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So I’ve been absent for a few days because I have been super sick. I’m all better now and I have no idea what it was but my gosh I was exhausted. Having to keep up with home learning (the bane of my existence) on top of being ill just pushed me over the edge of sanity and I gave up on everything for a few days. My poor family were so confused. My kids were submitting work left right and centre and I didn’t care. Who knows what the quality of their work was or if they were just submitting pictures of the wall. Anyway I’m glad to have that behind me and my energy back because today i want to talk about the kitchen. There have been a lot of articles about how lock down has done a number on womens rights and how most women now feel like they are housewives from the 1950s. They are doing the bulk of childcare, home learning and household chores. I’m not going to link to these articles for two reasons – 1. I can’t be bothered and 2. I don’t know how. But I’m sure with a bit of digging you can find them if you want. So do I agree with these articles? Of course! I have an awesome and supportive husband but still I do the majority of child related and home related work. And I have a job where I’m required to be an intelligent adult. I often feel like I fail at that because my conversational abilities these days is limited to what’s for dinner, did you finish your maths, what sound does “ay” make and where is the dyson. Not so riveting. But I also feel a lot of relief. Because even though I feel exhausted and overwhelmed, I enjoy cooking. It calms me. It’s almost meditative. I don’t enjoy the household chores but whatever they need to be done so I just have to get over it and do them. But cooking. In my kitchen ? Forget it, I love it. I love making meals for my family and watching them eat what I made with my own hands using what I have in my cupboards. It gives me this sense of accomplishment. As though I’ve really done something amazing. And what I really love about being in my kitchen is that I am completely alone. For the most part nobody bothers me and I can be alone with my thoughts and process all this craziness. I also get to listen to my music as loud as I want. And I’m currently maxing out “Composure” by Argonauts and Wasp, “Dancing on the limits” by PRIZES and “Fire for you” by Cannons. Those are complete tunes and my family are sick of hearing them. But they transport me to sunny days in the garden when we can see our families and friends again and just share a meal together in the sunshine. This is what music does. It’s transformative. We were having a conversation with our dear friends this morning and our friend who we lovingly call Keanu (because he is a dead ringer for him and like Keanu just doesn‘t age) is listening to his headphones all day long and has made a lockdown playlist which keeps him sane. This is brilliant. We all cope in different ways and the way I cope is through food and music. Anyway just my rambling thoughts on this grey and cloudy Sunday. Time to listen to my tunes and imagine better days ahead.

BTW subscribe will you? It’s just easier. For me. Let me make that clear.

So everyone is talking about how lockdown is going to be their time to set and smash all these amazing fitness goals and become super shredded. That was my goal too. At the beginning of lock down. Before home learning and the reality of having my family home with me all day every day sunk in. Now I’m lucky if I make it for my daily exercise allowance. Ok granted I’ve been ill and so any form of exercise has been off the table for nearly two weeks but even before I got ill, it was a struggle to fit anything in and not feel guilty that my kids were left to their own devices. Anyway I’m kind of back to normal so exercise is back on the agenda. But I want to talk about push ups. I fracking hate push ups with a passion. I cannot do them. Even in a modified position. One sad day my husband saw me attempting to do a push up and legit laughed in my face. Chump. I told my TKD coach I couldn’t do one and his exact words were “that’s piss poor” and then proceeded to laugh. I would just like to put it out there that he is 18 years old and a world champion so whatever. But it pissed me off. Why can’t I do a push up ? Everyday I have to watch the injustice of my husband doing 40 push ups before he even gets ready for the day, completely effortlessly. Chump. Even my 7 and 4 year old children can do push ups. I told my husband I was going to write about push ups today and his exact words were “why don’t you try and do one instead of writing about them”. Chump. How about shut up before I dolyo chagi you in the head. Yeah that’s right. I can do that. I’ve been training with Mr T for 3 years. I’ve learned a thing or two. And by Mr T I don’t mean the “i pity the fool” one. I mean my Mr T. My other champion TKD coach. Sensing a theme here ? I really love TKD. But I will write about that another day. For now I’m focusing on push ups. So my task for this lockdown is not to get shredded or learn a new language or write an award winning novel. It’s to do one push up. One real push up without feeling like I’m going to vomit. I don’t know if I will succeed. Push ups are hard. And I hate them. But I refuse to be shown up by my husband. Who I love. Really. He’s not that much of a chump. Only when he’s doing push ups.

So all this time I’ve been telling you to subscribe, which you should do really. But apparently if you want to leave a comment (as my chump husband has informed me) you need to become a member. I don’t make the rules. Or do I?