Today’s writing prompt for my #90DayChallenge: ‘what’s on your mind right now, what’s happening?’

Well, as I write this rather a lot. I sit here in the early afternoon multitasking, which is even more of the new norm for me since the pandemic. (I shared how much my day and life has changed in a blog post here.) At this moment in time I’m surrounded by school books, pens, paper, pencils, the washing, and the normal content of my kitchen, my son is having lunch and has his nose in his tablet watching a movie. Pretty normal right? But, I’m in a state of shock. On one hand I ask myself should I really be, is there really a surprise here?

The prompt is to just write about whatever’s on your mind, in all honesty I have so much, I don’t even know where to start. I’m sorry if I seem as though I’m rambling. *Sighs*

This morning I got the one call I really hoped that I would never have to answer. A parent who is also a friend, and their child attends the same lovely school as my son called me to say ‘they’ve closed the school.’ I was like, ‘what?’ In a nutshell last night an email circulated, and teachers made contact to let parents know there has been two cases of Covid-19 confirmed. One teacher and one child. Now, no doubt I never got that contact as some of you may recall, I never returned my son to school. I opted to home-school since September. This decision was made after listened to the evidence, news, science, government and still was not sure about the safety of schools reopening. I then spoke to a friend of mine who is a scientist in Brazil. He forwarded research that published that day, confirming that as we know now kids carry the virus with no symptoms etc. It does not mean in any case that they are ‘safe’ and not at risk. After all they could and do transmit it to others.

At the time, I may have been a bit overprotective, but now I so glad I made that choice. Schools have only been open technically half a term- six weeks. Already his school is at risk.

In all honesty, this virus Covid-19 is serious and it makes me so mad when there are people in power, tweeting, ranting, and showing bravado that ‘it’s not that serious’ ‘ I’m immune now I’ve had it’ etc. It’s just rubbish and gives the wrong message about how serious this thing is. It’s kinda really hit home to me today, just how much we must be careful!

After I received that phone call, right when I was in the middle of a math problem with my son LOL I felt like I could not even continue to teach, or focus on it. I had so many questions, who is the child? Who is the teacher? What class was it? Of course, the parent who called me could not give me details. They didn’t even know, the teacher who made contact would not or could not I should say disclose this information. We’re all none the wiser.

Over the course of the morning I’ve been in contact with friends who have older children, they too told me that at their child’s school there have been cases. Even the parent that called me also said, their older child who has just started the secondary school ( high school) phase just September gone, also was sent home last week– one case at their school in their actual class. To add to the fact that the school their younger child attends with my son, is also now closed.

Jessss, does it ever end?, I wondered. As of now, I am really concerned about the state of the world with this pandemic. But happy that I made the decision to home-school as I could. I pray for every parent who reads this or does not even read this, who has a child in school. I send positive energy, there’s a bubble with some kind of protection that surrounds your child as they move through school, mix with other kids, teachers, and members of society that are not part of the family.

All I can say is keep well everyone! Please take this pandemic seriously. I know it’s hard, I know lock-down was even harder and by the looks of it, parts of the UK are under this threat, as are many other parts of the world. Keep your eyes and ears open, do what you can to protect yourself and others. Never feel as though you’re being ‘too scared or over protective’ by making certain decisions, keeping distances, not meeting up etc. I have no doubt many friendships have suffered. But, if people are really any friend of yours they will understand, and care about their safety and yours. make use of the Internet and communicate with cameras etc.

So the question is for me, is there really any surprise that the school has closed? Nope, I guess not when you look at the statistics around the world. And locally where I am. I just never once expected Covid-19’s impact to get so ‘close to home’ the school is literally at the bottom of the road LOL. It’s close! I have no idea what happens after half term, which is coming up. But all I know is looks like home-school is here to stay.

Wherever you are keep well.