What a week! Monday and Tuesday were both relatively quiet, with the usual mix of work, reading, gardening, workout and yoga, although we added some excitement with an Escape Game on Tuesday afternoon. That was a fun way to end quarantine, and definitely something we’ll look into again, as it was a lot of fun.

I woke up to a very drizzly London morning on Wednesday, murphy’s law for the first day out of quarantine. Unlike the weather, however, the school day was lovely and smooth, with the kids extremely excited to see me back – as was I! I had people popping into my classroom all day welcoming me back so I felt very appreciated. To celebrate being out of quarantine - as well as the easing of restrictions last week, Peter and I headed to a very socially-distant Prospect on Wednesday night for dinner. We had to hand-sanitise and register our details before being seated upstairs over two metres from the nearest other patrons. I think it worked to our advantage that the weather was so gross, because there was almost no one else there and we enjoyed a very quiet pub dinner. Thursday and Friday were full of ‘end-of-school’ events for the year 6s, with a barbecue and waterfight on Thursday, and then a presentation and parade on Friday. We finished off the afternoon by letting the parents in for dismissal (they had to drop off at the gate previously, for socially distancing purposes) and saying hi and goodbye to the parents who came to pick children up. We finished our day after dismissal by having drinks in the playground and then five of us went down to the pub. Despite theoretical restrictions on numbers of households, we were allowed in, so we sat down for some dinner and a pint before I headed home around 8.

On Saturday Peter and I had a very slow start and just chilled before walking up Brick Lane to the Mikkeller pub. We were there to buy some take-away beers for our Sunday picnic plans but did end up staying for a pint. It was funny, with the social distancing regulations, the maximum capacity of the (very tiny) pub came down to 10 people, making it nice and quiet. After the walk back, Geoff came around at dinner time and we shared a couple of beers, caught up on news and then played a game of Pandemic. It was a little bit too real but a great board game.

After another reasonably slow start eating breakfast with Geoff on Sunday morning, we walked down to Greenwich Park via Canary Wharf, which took us about an hour and a quarter. It was a lovely walk along the Thames, with gorgeous views and not too many people around. We found a beautiful sunny spot on a hill in the park where we met Lee and Sus and had a lovely picnic for most of the afternoon.  We caught up on news, shared some beers and just generally relaxed in the sun. I also managed to fit in a quick Skype call to Jess when she got home from work to celebrate her birthday. At around 4 we all headed off, saying goodbye to Geoff for the meanwhile, and made our way back home for some dinner. It was a lovely relaxing weekend after a busy week, although I did get a bit burnt and am feeling quite fatigued after so much sun after a Melbourne beginning-of-winter!