Noted

There's a post it note on the door to our music room which has had a lot of use lately, inspired by Caroline Bowen’s  recently posted picture on Twitter.  Her sign is a bit more detailed than my effort which just says "I'm BUSY ask Dad!" but it does convey the same message to the children: I am attempting, and probably failing, to continue to work in something vaguely resembling a normal fashion. I know it’s weird for you and you don't understand what's happening, but I need you not to disturb me while I try to achieve a tiny fraction of what I would expect to do in a typical day! It's challenging to say the least, and I want to take a moment to acknowledge that. The difficulties of working (or not working) from home whilst attempting to parent* and home educate** as well, at times feel insurmountable. As I mentioned in earlier blogs I am a part time Music Teacher as well as a Music Education Hub manager. The flexible working patterns of two...

I've got a song that's stuck in my head - not quite as bad as the one Joe Simpson had in Touching the Void* but it's not far off... it's also not really a typical ear worm and it's not the whole song. It begins  "Where do we go from here, this isn't where we intended to be..." As I'm sure you’ll all recognise, it's the opening line from  You Must Love Me  from  Evita . Later it continues:  "Certainties disappear, what do we do for our dreams to survive? How do we keep all our passions alive as we used to do?"  Although strangely fitting, the lyrics are staying with me almost constantly which is less than ideal, and to paraphrase Ms. Minogue, I can't get them out of my head! Luckily, my permanent internal soundtrack has coincided with the locating of my missing headphones so I am at least able to block it out for a bit most days. The lyrics have got me thinking though about the journey that we're on, this unen...

We're all facing difficulties just now, but it’s important we keep things in perspective. Some of us are seriously suffering. Like me. Because I've lost my headphones. This is causing all kinds of havoc as they are vital to my concentration levels while working from home and is doubly irritating as I know they are somewhere in the house! I actually know this to be undeniably true as I had them in the house last week and, given the current state of affairs, no-one has left the homestead until a couple of days ago. Which is when I realised I couldn't find them. They have to be here somewhere. This rising tide of eye-twitching frustration is something I’m familiar with as I'm no stranger to losing things, but in one sense I am grateful as it has given me a brainwave for this week’s blog. Still attempting not to mention the un-mentionable * (which is becoming increasingly challenging, when it is all anyone else seems to be talking about) I am veering away slight...

Oddly, as one who's never short of something to say, this week - I have found it somewhat challenging to write. To use an appropriately musical metaphor, I liken this particular post to that difficult follow up second album; prone to disappoint after a somewhat successful debut. Additionally, I wasn't sure what day to post this week, as I'm sure like many others I don't even know what day it is any more, there's a huge jigsaw on the kitchen table and worse than that, my food brain thinks it's Christmas. Do know that I am taking steps to try to combat this, and I'm now fairly sure that a week (or something??) into lockdown, if that-which-must-not-be-named* doesn't kill me, working out with Joe Wicks is almost certainly going to... Ultimately, I have decided to combine this week's offering with the launch of our online Sharing site... which we’ve worked really hard with the team at Squeegee Design to get up and running this week. The idea is to...