A Cup of Tea and a Change of Scenery

Mourning my second office

Wait. If I don't drink coffee, does that mean that I'll never be a real writer?

Between pandemic fears and homeschooling horrors, only a very few things have remained constant. I had to give up my running group, and the bootcamps I teach, first due to physical distancing regulations, and then due to my-children-are-always-at-home.

I had to give up the luxury of my "second office," Starbucks. I didn't work there often, no more than once every three weeks, but I had to give up the idea of having another option besides sharing the dining room table with the three kids (distracting and bickering-y), or my beautiful old secretary desk (more than arm's-length away, no direct line of sight to children not doing schoolwork).

Way back before March, a trip to my "second office" always started with a nice long walk with Ziggy. First stop: the dog park, involving as much frolicking and racing around after balls and other dogs as possible. I didn't play; I was weighed down by my Writerly SatchelTM, that held his favourite (small) blanket to lie down on and a chewy stick and some treats to keep him occupied so I could work. I also brought along another relic of the time before COVID: my reusable cup. (I've had to chug down still-steaming hot latte too many times from giant Starbucks mugs when Ziggy's decided he's had enough and wants to be outside again.) Now, the environment is back to dealing with disposable cups.

My satchel is a gorgeous old leather Roots bag that I found online after a trip to Florence in which we ran out of time to find me a new purse (I don't buy expensive purses, but decided that, if I were to have a souvenir, it might as well be something that I'd use for years), but then I also refused to buy one in the airport, on principle. I got home, with my leather-purse-pocket money still burning a hole in my...well, my pocket, and decided I'd rather have one from Roots instead, a Canadian brand that I've always loved, but by whose prices I have always been horrified by. But, I had permission, pocket money, and while new ones are still far too much for my thrifty self, they last forever. Mine was from Ebay, at a really decent price - £50 pounds instead of £300. Yes, it's used, but in a someone-else-broke-it-in-so-it-looks-just-right way. Sold.

Right, then. It easily holds the dog blanket, dog snacks, dog balls, reusable cup...oh yes, and my notebook, pen and laptop.

Nonexhaustive representation of contents of the Writerly SatchelTM

I'd go in to the Starbucks close to the park, set up my mobile hotspot from my phone, and sip my chai latte or London Fog while Ziggy worked away at his chewy.

Did I get more done in Starbucks than at my desk? No, but I got things done. I blocked out distractions (that weren't Ziggy, at least), and got to feel like a writer in public. Satchel: check! Notebook: check! Laptop: check! Look at me, I'm writing!

Here at home, there is less of that pride. Hey, we're all sitting around the dining room table, the kids on their school iPads, me on my laptop, all trying to work, trying to stay focused, trying to drink my tea before it gets cold. (Ziggy, however, is much more relaxed.)

Teatime

Green tea is for the morning. I start with a cup of flavoured green tea from my growing stash of tins and teas. Dragon Fruit, Berry Blend, Sencha Rose, Mint. Around ten, when the kids take a break, I choose another, boiling the water, then letting it sit while I fill up my little Nessie tea diffuser with loose tea, waiting for the temperature to drop to about 97, then steeping it for two, sometimes three minutes.

Camping tea is necessarily different. You pour boiling water into your mug,  pop in your teabag, and leave it there till noon, topping it up with hot water every half an hour or so.

After lunch, anytime up to 3 pm, I switch to black tea. Plain PG Tips, Assam, Ceylon or Earl Grey, each with a splash of milk. It's warming and heartening.

After 3, the caffeine will keep me awake at night. Herbal (no milk), any one of a giant selection from my tea box, keeps me company on the couch after the kids go to bed, and helps me not miss wine too much during the week. Late, late-night tea is always my Insomniac Blend.

On weekends, I splurge and make myself and the kids lattes.

It's fine, lovely, in fact. I love the tradition and ritual of tea, and I love that my kids love it too. We make a pot of Masala Chai or London Fog or Monster Mash, and serve it with biscuits. They add their own milk and sugar -- probably too much, but that's ok too.

