People have asked us how sheltering in place or “restez chez vous” has affected our family. The answer is that because we were homeschooling and in a one-car family, there was not a large change in our daily life. Our bulk grocery and yarn stores are still not delivering to France, so we’ve had to make changes to our groceries and have not been able to pursue hobbies. Our mail didn’t deliver for a few months, and online ordering is still a gamble as to whether or not it will actually show up. Michael was exposed to the virus several times, but it appears that he didn’t contract it (or was asymptomatic.)
One thing we haven’t been able to do is to travel around and take advantage of many of the free historical sites we have available to us. First with my pregnancy and then with COVID-19 and the continuing sheltering requirements, we haven’t gotten out much.
So my big plan for this coming school year is to take advantage of our location. We have hopes to visit Giverny, Versailles, potentially Wittenburg, and a few other locations this year. Many of them are free or insanely cheap day trips because of where we live. Practically speaking, we’re on a missionary budget, so we’re not going to go crazy here, folks.
We also will be studying the seashore as part of our first graders’ nature study this year, so we hope to take trips to eight different beaches to see the various forms of biodiversity that our coastline has to offer. One beach has earless seals visit it twice daily, so we’re hoping to be able to see them.
We continue to remain fairly isolated, although we’ve recently been able to have some more meetings and friendly gatherings. Michael’s work has opened up again to the point of being gone for at least a portion of every day.
This is a fairly grace-less way to re-enter blogging. I have had so many thoughts in my head and heart swirling around, but the timing felt off or inappropriate. However, forge forward I must. Onward and upward!