coronavirus

Deconfinement

This week France started to open its doors again. We had been searching the government sites – would our region be red, amber or green. Thankfully there have been few deaths in Normandy, so we were poised to join the world.

School was due to start receiving classes on Thursday for the pupils whose parents had deemed it safe enough for them to return. It was to be a staggered, with different pupils going on the Thursday and others the Friday. The teaching team wanted to make sure that all pupils understood the safety requirements so were taking the time to go through things with each group.

During the restrictions my girls footwear had been made obsolete; their winter boots now too small and impractical for the warmer spring weather. So we needed to Go to the shops to buy something more suitable.

It was interesting to see how each store approached the situation. In the first one we went to, the shoe shop, I couldn’t enter without a mask. Although my girls could. We had to sanitise our hands at the entrance too. In others there wasn’t the mask requirement, but there was hand sanitiser and also latex gloves available. There was someone to meet you at the entrance cleaning trolley handles and ensuring social distancing. However within the shops, despite guidelines on the floor, there was little occurring in the aisles. We’re all just used to going up and down aisles looking at things, so it seems to be forgotten.

Just prior to the girls returning to school we went to the market. It had a one way system, with masked guides on each end with the hand sanitiser. There weren’t many stalls and few people.

The guidelines for returning to school were clearly layed out before hand;

A staggered approach depending on age, so there weren’t too many people around the gates.
Marked sections of a one way system.
All staff wearing masks.
The first day to be spent on hand washing and social distancing instructions.
Pre schoolers are only taught in the morning, and parents encouraged to pick them up at midday.
Staggered leaving times.
Separate pick up points around the school so not too many adults congregate.
Children remaining indoors until called to maintain their social distancing.

We have been told that there may be alternate school days come June when all pupils will be back.

The girls were excited to be back. We missed them. The house is suddenly very quiet.

Covid 19 Confinement

As I’ve been getting stronger I’ve started to gradually do more. Yet, like many people we have the prospect of wondering how this pandemic will be affecting us as a family. My husband works with the cruise industry, obviously it’s been very affected by the current situation. So as he works each evening to prepare for the lifting of restrictions, and we hope and pray for our financial future, I’ve been looking at how I can help.

To me one of the good things about being a stay at home mum is that when we face financial difficulty their may be ways in which I can help. When both spouses are working and your expenditure matches that two fold income, there may not be a similar resource to draw from. So I’ve recently been completing a course online to teach English as a foreign language, and possibly French too. I’m a former teacher anyway, so this may be a way to provide an additional income source whilst staying at home God willing.

In France itself we had the exciting prospect of some the restrictions of the confinement (as it’s called here) lifted. There was news that the maternal children would be going back on 11th May. I was incredibly relieved. I’ve been teaching my youngest daughter to read here at home and she’s doing wonderfully. As I’ve said before her speech has been really impacted upon by the move and other issues, so reading has developed this significantly.

However I’m teaching her in English, as we don’t have a lot of French children’s books for her age group. We’ve bought them for her, but she’s ripped and scribbled on them. There’s nothing more frustrating is there? This phase stopped a lot earlier with my eldest daughter because she was reading from the age of three onwards, but our youngest’ speech proved a negative factor here too.

So, no books and my poor pronunciation meant I’ve concentrated on English. That and zero contact with the outside world has meant I’ve been very worried about her losing what little French she has. These are extraordinary times, but the consequences are significant for those kiddos struggling at school.

Yesterday we left the house and suddenly we were chatting with two neighbours. I’ve got to say no one seemed to consider social distancing, 😬. One of our neighbours said the mid May date wasn’t a definite, in fact she wasn’t confident of it at all. So I’ll have to phone on Monday and make sure, my other neighbour suggested speaking with the Maire as they would be the person to make the decision.*

Our neighbours had experienced the police stopping them, which we’ve fortunately avoided. One was spoken to about going for a loaf of bread 😬 and she’d heard from a friend that she’d been reprimanded going for baby nappies as these “weren’t essential” – 😬 😱. I can’t thing of a lot more things that are essential than nappies from the grocery store.

Whilst I’ve been ill my husband started to take the girls out on long walks. For the first time I went with them on Friday, and I joined them Saturday too. I thought I’d share some photos of the local scenery.

God bless you all; I hope you and your family are well.

It’s been confirmed that the village school with be reopening on 11th. Whopee!

How To Make An Easter Wreath

As I said yesterday I decorated the front of our house with the Easter wreaths yesterday. Well here is the how to for one of them, perhaps you’d like to do one yourself?

