Monday 20th April

So, a few more days have flown by.

I’d forgoten another good film that I had been watching on the cross trainer: Fractured. An excellent part for Anthony Hopkins, ‘playing’ the lawyer….

Alice and Chris paid us a social distancing visit to pick up a couple of things & seemed in good spirits.

Friday was work a.m. then Peter and I went for an enjoyable circular walk to Queens Hill.

Saturday was a very wet day so a good opportunity for some housework and tidying. An early visit to Sainsburys was fruitful; no queue and yielded 2 bags of flour! I made a victoria sandwich cake.

Sunday was much brighter and sunnier. We re-walked the circular Queens Hill walk & made it 5 miles this time.

The house, and particularly the garden have been increasingly delightful. We have particularly enjoyed the sunshine on the back of the house in the afternoon and the seamlees transition from lounge to patio. This reached new heights yesterday when I was able to sunbathe in the lounge! The sun, without the wind!

Back to work today. We were informed that there was a Team Meeting, organised by Hayley, at 2 p.m. It was a new challenge to download Microsoft Team and join in the 80 minute meeting on Schemes of Work etc.

Some participants seemed to have tech problems and some were just unprofessional. It took 10 minutes to sort out people who couldn’t join, couldn’t hear or couldn’t mute their microphones, so we could hear toddlers and a TV programme about cocaine! It was interesting to see that one tutor was dressed in a 3 piece suit, shirt & tie, another was working his way through a white chocolate Magnum!

I didn’t get any of my L1 Maths done, apart from writing a resource that used population figures. I did test out Annie’s maths practice paper. She later sent me 2 more…

I was pleased to be able to finally do screenshots, not usually a problem with a windows machine, likewise cutting & pasting but having sussed this on my chromebook I was able to put together some resources based on a you tube video on recycling, that I cant use. There’s a lot of potential now for creating more interesting resources.

Peter hadn’t slept well & felt a bit under the weather so no walk today & I put together a simple mid week meal.

Before this we saw some of the Coronavirus daily briefing. At least the number of deaths is down (459) and the number of cases in hospital is flattening. We may start to emerge from lockdown in 3 weeks, but it will be very tentative, cautious and phased. Perhaps I will return to work, maybe we will alternate, half a team each day and with reduced class sizes to enable social distancing.

Tomorrow there is another meeting, just our functional skills team this time. We will also hear about a possible plan for tutors to support learners from opposite reception, putting together teaching packs then marking them, both allowing for a period of quarantine. Some colleagues are keen to return to work, they are not keen to spend all day on a laptop and they miss the banter. On the other hand, I am glad of the opportunity to get some work done!