The new normal

We joke about "savings from Starbucks" -- that, on top of saved transit fares and lunches on the go, and any other sundry amounts that get spent when you actually leave the house, we're also not spending £12 a week on coffee (him) or £9 a week on tea lattes (me). Plus the £20+ it costs to stop there "for snacks" for the kids on the way to the park or while running errands on a Saturday. 

I shudder. That's who we were, and who we never wanted to be.

I justify ordering from Hebden Tea (£20 of tea, free shipping) and buying him nice coffee beans, that he grinds up in his new manual burr grinder and brews every morning before joining us in the dining room too.

We miss leaving the house, and offices, whether cafés or real. But here, we are safe, we are healthy, we have tea. That will have to do.

How to Survive Lockdown with My Family

The answer? I probably won't.

In this house, "tea" is a euphemism for "whatever is in Mommy's mug." (Image credit: author's  own)

Well first, don't ask me. Right now, I'm planning on taking them all with me.

I knew this experience would be challenging, but it has been awful so far, even though:

• we are locked up in our (admittedly big) flat
• we are easy walking distance to groceries (wine) and corner stores (wine)
• we were granted special permission to use the courtyard (which up until now has been referred to as the "visual feature only -- no access allowed" in any and all flat correspondence)
• I work from home most of the time anyway
• I have lots of creative ideas for staying active inside
• we are living in the most connected time in all of human history, as far as being able to talk to, see, share with your friends*, coworkers, gyms, drinking buddies, etc.

It should be easier.

When the lockdown was threatened, when the governments were "just" closing borders, I bravely and humbly and civic-dutily declared that all these cancellations were just inconveniences, that anything that I lost (my half marathon weekend in Prague, a trip to Halifax to visit my grandmother, a weekend in the Sherwood Forest, and a week on a farm with the kids and dog in Wales**) was just me being selfishly disappointed.

I was fine with the kids still being at school, yelling after the bus, "Don't forget to wash your hands!" every morning like a crazy person. This replaced my usual mantra, "Don't forget to drink all your water!" Like a crazy person.

But now they're at home. And so is Fis.

This has ruined my life.

I went from being a writer, editor, copywriter and fitness instructor with two bootcamps to being an unqualified home teacher with no patience or coping skills who cries a lot. Luckily, the uniform is the same: sweatpants and a generally dishevelled air.

I went from running five to nine miles, three times a week, to one thirteen-miler once a week, because I can't go out for runs during the day, and somehow, running for two whole hours feels like a better option than spending that same two hours with my family. I've been able to do my 30-minute P90X3 workouts at the end of each school day. The kids are told to leave me alone for 30 minutes. Obviously and of course, they don't.

I'm just trying to make it to Friday at 5:00, when I open the wine.

My WhatsApp groups went from six active ones (two running groups, two bootcamp groups, two silly friend groups) to twelve (acquaintances, fitness groups, school groups), three of which I muted immediately, two of which I quit this morning.

I love the entertaining gifs, the songs, the skits that people do when they're home and bored. I don't love that they have time to be bored. I don't love the home schooling and what-to-do-with-your-kids discussions and links. I hate the well-meaning advice of people that don't have kids or whose kids have left home or who do have kids but not in my kids' school to "just take it easy" and "try less academic activities with the kids for now." Just...don't.

The school groups aren't helping me. I put out a desperate cry at the end of the first week for commiseration -- the six hours I am spending at the dining room table every day, between three children's scheduled zoom meetings, assignments, and breaks that don't match up, coming up with recess fitness routines, and the constant checking that the kid in Year 3, 5 and 6 was at least sort of doing what they were supposed to do -- that this was hard for everyone.

Apparently, for those with only children or whose youngest is in Year 6, everything is going great. Good. For. Them. I'm so glad they're able to fit in a full workday while their children do their schoolwork independently.

I can't run my bootcamps from home. I mean, I could set up zoom sessions, but then the children would be feral and unsupervised and I'd be interrupted nonstop anyway. I'm doing most of my writing work after the kids go to bed, so no, this is not an "opportunity" for me to finish my novel or grow my coaching business. This is survival mode. I'm just trying to make it to Friday at 5:00, when I open the wine.

