It wasn’t much after six when I was woken by a cockerel. Actually it was Micah who, for some reason known only to him, decided to start the day saying ‘cockadoodledoo!’ several times. We were supposed to be waking up in the Lake District today – perhaps he was trying to recreate the countryside vibes.

The morning largely featured accidents, unfortunately. Starting with me dropping and smashing a jar of peanut butter when I was making the kids toast. Not long after that as I was clearing the breakfast things, Micah called me – ‘Mum, I spilt some milk on my chair’. As the carnage above evidences, he’s prone to underexaggerating somewhat. Still, no point crying over spilled almond milk. About 5 minutes later I went to the freezer in the garage, only to discover it had been left ajar all night. A couple of things were defrosting, and as I got them out I dropped a tub of thawed ice cream all over the garage floor. Sigh. You know those days when you wish you could start over and hopefully have less clumsiness? And maybe there’ll less early morning crowing whilst we’re at it?

Maddie and Theo have become a bit obsessed with Tangled this week, and have watched it most afternoons. I love the film, although I’m slightly nervous for the time when one of them accuses me of being the crazy lady who stole babies…Disney has an unfortunate habit of throwing in all sorts of trauma triggers for children. Megan actually refused to watch any of them until about 2 years ago, and she, in theory, had relatively trauma free early years. Anyway, you can never predict which films are going to cause issues and which aren’t. So far so good with Rapunzel. Instead they spent a large part of the afternoon acting out various scenes. I was called urgently to come and assist the poorly queen, who was going to have a baby and needed the magic yellow flower. I thought they wanted my midwifery skills, but actually Princess Theo just wanted help finding the dandelion that had the most chance of having healing powers.

I went back to my baking but the clumsiness clearly hadn’t worn off, and I grated a significant portion of my finger along with the white chocolate. I called Liam to assist, and the three younger ones excitedly followed to witness my injuries and real life blood. Still in character, there were various offers of yellow flowers to help, and Maddie to wrap her hair around my finger whilst singing, but it turned out that some steri strips and a fair amount of pressure did the job just as well.

Naturally there was a lot of garden play today. Micah was cooking up a storm, handily the new welly rack Liam built multipurposes as an oven it seems. Cinderella was hard at work too, which was helpful as I’d suggested the garden needed tidying or there might not be any egg hunts happening tomorrow. Which prompted Liam to take camp Lurker down rapidly, assisted by Toby. Clearly egg hunts are effective bribery. Tobes was chuffed with himself today for cycling with Liam to wave at Nanny at her house – the hill there is no mean feat!

I went on a walk to the shop via the river to replace the almond milk Micah had poured everywhere this morning, and the peanut butter I had smashed. When they say to only leave the house to buy essentials, I don’t know if they’re factoring in extremely clumsy Saturdays. I admired the chalk artwork on the street, and whilst I hope to do more than just ‘exist’ in May, it’s a sobering reminder of the seriousness of what we’re doing.

Today I felt a bit of quiet sadness as I prepared for Easter Sunday tomorrow. I don’t think we’ve ever been without extended family for Easter, and this year we’d planned to be in the Lakes with my parents, four sisters and a brother in law. As fun as the baking is, and preparations for a happy day, there’s a part of me that is grieving what we’d hoped for. And alongside that was the heightened hurt that seems to come with every celebration. It’s been 3.5 years since Dan died, but I can’t make desserts we have at Easter without all the memories of past years flooding back. He was always busying himself helping in the kitchen, excited over the secret Easter bunny gift he’d bought, taking photos of the multitudes of puddings, intensely listening to the kids chatter, and writing glowing messages on Facebook about his love for our family. The memories pop up out of nowhere, happy memories but painful too.

It was a busy jobs kind of day, and a thoughtful sort of day too. A friend popped over last night to drop some things off, and it was so lovely to see her face, but hard too. I feel like I’m missing people more and more as the days go by. But I know it’s for a purpose. If we can protect others and minimise the numbers of people who will be grieving after this is all over, then our short term pain will be worth every family still together.

And in a very small way, the looking forward to seeing friends and family again that I’m feeling now is like a glimmer of the hope of heaven. There will be an end to sadness and sorrow and grief. At Easter, Jesus went through the worst imaginable suffering to bring that hope of a future free from illness and separation and death. On Easter Saturday, his friends felt abandoned and lonely and grief stricken – but Sunday was coming, bringing the resurrection and rejoicing and the promise of a future of togetherness and freedom and peace. Whatever your Easter weekend has felt like, I hope you know there is hope, tomorrow is a new day! I’ll finish with the words of a song I listened to today:

‘If love endured that ancient cross
How precious is my Savior’s blood
The beauty of heaven wrapped in my shame
The image of love upon death’s frame.

If having my heart was worth the pain
What joy could You see beyond the grave
If love found my soul worth dying for,

How wonderful, how glorious
My Savior’s scars victorious
My chains are gone, my debt is paid
From death to life and grace to grace.

If heaven now owns that vacant tomb
How great is the hope that lives in You
The passion that tore through hell like a rose
The promise that rolled back death and its stone.

If freedom is worth the life You raised
Oh where is my sin, where is my shame?
If love paid it all to have my heart,

How wonderful, how glorious
My Savior’s scars victorious
My chains are gone, my debt is paid
From death to life and grace to grace.

When I see that cross, I see freedom
When I see that grave, I’ll see Jesus
And from death to life, I will sing Your praise,
In the wonder of Your grace. (Grace to Grace, Hillsong worship).