Day 1, School Closure, Friday 13th March 2020, Ireland, CoVid-19.

Hello all,
I am back on  here, writing a bit, and why, you may ask? Because yesterday Thursday 12th March 2020, our Taoiseach (Prime Minister) announced that all schools, universities and childcare facilities were to close that afternoon for 2 weeks, due to CoVid-19.

So today I am at home with my 4 children and my laptop. Husbeast is at work. We will be at home for the next 2 weeks. Do I think I will be back at school on Monday 30th March? No, I do not. I don't think that we will be let back to school for 1 week and then sent home again for 2 weeks of Easter holidays. I would wager 5 euro that we will be off for 5 weeks, at least.

It feels unreal, it feels strange and it feels a bit scary. I sincerely hope that the illness itself does not affect people badly although I know that people do get very ill and it is inevitable that some people will not survive it.

For now I am documenting how the days go as they go.
Today was first day of being at home. I went for a walk early this morning. Then I was on the computer for a bit, sending an email to the school for sending on to the parents of my pupils. The children all took home all their books yesterday so the idea is that they get to work a bit every day at home.

I have an assignment to fine tune for my Foundation Certificate in Spinning so I then got on to reading and editing that. I finally opened the bag of fleece that I bought for spinning for the Foundation Certificate. I ordered 100g each Southdown, Dorset (Down breed), Wensleydale and White Blossom (last two are Longwool Lustre). I have had that packet sitting on the shelf for a month or more now. Finally, I got the chance to open it. It definitely helps that the weather this morning was bright and sunny, so it felt like a good day to wash fleece. The month of February was crazy wet, no way was I going washing valuable fleece in the teeth of storms, gales, torrential rain and sleet.

Needless to say, by the time I had the packet opened and the 'Before' photos taken, the rain had started. Not to worry, 100g isn't too much to manage and I decided to just wash two samples anyway, one Down breed, the Southdown and one Longwool, the White Blossom. I half filled two buckets with tepid water, and soaked the samples separately. The White Blossom was quite clean, but the muck that came out of the Southdown, urgh...

So I washed both again, more clean warm water with a shot of hand-wash, that Southdown was really mucky. Then rinses. I used two net laundry bags for smalls to keep the wool together and to be able to just lift it all out of the buckets easily.
Now they are nearly done, and I am going to hang them over the bath for first steps in drying.

I am sitting here at the laptop, with music on, (Dido, Gotye, Jessie J, Fleetwood Mac, Post Malone), writing this blog and watching Sandra at Crafts of Ireland doing a Facebook Live video teaching people about Crochet. I see people volunteering in my local community to help out by delivering groceries to people who need this help. I really do hope that this crisis will bring out the best in people, helping out each other where possible.
I do not know how bad this will get, who could have foreseen this a few weeks ago? Schools closed, universities and creches closed, libraries and museums closed, all soccer and hurling training and matches off, all concerts off, Mass cancelled in Catholic churches until 29th March.
Who knows what the new normal will be in a few days, or in a week?