The Easter holidays are over and so is the first month of quarantine.
If I had to find a word to define each week up to now, it would be:
week one – anxiety
week two – homeschooling
week three – tonsillitis
week four – Easter
week five – exercise and cherry blossom (ok that’s four words).
I have practically got over the virus that I presumably caught from my son, who most likely caught it at school (back in the days when children went to school). So, I have been able to exercise properly again this week. I joined two yoga classes via Zoom, I went for long walks with my son, among the cherry trees in bloom, and for a family bike ride along the Berlin Wall trail at the weekend. Exercise is one of the things that has helped me remain fairly sane until now.
Spring has brought colour back to Berlin: pink and white cherry blossom, green leaves and blue sky. The sun has continued to shine every day from morning until evening, breaking all previous records. This has to be the best spring ever!
We’re lucky to be in Berlin and not just because of the weather. The situation here seems to be pretty much under control, at least for the time being. The hospitals are not overloaded and the health system is coping. We can leave the house with other members of our household, as long as we keep a distance from others. The most likely place to see our friends is still a computer or phone screen, but we sometimes are lucky enough to bump into someone we know (well not literally, as we have to keep a distance).
There are plans for schools to restart, albeit gradually. Only pupils in the final years of primary and secondary school will go back to school over the next couple of weeks. We still have no idea when the other years will restart. Kitas (nurseries) probably won’t reopen until after the summer. So it’s back to homeschooling and being a teacher again from Monday.
