Chaos with an emerging sense of intense gratitude!

7am: Wake up feeling tired, remembering all the unaccomplished tasks from yesterday.
Reach for an effervescent vitamin drink before being able to contemplate a vertical position.
Rush around picking up laundry and other detritus from yesterday.
Switch on phone and engage in mindless scrolling.
Quickly throw a sweatshirt on over PJs.

7.50am: Feeling nostalgic for the now non-existent school run that regularly involved leaving home 5 minutes late only to get stuck in 30minutes of traffic.
Instead decide on a home - schooling regime although all conversation with teenager on this subject is thwarted by monosyllabic answers from beneath the duvet.
Well it is still early in the day!

8.15am: Change out of PJs in to the first thing that comes to hand. Set off optimistically to the supermarket, listening to the news peppered with unwanted traffic updates by a broadcaster who is only loosely acquainted with the letter “T”.
Fail to acquire pasta or toilet rolls but feel delighted with the purchase of a very large ball of knitting yarn and an agility ladder! Definitely going to keep the home fires burning with those!

11am: The mood is interesting. More rushing around and throw on a white wash that includes one unnoticed black item which will make its presence felt later and involve a rewash.
Decide to leave the dishwasher and other errands until lunch.
Sit down at messy desk.

In such surreal times, feel unable to decide what the day’s priorities are and commence several things all at once. Discover that an important but local delivery needs to be made and head out in the car. On the way back from the delivery decide to pop into another supermarket as the toilet roll situation at home is genuinely dicey. Again, no luck! But emerge triumphant with shampoo and two lunch meal deals in an attempt to delight the children, who seem to be meal deal aficionados.
Wonder when and how they acquired this knowledge and vow to discourage this behaviour in the future due to the environmental impact of the packaging. Today is not that day though!

2pm: Quickly clear the decks in the kitchen, notice that there isn’t a great deal in the fridge.
Take the now grey wash from the machine and approach this without a trace of humour.
Extract the villainous sock and rerun the machine.
2.30pm: Arrive back at the work desk and make a stab at an important email while allowing irrelevant interruptions.
4pm: Again, feel nostalgic for the school run and suggest a quick walk around the block with the children, an idea which goes down like a lead balloon.

4.30pm: Last-ditch attempt at salvaging something meaningful from the working day and achieve this with a modicum of success, only to notice it is 6.15pm and remember the lack of food.
Speedily make something from store cupboard ingredients, AKA beans on toast, but adding Worcestershire sauce and grated cheese for a bit of pizazz!
7pm: Clear up and load the dishwasher as everyone else suddenly has something more important to do.

7.30pm: Sit at the work desk one last time with the intention of just completing a few essential tasks so that tomorrow will be a day to hit the decks running.
9.45pm: Start to wonder why it is this time of the evening and where it all went pear-shaped. Begin to hatch a plan to avoid a repetition of today.

Finish the day by watching the news and marvel how is it that Laura Kuenssberg manages to be on the radio at 8am and on the news at 10pm still lucid and bright with a coat for every day of the week.

Tomorrow is another day and a real feeling of positivity pervades. Gratitude too, for our NHS and for this quiet time to reflect on how we might live in a simpler way, for having a garden to sit in and for this extra time to spend with the children who will soon be flying the nest… and taking their laundry with them.