Life in lockdown: balancing work, life and home school
To honour Mental Health Awareness Week and to encourage our staff, volunteers, and organisations we work closely with to pay more attention to the present (aka mindfulness), we’ve asked a few of them to write a journal post and diary a day in lock down. These blogs will provide a snapshot of the everyday lives, experiences and wellbeing of our people.
Lynnette Crisp
Head of Marketing & Communication
Despite still setting my alarm each day, I am usually awake before it rudely buzzes next to my head. Most days start the same – coffee is always required – and once that’s made and the laptop has whirred into action, I’m usually sat at my make-shift desk (dining room table) by 7.30.
It’s hard for me to stick to a 9am-5pm working day as I have two children at home and that inevitably comes with many (many) interruptions and copious demands for food so I tend to make a list of what I need to get through each day, get an early head start and work later into the evening.
I usually have a pretty productive couple of hours first thing with a clear head and a quiet house, which today involved writing the first draft of the ‘special edition’ Dock Life and press release for Mental Health Awareness Week. It doesn’t take long before my cat makes herself at home on my paperwork, she’s become a regular in video calls too!
9am and it’s time for ‘PE with Joe Wicks.’ Whilst it has been difficult to maintain a strict structure to our day, we have taken part in this every morning. It’s a great way for the boys to burn off some energy early in the day. I’m not sure it’s doing too much to counteract all the cake and biscuits I’ve been eating but it must help a tiny bit! Joe Wicks is certainly one personality who has capitalised on the current situation in a positive way (I am genuinely astounded by what he’s donated to the NHS from his YouTube advertising revenue).
After PE, I settle the boys down with their school work for the day. There is a very good reason why I never went into teaching as a profession and this experience has given me a whole new respect for those who do take that path. Attempting to home school a reluctant (but full of energy) 8–year old and a lazy 5 year old pushes my patience to its limit most days. Topics on the timetable today include dragons, human body, Timetable Rockstars and phonics (no assistance from Google required today thankfully!). We also manage to crack the whole school book cover challenge by recreating Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
I get in a few video calls and crack on with the new content for Mental Health Awareness Week. One such Zoom call was about a very interesting opportunity – fingers crossed for this one! Only having a small team still working has required really close working and has resulted in some great collaborations. As a relative ‘newbie’ to the team, it has certainly helped improve my knowledge across the organisation and develop a deeper understanding of various roles in the team. I have particularly enjoyed working on the “Museum From Home“ content.
Despite receiving the disappointing news this week that Dublin Marathon 2020 has been cancelled (the aim was to run a marathon before a big birthday), when the husband gets home from work (he’s a keyworker), I head out for a run. 26.2 miles around a city that’s close to my heart might not happen this year but for me regular running is key to managing my mental health (and escaping my children). If the Marathon is postponed for a year, maybe I can postpone the big birthday too? Lockdown has made me really appreciate where I live, I feel very lucky that these incredible views are just a short distance from my garden fence ..
Dinner, bath, story, bed for the boys and a bit more time at the laptop for me. It must be gin o’clock….
