It’s been almost two months since our lives suddenly changed. From one day to the next. We’ve had to take stock of a new situation, adapting ourselves to a perimeter that has shrunk dramatically. Our home’s become our universe: a school, a gym, an office, a crèche, a playground, a campsite. An all-in-one space.

Two months is a long time, but it’s flown by. It all depends on your own perception. In Andalusia, we’re used to spending lots of time with our older daughter during the long summer months. And, ho-hum, this year the big hols are gonna be even bigger! But, with no possibility of going out, at least during the very first six weeks, and no school, no family, no after-school activities, we’ve all had to invent and reinvent ourselves.

So, on a personal level, what have I been up to during these last two months? What new skills have I acquired? Because, we’ve all developed skills, right? We’ve all been getting up to something a bit different from usual. What have you been doing? How have you been spending these two months? Learnt anything new? Developed a new passion? While I wait to read your answers, let me give you my own lockdown lowdown:

• Urban kitchen garden

… that’s most likely not going to bear any fruit … or vegetables! But at least we’ve tried, and, by this time next year, I really hope our fingers will be a shade greener. For 2 or 3 years now, we’ve been saying that we’re going to grow stuff on the terrace, and, then, we don’t. But, faced with the uncertainty of certain supplies, and an irrational churning fear in our stomachs that the end of the world is nigh, we’ve managed to create some sort of desperate garden on our terrace. Not having that green gene, however, we made the mistake of putting possibly a few years’ worth of seeds in just two wooden boxes of 40 by 30 by 50!

Ah, all gardeners despair!

• Cook up mash up

I’ve been too busy lately to don apron, roll sleeves and cook it up. Truth be told, I’ve become a bit of a take-away junkie. But, there’s no joy on that front, since our usual Friday – and any other day – night deliveries aren’t an option. So, we’ve gone back to the hot stove. Both adults, in turns. We’ve dug out recipes from the back of our cultural cupboards. And we’ve given ourselves over to batch cooking. Our wallets can only thank us for removing apps such as Glovo and Deliveroo from our mobes!

• Self-styled hair stylist

Armed with a pair of half-broken kitchen or, alternatively, our eight-year-old’s kiddie-craft scissors, and an old comb, I styled a cut surely satisfactory enough to get me into barbers’ school. A grand success! Just don’t ask me for a photo, I didn’t take one, and, modestly speaking, it probs won’t quite make the double-page spread of Barber’s World anyway.

• Certified video-conferencing expert

Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype, WhatsApp, LearnCube, Facetime, whatever you throw at me, I can take it! Have you used any another video-chat? Am I missing anything out? Tell me, and I get on the case over the coming weeks!

Just to add a few more lines to my CV!

• Website dev

Our third child, we’ve been working on it for quite some time, but between children and (real 😉 ) work, we’d had to leave it to one side. Well, it was finally time to get back to it, refine it, update it, in short, take a little more care of it. You can do your bit too. It loves to be Social, get Likes, Shares, Comments, and of course Subscriptions. So please don’t hesitate to indulge it. You can do the same for the corresponding Facebook page and Instagram profile too. The proud parents will be thrilled!

So much for the list of accomplishments, or semi-accomplishments. For a proper lockdown eval., we need to look at the negatives too, what’s left undone, what needs working on?

Let’s take a look at what I haven’t been able to bring myself to do or I’ve been putting off. Some points on this list could potentially move from the dark side into the light, since in Granada, we’re still in Lock-down Release Phase 0. What’s LDR Phase 0, I hear you ask? Basically, nothing! I can therefore continue to develop both useful and useless skills to enrich my skill set.

Without further ado then, here’s my list of “didn’t do’s”:

• Netflix / Disney binge

Zippity zilch! Though it’s not for lack of trying! We had a go with Money Heist, or “La Casa de Papel“. Since living in Spain without having seen arguably Spain’s most famous series aboard seemed something we should feel an inkling of shame about. So, one evening, armed with chocolate and blankets, we dove in and managed to get through the first episode before Morpheus took us hostage. The next evening, we tackled another. And then, nothing! I know I’m going against the grain here, but it just didn’t quite click with us. Just as we didn’t get the bug for Game of Thrones, Outlander, Breaking Bad, and all such like. Sorry all you megafans out there!

• House Party

We got down and dirty with some virtual drinks. Bit of karaoke here and there. We celebrated the Day of the Cross, one of Granada’s most popular festivities, but, no, we haven’t done a House Party. No remote Pictionary, Heads Up, Quick Draw, Trivia or drunken masquerades. There you have it, we’re obvs not as on-trend as all that.

• TikTok whatnot

If we’d felt like joining the virtual party, why not TikTok? To be honest, I have had TikTok on my phone for going on 2 years now, though I never use it. I just dip in occasionally to check up on challenges I never partake in.

You might not know it, but I’m caught up, down to a T … for TikTok

• Challenges from your lounges

Speaking of challenges, done any? Because there’s been quite a few over the last few weeks. Among the most popular there’s the Pillow Challenge, Dalgona Coffee and the #JLoTikTokChallenge. Sorry to disappoint yet again, I haven’t transmogrified myself into a body-jerking JLo, donned a pillow for a dress or spooned a thousand-calorie drink they dare to call coffee.

• Controller freak

Last but certainly not least, no Y-X-B-A, no gamepad bashing, no Animal Crossing. I must admit that I was tempted by the idea of buying a Nintendo Switch from the get go. Even if I know I wouldn’t use it all that much. Only our daughter would play! So no Switch, no Animal Crossing. But, hey, having never been a fan of The Sims, I’m not convinced I’d get hooked on Animal Crossing.

And that’s all for now for my lock-down eval. I’ll probably have more to say in a month or so’s time about other projects we’ve got cooking.

In the meantime, feel free to comment and share. Recipes, TV series, games, family activities – I’m all ears!