You know you’ve been in isolation too long when…your husband starts a game of fidget spinning championships on the child’s head.

Today brought challenges. That’s a delicate way of saying one particular child was in an especially volatile frame of mind. And determined to upset everyone along the way.

Perhaps I should have been more perceptive to his subtle objections to joining in with Joe Wicks. It was the start of his visible protests to conforming to any expectations. We made it through the morning, though, with frequent interventions and calming strategies required. I concluded that the lazier mornings definitely don’t work for some of the smaller family members, and although schooling brought challenges, the day is too long without structure, and we would need to be proactive in planning activity in order to avoid riots.

The thing is, there were two reasons I didn’t home educate, and opted to send my children to nursery. One was to paint, and the second for an education. In that order. So why I thought I’d pull off an Easter painting craft with great success and minimal chaos I’ll never know.

The first part of the project went fairly smoothly. Maddie was all for it, straight in there with hand painting and engaging with the plan. Theo refused to paint his hand until he’d painted mine first. Still, we got the first pieces made, and they were left to dry whilst the kids were distracted by the obstacle course Toby and Liam had been constructing.

My mistake was in thinking that they were happily distracted and I’d get on with hoovering upstairs. Little did I realise I’d return to carnage. They had enough of the obstacle course, so went back to painting. Only this time, they emptied a bottle of paint into the pot and topped it up with water. An older child attempted a clean up operation using a tea towel and pouring the excess paint into the sink. Where I’d put a new t shirt to soak. Which was still in there, only now covered in paint and water.

I’ve got to be honest I didn’t take the carnage well. And discovering a tipped over bottle spilling water under the laptops on the desk was a breaking point. I shouted and thought about crying, and thought about storming out. But instead I hid in the kitchen until I could go and say sorry to the child who was unfairly on the receiving end of my wrath.

Then I rang my mum whilst I peeled potatoes. And listened to a hymn that says ‘it is well with my soul’, and I told God that it wasn’t well with my soul. And I need help.

And then the kids came and found me and one sat on my lap and one asked for food and one blew a recorder in my face. But help came, and I felt calmer, and dinner was a fairly uneventful affair.

I went on a walk, not exactly on my own tonight, but I enjoyed the company. Liam was on a work call so we wandered down to the river before bedtime.

And I watched the big kids carry the little kids, and the mischief makers spontaneously hugging, and I was genuinely grateful that despite all the crazy moments, I get to isolate with these people.

And the truth is that even in the crazy days there are always moments to be thankful for. Friends who deliver icing sugar and have coffee over FaceTime. Flowers that arrived beautifully packaged in a box with a special note from my Mum. Messages of encouragement and support and honesty.

The completed Easter craft, which Maddie chose to write on. And the hymn I listened to, reminding me where my hope is, in both the calm and the chaos. A hymn written by a man who had lost everything – his business, and then his four daughters in a shipwreck, but who knew that even in the lowest moments, there is help and hope.

‘When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.’ (Horatio Spafford)