Soph's School of the Mad: Week Three

Have you got kids in Key Stage Two? May I suggest you grow beans in a coke bottle? It took ours four weeks to become these ludicrous specimens. 

Anyway, school's back in session. What a fortnight I have had, doing absolutely fuck all in the garden, buying mail-order cheese, hoping nobody I love dies. You'll be thrilled to learn that Alex still believes homeschool is the devil. "Do you want to do school with Mummy?" I asked him on Sunday night. "No, I want to do school with MONSIEUR DADDY". Thankfully, Monsieur Daddy is still working from home. 

On Tuesday, we started the day with Jack kicking Jim in the bollocks during Andy's Wild Workouts. Andy never imagined his workouts would get quite THAT wild. Jack then made a poster about this. I'm not even joking. 

Jim's topic of the week is castles. Me and Tom jumped for joy. "LOOK" I shrieked. "LOOK AT NEUSCHWANSTEIN, THIS CASTLE IS RUBBISH FOR DEFENCE. THIS IS WHY BODIAM IS SUPERFICIALLY WELL DEFENDED BUT ACTUALLY JUST A RUSE TO HAVE A REALLY NICE MANOR HOUSE! SQUARE TOWERS ARE REALLY EASY TO UNDERMINE. LOOK AT CANAERFON! LOOK AT THIS MARTELLO TOWER! LOOK AT THIS TREBUCHET BEING FIRED!"

Jim, however, designed his own castle fortifications while  I went purple with over-enthusiasm. His castle has ten sides, ten towers, three-arrow-shooting auto-crossbows, and CROCODILES in the moat. "But what if the crocodiles escape and eat your villagers?" "They are TETHERED", he announced.

To which I could make no reply. 

On Wednesday, I went to the shops first thing. It turns out that going to the shops first thing, when possibly going slightly insane, is very bad for your bank balance. Very bad.

I discovered Alex can read French. Maybe he doesn't have a language disorder at all - maybe he's just French. Jack listened to this ABSOLUTE DIABOLICAL BASTARDISATION OF A CLASSIC:

And Jim drew his castle, complete with crocodiles:

There ain't no fort like a decagon fort defended with lions, spike pits, cannons and crocodiles.

Jack is not a creative child. Well, that's not true: he's an excellent musician and has a brilliant imagination. But like his mother, he's not an artist. This fine picture is a representation of how sound travels, between a screaming man and a man with one huge ear:

As the kids say, this a BIG MOOD:

Friday, finally, and with a wretched intercostal muscle strain, I sat down with the kids. "LOOK AT THIS MUMMY" yelled Jim. "FUCKING OWWW" I yelled back as I tried to turn to look. We had a video lesson with his teacher, where Jim mostly demanded to look at her cat. 

Jack's timetable demanded we make a 'healthy meal' together. I looked at the freezer, and the reams of pizza and mini kievs that form several lockdown teas a week, sighed, and got him to help make his birthday cake. TOMORROW, HE IS NINE. Feel free to whataspp him video messages: lockdown birthdays are weird.

Alex promptly insisted on joining us. So far, his school work has consisted of him writing his name in huge letters on a whiteboard, then dotting his legs with whiteboard pen. He looks diseased. Anyway, he wanted to help make the cake, so I guess in about ten minutes, we'll discover if too many cooks spoil the broth. This cake is going to have a jam AND white chocolate buttercream filling. It's gonna be SICKLY AS FUCK. 

Anyway, I hope you all have a good weekend despite, yanno, everything. Don't fucking drink bleach - remember An Inspector Calls? Don't do it.