This week has been an emotional roller coaster ride. On Monday I was fed up with the whole lockdown situation, especially the uncertainty about the summer. At some point in the afternoon my son pointed out that I had schlechte Laune, i.e. I was in a bad mood. In the evening when my husband got home from work, he suggested I do something relaxing. I washed up while listening to loud music, while he dealt with bedtime. That’s when I came up with the tips for surviving the next phase of lockdown. In a sudden burst of creativity, I rushed backwards and forwards from the kitchen sink to my notebook, while reciting the mantra “tomorrow will be a better day”. By the time little one fell asleep it was past 10 pm and we were pretty tired ourselves, but we decided we needed something to help us switch off from the world. I would definitely recommend watching “The Dawn Wall” if you want to escape from it all.
By Tuesday evening I was feeling exhausted and mentally drained after trying to juggle homeschooling (or distance learning, as we are supposed to call it in Germany) with household chores, while fitting in some writing and looking after my own mental and physical well-being, as well as that of the other family members. Of course, it’s not all bad. I really enjoy spending time with my son and we laugh a lot together. It’s just that I need a break every now and then.
Then on Wednesday we started to see the light at the end of the tunnel with the announcement that Berlin, as the rest of Germany, was taking further measures to relax the lockdown. There were several confusing and worrying moments. For example, it would seem that while the federal governments are keen to ease the lockdown, Angela Merkel thinks it’s premature. So, will they have to shut everything down again in a few weeks’ time? Possibly. There was also a surprise announcement about first-year pupils going back to school on Monday, followed by all other years. Nobody had seen it coming, so the schools in Berlin were thrown into chaos and given effectively only one day to plan, as Friday was a public holiday.
I spent most of Thursday wondering how it would work out until I received an email from the school in the afternoon with “the plan”. School will only be for a few hours and a few mornings this month. Each class will be divided into two groups so that the children can keep the required 1.5m distance from each other. At this point I still don’t know if my son is in group 1 or 2 so I still don’t know when he will go to school. He's hoping it won't be next week, as he actually prefers being at home than in school.
Friday was an exceptional one-off public holiday in Berlin (not in the rest of Germany) to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of the second world war and the liberation from the Nazi regime. Some people in Germany would like this to become a national public holiday, but not everyone agrees. We decided to escape the city to the green countryside.
On Saturday my son and I finally managed to get a haircut. Luckily, I had made the appointment first thing on Monday morning, because my hairdresser is now fully booked until July. I thought she meant June, as Juni and Juli sound quite similar in German, but no she definitely meant July. Now that hairdressers (and their customers) are required to wear a mask, they look more like surgeons about to perform an operation than actual hairdressers, but at least you don’t need an anaesthetic to get a haircut. By the way, we had to take it in turns to go in, as there can’t be more than four people inside the salon at the same time and I had to write down my contact details before I left, in case the hairdressers or one of the customers tests positive with Covid-19.
Now it’s Sunday, the last day of another welcome long weekend and also Mother’s Day in Germany and in many other parts of the world. It’s also supposed to be the last warm and sunny day for a while. The temperature is expected to drop by 15 degrees tomorrow. The weather is also a roller coaster ride at the moment.
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