Marvellous May

The advent of May heralded a new normal, a good settling into routine and the chance for many celebrations.

The three teachers in the house worked intensively with online teaching and pre-recorded lessons. Jonny and Adele began their days with lessons starting at 6.30 am before moving on in the afternoon to prepping for the next batch. For Angie, hours were spent sitting in front of a computer screen, answering queries from students, liaising and meeting online with colleagues or marking assignments. The latter proved to be an absolute nightmare: multiple documents needed to be opened or downloaded, then deciphered. Work was submitted upside down, sideways, out of focus or illegibly faint. What could have taken a minute or two 'in real life' could take up to 10 minutes onscreen, especially when marking maths. How the children expected their teachers to understand their work when questions were not numbered, ot submitted haphazardly in any sort of random order, was a mystery...

Online teaching, was, however, fun in many ways. Individual 'chats' or actual calls with children, helping them with completing or managing their assignments, were very rewarding, albeit not sustainable in real life. Having spent half an hour working through a variety of problems with one child gave me pause for thought: doing that with every pupil would mean a 10 hour working day just on conversations... Some wonderful work was submitted and parents, too, gave feedback on the lessons. Indeed, my Year 2 RE lessons were some of the best planned and most satisfying, for both my pupils and me, which I have delivered for a long time.

There were many benefits to working at home: most of all, the opportunity to be flexible. So lunch breaks were taken sitting on the patio; a cycle ride before work was possible, or a  midday dog walk; and there were many opportunities to take a brief break and then return, refreshed, to a very challenging work situation.

When not working, we took advantage of the weather, which was tremendous: no rainfall at all during the whole month meant clear, sunny mornings, beautiful cliff walks and stunning flowers.

Shopping became a rare occurrence: we ordered online and ventured out only every ten to fourteen days, early in the morning before the queues started. A new rhythm to life...

Two birthdays - Richard's and Adele's - were celebrated in style with, firstly, drinks with Nicky and Richard over the fence, complete with birthday banner, and then, for Adele, a special meal. Pizza night, with the discovery of gluten-free pizza bases. The end of the month saw the first couple of barbecues - happily, we had unwittingly asked Nicky and Richard over on Nicky's birthday, spending a lovely evening together.

May saw us move out of lockdown: May 3rd, in fact, was the first day with no new Covid-19 cases on the island and by May 27th there were no active cases at all. (Nicky kept notes of all the data in her diary, updating it every day as numbers of active cases dropped.) We moved from total lockdown, where we were allowed out only for essential, infrequent shopping, medical visits, and a maximum of two hours of exercise, first to four hours of exercise and then the possibility of 'bubbling' with another household, where we were allowed to meet up in each others' homes without having to maintain any kind of distance from one another. After that, we were allowed to 'bubble' with two other households as well... and then: no bubbles at all, but unlimited meetings with any one else as long as we maintained a metre distance in our homes and gardens and two metres in public places, gathering in groups of any size up to a maximum of 30. Non-essential shops and businesses prepared to open, and schools were given permission to return after the half term break. But that is next month's story....