It was a lazy bank holiday morning today, and I snuck out to do a food shop leaving Liam reluctantly making an Elsa out of aqua beads. To be fair, even with all the awkwardness of distancing in the shops, of complicated queues and one way systems, of absent items and hiking prices, I would still opt for the shopping over aqua beads.

But really, the cheap chocolate for baking with is now 60p? That’s almost the price of petrol! Soon it’ll be cheaper to cook with Cadbury’s than the own brand.

The little scene above played out when I returned home. It’s apparently a battle between the Montagues and Capulets. Except that my younger children’s exposure to Shakespeare has been in the form of watching Gnomeo and Juliet repeatedly, otherwise known in our house as the ‘Reds and Blues’.

Theo keenly observed the colours of their t shirts, because his other favourite ‘reds and blues’ feature in the Julia Donaldson book ‘The Smeds and the Smoos’, about a red alien named Janet and a blue alien called Bill.

With the thought of half term looming, over the weekend I thought about how much he loved that book at the moment, and feeling some sort of mis-placed confidence, I thought I’d do some activities this week relating to the book, just to avoid total disorder and anarchy. Although I’m not convinced we’ll succeed, at least we’ll have kept amused in it.

Once I told Theo my ideas, he was very excited and up for kicking off with making edible Smeds and Smoos, along with the ‘loobular lake’ and the ‘humplety hill’.

It turned out to be a fun little activity, which kept various children amused at different points, beginning with making and baking red, blue, and purple biscuits (spoiler alert-Bill and Janet have a purple baby! Shocker, I know!), with Maddie, Theo and Micah.

Then they went off outside and Toby wandered in to help decorate them.

He lost interest after giving them all eyes, but Maddie returned and took over, adding hair, shoes, smiles and antennae. Although the fizzy lace antennae made for good eating as she worked.

For the lake we mashed up green jelly, which proved very appealing for getting their hands in and having a good squelch. Apologies to those family members who may have eaten it later.

And a Rice Krispie cake humplety hill to finish it off.

Theo has great plans for what else we can recreate from the story, which I’m feeling a touch nervous about. I think making the toys might be pushing my creative limits!

Of course, for some of us, the eating was always going to be the best bit of the activity.

It wasn’t exactly a beach bathing, bbq cooking, Prosecco drinking bank holiday, but it kept small people amused and that counts as a win these days. And we had burgers for dinner before I found some Prosecco later in the evening, so I can’t complain too much.

The chicks are still doing well and providing entertainment, although it’s now more about making sure they don’t jump off and attempt to try out their growing flight feathers whilst being ‘cuddled’.

Bedtime tonight was accompanied by a bath and toga wearing before teeth brushing and stories. Bedtime has definitely got later in the more relaxed days, and the lighter evenings. It was a push to get small people settled before we joined our church small group zoom, where we did very poorly in the game. Still, we came second on the family quiz today, confirming I’m much better at questions themed around musicals than I am at defining obscure long words.

I don’t think I’m alone in feeling a bit weary of all of this. Of even the smallest children talking about ‘when the germs are gone’. Of seeing increasing debates on the news and social media about what may be to come. Of the connections with others through screens or, if you’re lucky, at a distance on a driveway, that are precious but still feel a poor relation to actually hanging out. Of 70 days of life being paused sounding like an awful lot, and Maddie telling me, ‘I told you it has been too long, Mummy!’.

But I was reminded of these words from Galatians today,

‘And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.’ – Galatians 6:9

There’s a point and a purpose to this, and it’s worth persevering day by day. The days will come where this will be history, and there will be rewards. So we’ll keep going. For those that are already suffering or grieving, for my family working on the frontline, for my children to see that we respected decisions and we can wait, even when it’s hard. We can get up tomorrow and do another day.