At the beginning of lockdown, I decided to do a diary of our lockdown lives, looking at what we did, how we got on, and what our thoughts were. I was a key worker so I’ve been at work the whole time while the kids have been at home, and Boo has been doing limited work. These was the last few weeks of the summer holidays! so it was a busy time normally, but this year was a different time.

Table of Contents
Off the Tracks…
With everything going on and having a week off from work I decided to delay the diary and spend a bit more time with the kids and organising live and return to school. I’ve always said that I would do this until the end of lockdown and week 26 signals the return to more normal life, however, we may be seeing another twist and a further lockdown, so who knows lol.

August…
August was about trying to get back to a normal routine and time, we had been out to a couple of places and continued it with another journey out, we had been into the city as a family for the first time in months, and we even managed a trip to Pizza hut to try to take advantage of the “eat out” scheme, it wasn’t a great experience which is disappointing because I had been working almost the whole time the promotion was on, this has affected my thoughts on going to restaurant’s for a while, which puts my family restaurants reviews aside for the time being.

Out and about…
We’ve been trying to capitalise on the Merlin passes as much as we can as it was something we had already bought, and with everything cancelled on delayed it was good for the kiddies to still have some fun, we managed to visit Alton Towers and Warwick Castle, because of where we live this is one of the furthest yearly things we visit, and often can only do it once a year.
Alton Towers is good all-round family fun, though its often busy and big, Warwick castle for us is ok, though I don’t think its an all-day thing for us, so we would combine it with adventures out, both these though were a test in how the lockdown ha impacted these places, there will be reviews shortly on the site.

As we tried to squeeze in-home activities and these trips out, we now find ourselves at the week of school return, however this week we got the traditional last-minute school stuff, trainers, shoes, jumpers etc, with 3 kids in 2 schools, its a busy time but we were obviously cautious with getting it sorted until we 100% knew they were back we held off, our luck time we bought it, there would be a delay and then grow out of the uniforms etc… but so far so good, normally new bags and new lunch box stuff follows and in some ways it has, but as I said its nowhere near what the normal school return it would be,
It feels weird and perhaps not as special but the kids are looking forward to it, even though they might not admit it lol, but Piglet is almost counting down the minutes and seconds, as I’ve said before she is the one that really needs it as she started and then stopped her first attempt so she needs that routine etc.
But who knows what next week will bring
11 Comments
Lockdown has been a difficult and trying time for all of us and I respect key workers like your self who worked through out. I think in this current situation we can’t plan ahead too much as the rules keep changing with the covid situation so its best to take each day at a time.
10 September 2020 at 7:25 pmIt’s been such a strange time hasn’t it. I have been trying to juggle working from home and homeschooling. My husband has worked through and to be honest we have spent time at home and not actually gone anywhere, which has been nice. Ice Skating lessons have started again this last few weeks which is a nice bit of normality for my daughter.
10 September 2020 at 8:47 pmI’m worried about what the next few weeks will bring to be honest. I’m glad you got up to plenty of different activities during the summer holidays.
10 September 2020 at 9:21 pmIt sounds like you have had a busy time of late – it is great you are managing some sort of normality between all the crazy going on!
10 September 2020 at 9:32 pmWell from the pictures it looks like you guys had a blast! I love family outing days!
11 September 2020 at 1:50 amLockdown has been tough but I can’t even imagine how much it has affected the kids and trying to resume some normality is great but as you said, we don’t know what next week will bring.
11 September 2020 at 7:03 amLockdown has been so hard for everyone, but I can’t imagine how difficult it has been for kids. They should be so proud of their resilience through this really challenging time. I’m really glad you’ve been able to lighten the mood a little and have lots of lovely family time so the kids have good memories of 2020.
11 September 2020 at 8:48 amWe’ve been trying to restore some form of normality and routine too, but it’s hard. Even though the kids have returned to school we’re all on tenderhooks that it all might change again!
11 September 2020 at 9:56 amWe’ve been trying to restore some semblance of normality although it looks like rules are starting to come back in so not sure how sustainable it is.
11 September 2020 at 5:36 pmSounds like you managed to get some fun things arranged before kids went back to school. I can’t wait to read your review of Warwick Castle and Alton Tower Post-Covid to see what changes they have implemented.
11 September 2020 at 9:47 pmWe never got to use the eat out to help out scheme sadly thanks to our working patterns. I would love to visit Warwick Castle and theme parks again but if I am honest, we are avoiding anywhere busy
13 September 2020 at 2:23 pm