I know -- I know -- that we are lucky to have our health, supportive friends, this space, this structure to our days. I know that my frustrations are petty and that my kids' behaviour is apparently normal, even though they are objectively the worst children on the planet, unkind and disrespectful and without manners and probably changelings.*** I know that millions of people are in worse situations with more fear and uncertainty.

And I also know that all I'm doing to help is to stay inside; I'm not actively helping.

I am sitting at the dining room table, being interrupted every 90 seconds by a question, a comment, an argument, an... hang on...

Update: Tamsin has found her pencil. It was under a piece of paper. And yes, I agree, Ziggy is very fuzzy.







*and former coworkers
**boy, look at me. That's a whole lot of travel in a month. Unusual, but it hurt more because I have stuck Fis with the kids for a total of TEN DAYS since they were born, and this was the year that I was going to turn that number into TWENTY. Yeah.
***with terrible breath

On boredom and blogging and beginnings

My life is not boring.

It's summer holiday, and with three Hufflings underfoot for nine weeks in a row, plus Ziggy the Office Dog, I have a lot going on. Chris is home this week. My parents are flying in for a visit on Monday. I am busy.


Even when none of this is happening, and it's just me and Ziggy (when the children are happily and safely at school for seven hours of the day), I still have running group and book club (both of which totally make me sound entitled), but also two boot camps that I run, a weekly fitness class to teach, training a client or two, and my increasing number of writing/editing contract products and hours to fulfill, as well as the writing that I am really trying hard to do for myself and for publications like Medium. And don't get me started on SEO and social media presence for myself. (Actually, please get me started on SEO and social media presence for myself - what's the old saying about shoemakers' kids going barefoot?)

Waaaaay back in 'ought seven, it was just me and Chris. I had just started my first government job. It was in a fancy, important office, and I was on the lowest rung of the ladder, which I described as "Chipmunk* at the bottom of the office totem pole". I did some scheduling and document review, and had to be ready for more of the same -- always potentially urgent -- often until an hour or two after my scheduled workday. Due to the almost-everyday-regularity of the overtime requests, I asked if I could just come in at 10 am and stay till 6 every day, or 11 to 7 -- but no, I had to be there "just in case".  I asked for extra work and responsibilities, and only sometimes was given those. So, I sat.  I did my work quickly and well, and between tasks, had time to email friends, plan a wedding and start a blog.

With our moves, I often ended up with bottom-chipmunk jobs, and each time, I did the job well, took on extra, but always had -- and I'm not exaggerating -- at least three hours a day of Not Work (but usually five).

And thus the blog was born! I was away from friends and family, and decided that I had missed the "Facebook window", so the blog was how I showed our changing lives and growing kids, how I shared my experiences. How I told my story.

With harder/better jobs at higher levels (I think I can proudly state that, while my last position was definitely not at the Thunderbird/Raven level, it was safely at least at Bear) came more work -- which totally makes sense and helps explain the difference in salary -- my email, external planning and blog time was cut way back. And somehow, now that I'm freelancing upwards of four hours a day and in charge of my own schedule...and have three kids muppeting around my "home office" all day...I have little to no time to do this.

The difference between writing for my blog and writing for publications is simple. I want to write my blog. I want to write my articles, too, but I sort of "need" to write the articles to make money, so the blog falls on the wayside.

This feels like goodbye.

It sounds like I'm trying to tell you that my blog is over, or at least on hiatus. But, boy, is my tone off this time! I will try to do better. I will try to overcome myself, plan and schedule my posts in advance, all while upping my Twitter game and integrating SEO in a perfectly-natural-yet-effective way.

I just need to transfer writing for my blog over to the "life" side of my work-life balance.

Yeah. This totally could happen.

Do you have any tips or tricks to share to make my own writing a priority? 
(That don't involve plugging children into screens, please.)



* For the sticklers, no, chipmunks are not usually represented on totem poles. Thus was my importance.