You need;

1 (or 2) straw wreath/s

1 (or 2) Bouquet of silk peonies (for the symbolism in the wreath and their Christian meanings take a look at this research post)

2 (or 4) silk, leafy branches

Small toy lamb (and optional rabbit)

Wooden letters J (and optional M)

Gold spray paint (if you have it you may want spray paint primer too and some spray glitter varnish)

Waterproof, superglue (about 1-2 tubes per wreath, depending on the glue size)

White lace (about 1 or 2M)

Strong scissors

Staple gun with large staples

A small box

In a small box put a letter and then spray with gold paint. I often use various size boxes when I’m spray painting as they automatically shield everywhere else from the paint. I’ve suggested spray paint primer if you have it as these letters are not treated, so they’ll soak up your paint and can sometimes make the gold effect uneven (this is my second coat above, and you can see that there). I couldn’t find mine at the time of painting, so resigned myself to this and repainted it several times leaving a long gap between successive coats to ensure it cured properly. I had to do the last as I was spraying quite thickly. I went back and forth between the box and the project, leaving it over night as I had other work to do after the initial planning stage (points 2-5). Then when the letter was gold enough I also added a glitter varnish which has a gold tinge to it to finish it off.
Select ‘off-shoots’ from the leafy branch to form your base – these should be about 3, 4 or 5 leaves, but determine their length based on the branch make up and what they’ll be used for. If you need to use your scissors for this, but I often just twisting and bending works.

Separate all the flowers and divide them into groupings. As you can see I had 3, darker blush peonies as well as 3 light, blush peonies, 2 buds, 2 flower sprays and 3 leafy sprigs. By separating the flowers it’s easier to see how best to arrange them on the wreath.

I often start by laying out the arrangement so I have an idea where everything is going to go, although I adapt when I actually make the wreath. The first step to this is to arrange the leafy branches around the outer circle of the wreath and then the inner. To add a little interest I also arranged the flower prays and leafy sprigs to the external wreath, as this will break up the uniform outline.

I then lay out where the flowers will be, taking into account the gold letter will be going on the wreath as well. I’d already decided I was going to add the lamb or rabbit to the relevant letter (Jesus or Mary, again see this post for the symbolism), so I didn’t need to factor in space for that. As there where 3 of each darker and lighter blush, as well as the two buds it lent itself naturally to this arrangement. Take a photo at this stage to remind you where everything goes – you never know, you might have to suddenly clear up.
Now you need to undo it all. Back with a bare wreath add a tag for hanging. I did mine with the lace by cutting a 10 – 15 cm strip of the lace and gluing one end to the back of the straw wreath. Then I took another 10 -15 cm strip and tied it in a double knot at the back. The tied strip is placed on the wreath and the length attached to the wreath already circles it and is the placed over the top of the tied, with the knot against the wreath itself, to attach it to the wreath. I then staple and glue it to ensure it’s secure. This means that the loop for the wreath is flat against the surface its going to hung against, rather than having to twist to hang.

The good thing about using artificial flowers and leaves is that they have a wire base, so you can bend them to form the wreath’s shape before applying. Start with a sprig of leaves, bend to a semi circle in line with the wreath, and secure it to the outer rim of the wreath with two or three staples. The picture top left shows the back of the wreath, not the front, as this is the outer rim I’m working with.
Continue for about three sprigs of leaf and flower sprays in a similar pattern to how you’ve planned. At this point stop and, with your waterproof glue, add dots of glue over staples and in parts where you think it would be good to ensure they remaining touching (you can see the glue above where the staple and stem are shiny in the images above point 7). It’s also a good idea to push the staples into the straw as far as they can go prior to glueing, as they may have already been slightly dislodged as you place and glue other sprigs. Continue in the same way, stapling and gluing, all the way round the outer rim of the wreath and then, when you reach the bottom of the wreath opposite to the hanging lace, start to lay the sprigs in the opposite direction.

Then start with a rose bud, or whatever flower you have chosen, to start of the internal, flowered pattern. Use the same method as the external – stapling and gluing. Once you have reached on their of the way round stop. At this point I had a full rose, a rose bud and about 3 leaf sprigs left.

Liberally put glue on the back of your letter and place it firmly on the wreath. As at this point I was working with the “Jesus” wreath I then glued and applied the lamb onto the letter. On both the letter and the lamb I added globs of glue whenever the item being glued touched what it was being glued to, to ensure that it was extra secure (again you can see this in the picture, the shiny sections). You may want to leave the wreath for a while at this point as you don’t want to disjoint the work you’ve done because you’re too eager to carry on.
When the glued parts are sufficiently dry add the final rose and rose bud so the two final flowers almost touch each other, but have a space between of about 5 cms (or whatever is appropriate for your width of ribbon.

Then make your bow. I started mine by tying a relatively loose not about half way down the length and then continued tying a bow that I felt was the right size. It needs to be relatively loose so that you can staple secure it to the wreath. When I did that I stapled on the outer rim of the wreath, so that the bow wouldn’t overwhelm the flowers. As it was too low down I just grabbed more of the loose material and re-stapled until I was satisfied. Obviously you may want to use a form of ribbon with wired edges to secure a shape, but I had this lace already and somehow it’s delicate nature said ‘spring’ to me. When the bow was in place I diagonally cut the ends, one shorter than the other, to finish it.
Move the bow lengths out of the way and, once the wreath is completely dry, add the left over sprigs of leaves to the inner rim in the same manner as above. You then may want to take a good look round the whole of the wreath, stapling and gluing, to make sure everything is secure.

Let us bring hope to others – Hallelujah, He is risen!

I’d love to know what you think, or if you have any queries let me know.