Saturday 21 March 2020

School is closed until

the 28th April for Ms W.
She arrived home from the boarding house...and promptly went out again. She headed into the local supermarkets - all three - to get as many things as she could on the shopping list she had made,
    "Honestly Cat, my Dad is hopeless! We wouldn't eat if I left it to him."
Then she headed into the "cheap" shop and bought some more craft materials,  "Because I don't want to end up watching television."
I had already left a box of things for her.
The mother of her best friend picked her and the shopping up and Ms W is now as prepared as she feels she can be for a lengthy stay at home.
The school is providing work to be done.
   "It's assignments and stuff like that. We don't get to have our teachers talking to us like they usually do. That's okay."
I have no doubt that, for her, it will be. She works well alone. I think it helps that she knows something about what her father's job entails. He will often work from home. The isolation from the office allows him to concentrate heavily on the job in hand. The only problem with him is that he sometimes forgets things like eating.
Ms W might be the same so I have suggested setting the kitchen timer if she needs to get something done.
Her workspace is all set up. It always has been. She has a desk her father gave her when she turned ten - adult size because he told her learning on her own was a "grown up" activity. She has two bookshelves and her school lap top as well as access to a second keyboard and screen. "I'm lucky my Dad needs decent access at home."
I also showed her Nicola Morgan's post about writing a diary. She has sent the idea back to her form teacher. Her form teacher sent an email to me saying, "Good idea - then they can share if they want to."
That seems like a good idea.
The mother of her best friend is more concerned about her own children. They are not as disciplined as Ms W. Ms W has had to learn to be that way - and it has not been easy for all I might have made it sound that way at times. She had to grow up too quickly in lots of ways. 
But I know that she is also looking forward to being away from the crowd at school for a while. Is this normal for a teenager? She is a very self-sufficient one. It will be interesting to see how she gets on in the next few weeks. I think she will be fine because there is "the messy room" where she does the ironing and all her craft. 
When I looked there was plenty to do in there and, as she said, "The garden needs stuff done too."
I won't see much of her. The Senior Cat and I are not in isolation - yet - but we are staying away from other people as far as possible. We have a messy room too - and don't start me on what there needs to be done in the garden!

1 comment:

jeanfromcornwall said...

I fully understand Miss W looking forward to being away from the crowd - I felt much the same back then, and although I enjoyed the company of my friends, I didn't enjoy being cooped up with a load of people who were very much not iike me. And this was a day school.
For better or worse, we are as we are and what our lives make us to be.

A very bad winter saw us unable to get to school for two weeks. Mum and I would walk the dog every day, and fill the binocular case with dead birds - the ones who had fled the freeze-up and, getting to the south west corner of the country, had nowhere else to go, so they starved. We spent happy afternoons examining them, and the beautiful plumage. Then we put the carcases out in a field corner, so that the crows and magpies could eat, and live.
I can tell you that the Golden Plover looks fairly plain from a distance, but it has the most intricately marked feathers that I have ever seen.