Freedom day and other furphies
I'll make you a promise. After this email I shall refrain from mentioning the words "freedom day" any more. In Sydney, we're 48 hours in, and already I'm irritated and fed up with the notion. Mostly because it is a notion that affects different sectors in society in vastly different ways.
Hands up those homeschooling their junior recipe testers? And leave your hands up if your life looks vastly different this week to last week? Anyone??
Unlike last week, on freedom Monday, the junior recipe testers presented the senior recipe tester and I with a large list. The list contained a vast array of items, including some of which I had never heard, they required for science day this week.
We will need to procure these items from the shops, prior to Thursday. Then on Thursday we will participate in science day, assisting in all manner of experiments, and hoping that no one either blows off their eyebrows or burns down the house. I should hasten to add, I have a couple of applied science degrees. I like science. I want to encourage the juniors in scientific pursuits.
I suppose what lockdown has taught me that what I actually want is to encourage the juniors to be taught science by someone else.
Having constructed something of a plan for science day, plus two full time jobs, we sat down for lunch. I dutifully cored and cut up an apple for one junior. He dutifully ate. The skin got caught in his teeth. After some minutes aggravation it was incumbent upon me to extract the entangled apple skin.
The junior's relief was nearly as great as mine, when I realised I do not want to outsource all of my parental responsibilities. I cannot begin to imagine facing a classroom teacher who had been asked to administer dental floss by my overwrought, apple-loving junior.
But this, I am told, is freedom. I am seriously contemplating lockdown as a formal pursuit. By myself.
Thirty years ago, George Michael famously promised freedom won't let us down. This week I find more affinity in the words of Queen, six years prior to Michael.
I'm not sure if what we are experiencing is freedom, or a deep desire to break free.
Happily, there is no need for any of us to succumb to the prison of dinner preparation. For some of the DotT chefs, who have continued to serve you right through lockdown, being in our kitchen cooking your dinners is their sanity break from schooling their own junior recipe testers. In every season, whether free or cooped up, we would love to serve you and your people.
Hands up those homeschooling their junior recipe testers? And leave your hands up if your life looks vastly different this week to last week? Anyone??
Unlike last week, on freedom Monday, the junior recipe testers presented the senior recipe tester and I with a large list. The list contained a vast array of items, including some of which I had never heard, they required for science day this week.
We will need to procure these items from the shops, prior to Thursday. Then on Thursday we will participate in science day, assisting in all manner of experiments, and hoping that no one either blows off their eyebrows or burns down the house. I should hasten to add, I have a couple of applied science degrees. I like science. I want to encourage the juniors in scientific pursuits.
I suppose what lockdown has taught me that what I actually want is to encourage the juniors to be taught science by someone else.
Having constructed something of a plan for science day, plus two full time jobs, we sat down for lunch. I dutifully cored and cut up an apple for one junior. He dutifully ate. The skin got caught in his teeth. After some minutes aggravation it was incumbent upon me to extract the entangled apple skin.
The junior's relief was nearly as great as mine, when I realised I do not want to outsource all of my parental responsibilities. I cannot begin to imagine facing a classroom teacher who had been asked to administer dental floss by my overwrought, apple-loving junior.
But this, I am told, is freedom. I am seriously contemplating lockdown as a formal pursuit. By myself.
Thirty years ago, George Michael famously promised freedom won't let us down. This week I find more affinity in the words of Queen, six years prior to Michael.
I'm not sure if what we are experiencing is freedom, or a deep desire to break free.
Happily, there is no need for any of us to succumb to the prison of dinner preparation. For some of the DotT chefs, who have continued to serve you right through lockdown, being in our kitchen cooking your dinners is their sanity break from schooling their own junior recipe testers. In every season, whether free or cooped up, we would love to serve you and your people.