kenya ✔️ X

Finland ✔️ ✔️

Prague X ✔️

Mexico ✔️ ✔️

Peru ✔️ ✔️

Thailand ✔️ ✔️

Croatia ✔️ ✔️