Friday 3 May

Blog Every Day in May - A day in my life

I'm struggling with today's subject! I actually quite enjoy reading about other people's days, ordinary days though they may be, and mine sounds decidedly boring. But, maybe other people will find it interesting, so I'll persevere.

Today's a work from home day. This means getting the children up and ready for school, a frenetic couple of hours the same as in households up and down the country. Go and find your socks and shoes, have you packed your lunchbox, why is your cereal bowl still in the front room. After 14yo has left for her school bus, peace and quiet return to the house, my little cafetiere is filled with coffee and steaming hot water, and I settle down to my day of work. 

I have worked from home for more than 14 years now. I started when I was still pregnant with 14yo and the daily commute, a car journey which should take 45 minutes but is regularly disrupted, became a bit much. After she was born and I returned from my  maternity leave, I continued the combination of working from home and from the office and have done so ever since, changing the number of hours and days as the children have got older. I think I have the best of both worlds. Some people think working from home is ideal, and in some ways it is. You avoid travel times and frustrations, you get to hang the laundry on the line, you can make a nice sandwich for lunch and you can have Radio 4 on in the background all day. But the downside is the loneliness. There is no substitute for the support and camaraderie of good colleagues.

I normally work till the children come home from school. Often we then go out - library, ballet lessons, after school clubs. Once a week we do our supermarket shop, which oddly enough we all enjoy. We share a coffee and something nice in the Costa in the supermarket, and then 11yo and I stay behind to do some knitting and the weekly crossword while 14yo goes off with my shopping list and a trolley to do the shopping... yes I know I'm very lucky! 

When we come back home, our routine isn't much different from anybody else. I cook us something to eat, we have a meal together, we clear up. This now includes doing the washing up, since the dishwasher broke a few months ago. Although we all sigh and exclaim how much we hate the washing up, it's actually a nice time to chat about our day. After that it's time to chase 11yo to do everything he has to do before he goes to bed. Once he's gone upstairs, I try to get in a bit of fitness. I much prefer being out on the bike or going for a walk, but failing that, I have several fitness DVDs which are quite effective. It's also a bit of quality time for 14yo, when we either watch something together on television or if it's cold, we go upstairs with hot water bottles, hot chocolate and a book or magazine. If we watch television, I normally have my knitting or crochet to hand - it's hard to just sit still and watch!

Today is a bit different though - the children will be picked up by J. shortly after coming home from school and B. and I are off to a concert. I'm very much looking forward to it but won't be able to relax until we're actually on our way, as B. is notorious for his lack of punctuality. I may have told him that we need to be there earlier than the actual start time, in the vague hope of making it on time...

I left my camera at B's house last weekend, so have not been able to take any photos this week. Hoping to get a few more photo posts in when I get my camera back tonight!