The weekend starts on a very nice, sunny Saturday. I took Sarah and Timo with me for a bike ride to a nearby shopping center, pretty much empty. We brought a few thing for keeping ourselves busy, and spent some time at a nice photo gallery.

Back home, Hugo helped me oiling the garden furniture, while Tim was helping Séverine with cleaning the terrasse. A friend of Hugo came to visit – first one for 2 weeks, with much precautions.

I had an online aperitif with local friends – although local doesn’t mean much these days.

Could it be that we read some positive news today – the number of hospitalized Covid-19 patients has decreased in the last 24hrs. First time for a month in Norway… It gives some hope!

Music of the day: we listened to Bert Appermont, the composer of a piece that Sarah is playing with her school band.

Hugo decided to spend the day in pyjamas. It’s Friday, it’s okay!

It was another busy day at work. Timothé english assignment today was translating Bohemia Rhapsody! Nice

After lunch, Hugo went for a walk together with Séverine in the neighborhood and waved to his friends and his teacher from their balcony.

The pace is really picking up at work, with deadlines approaching and a good momentum now that everybody has got their routine in place.

Tim and I started the day with a bike ride in the neighborhood, we paid a visit to Munch’s old workshop.

Then it was work work work for me. Hugo was tired and had no motivation to do his homework, that didn’t help.
In the afternoon, Tim and Sarah had their practice with their band, on zoom. It’s routine now!

And my other routine this week is to binge watch Friends! Never had the time in the last 15 years.

Music of the day: Jean Jacques Goldmann touching cover of his 80’s hit ‘Il changeait la vie’, now ‘ils sauvaient des vies’.

Another busy day with home school, work and music lessons. I had forgotten Hugo’s lesson, we were a bit late. The teachers are using “Zoom”, an app that nobody had heard about just 2 weeks ago, and that now everybody uses.

I had to go to the office mid day to get my computer fixed. I saw 6 persons in the 20 min I was there. It had been days since I had driven the car, and 2 weeks since I had been to the office. It felt a bit strange, and nice at the same time to follow the old routine of driving to work.

Late afternoon, the kids watched the end of “Le gendarme de Saint Tropez”, another classic movie with Louis de Funes.

Music of the day Sango Yesu Cristo, by Manu Dibango, who sadly passed away yesterday. He had given a concert last summer in Oslo, not bad for a 86 years old musician. Uderzo passed away yesterday as well – it got barely noticed. The medias are somehow focusing on very different topics.

Tim and I started the day with a bike trip up Mærradalen again. We all started our day as normal. It’s actually quite busy at work, we’re working close to 100% now. Timothé and Sarah follow their classes on Teams, Hugo still requires a bit more attention, but is also becoming more autonomous. His teacher called him on Teams, he just picked up the call and had a long chat, without us helping.

The big news of the day was the extension of the lock-down until after Easter. We had a tiny hope that we could go to the mountains for the Easter break – that’s not going to happen now. The government is preventing Norwegians to go to their cabins at Easter, and that is quite significant. Norwegians buy cabins in the mountain almost only for the Easter break…

Right after this was announced, we received emails from the teachers saying it was just another 10 days… And we were like, yes for schools, it’s 10 days, but for us parents, it’s 20 days, 10 of which with no other activities than what the kids can do at home and with us.

We all sat down in the sofa and watched a few episodes of Friends. It had been a while since we had watched TV together, it was a nice moment for the family. This and a glass of wine at diner cheered us up a little, with Séverine.

Today’s music: a bit of west coast rap with Dd. Dre and Snoop Dog 🙂

Another week is starting. We’ve given up on our daily plan, the routines are in place and we’re never too far from each other. Norway decided to increase the number of care days for parents of young kids (from 10 to 20), and that these days could be used when the schools were closed. So we can now reduce our working hours a bit and spend more time helping Timothé and Hugo.

We had a moment of fun at lunch finding absurd translations to ask each other’s help with, like “how do you say ‘I don’t know’ in French”, or “how do you say “shut up” in French”… I guess it was funnier on the moment. At least, it’s a good way to practice English.

After work, Séverine and I worked in the garden, cutting some more branches. We then realized the garden waste disposal was closed, so now we have 15 bags we don’t know what to do with. A rather small issue, really, but a sign that we’re not done unraveling all the consequences of the lock-down.

The day ended with 2 episodes of Zorro – the boys really enjoy that show. I used to love it as a kid. It would broadcast Saturday evenings, in a programme called “Disney channel” – it was before Disney became a channel.

Today, we’ve accepted the fact that our summer holiday would look nothing like we had wished. It’s likely that we will not be able to travel to France, or at least that we won’t be able to decide this before long. So we’ve decided to rent a car for 3 weeks. We can decide at the last minute where we go. But it’s likely that it will be in Norway.