At the beginning it was something new and perhaps something fun. Here’s some helpful ideas what to do on lockdown. If your family is like mine and needs to be outdoors as much as they can, this domicile lockdown has the seed to grow into an almighty civil war.
Understand the rules as what your country is asking you to do.
Here in the U.K. we are being asked to stay indoors and should only be travelling for shopping, health reasons (i.e.picking up medication) and short exercise.
Some people have been misinterpreting ‘Short Exercise’ people have been driving to certain areas for a bike ride, walk or exercising the dog. THIS IS NOT THE CASE! In the U.K. we are being asked to exercise from your home address.
Lockdown really does mean lockdown which means no unessential travel should be taken place.
Ideas for what to do on lockdown.
Plan your day.
If you are at home with your children then get them used to a routine. Get them up, fed, washed and make sure they change into day clothes, I think it is really important for them not to treat this situation as a holiday.
Make a timetable: use a chalk board etc to write out the days plan.
Keep them up to date with what is going on: Watch the news together. (if your children are young then you might need to adapt what’s going on into words they will understand).
Explain to your child why this is happening and that it’s for the good of everyone. Give as much detail as age appropriate for your child.
When you tell your children to wash their hands, don’t just say they need to do it in order keep themselves or the family healthy tell them they need to wash their hands in order to keep everyone healthy.
Then maybe leave a note for an elderly neighbor asking if they could use any help.
Regular Breaks.
Take regular breaks, although you are limited to change their environment due to lockdown take regular breaks from work set from school, to be able to give them something else to fix there mind to i.e Lego, games, crafting.
What to do on Lockdown!
Get them in the garden.
If you are lucky enough to have a garden, now is the time to use it to its full potential.
Garden Schooling.
Weather permitting get them in the garden to do their work set by school. If the weather isn’t great then throw up a tarp and build a shelter, build a fire to keep warm. Take the forest school to your garden.
Outdoor Cooking
Build a fire pit, using old bricks / stones, build a fire pit or select an area in the garden you don’t mind having a scorched area and cook some sausages on the fire. Polish sausages are perfect for this. Tescos will home deliver or if your lucky enough to live near a Polish deli look for Śląska. This is a hot smoked sausage perfect for sticking on a stick and holding over an open fire.
Dutch Oven Cooking
If you’re lucky enough to have an excessive amount of outdoor gear then use it in the garden. Break out the dutch oven and cook a chicken, bake some bread or make a hearty stew like the one below.
Clean and Service your outdoor gear.
With all this time on your hands, get your your tents, bags, kayak etc. etc. and give them a clean, re run the lines on your canoe you’ve been saying you need to.
Clean your boots.
The one thing that hardly ever gets serviced is boots. Thank the lord for Amazon.co.uk as they will still deliver. Get hold of some Wilmas Läder-Smorning or Kanskö-Smorning and treat your leather boots to a well deserved clean and dubbing.
Camp out in the garden.
Now is the time to get out and see how it is to extend your camping season. If your are into camping out in the summer months and wanted to extend your season, there is plenty of equipment for all year round camping.
Get out in the garden with what you have (maybe a few more blankets) and see how it is and decide if you want to invest in a few more things to extend your camping season.
The great thing about this is you haven’t got far to go if it all goes to pot!
Try different methods.
Have a go at setting up a tarp, see how it is, try setting up a hammock and have ago overnight to see if you like the idea. As mentioned above if you get to cold you can always go back indoors.
Fire Lighting.
Have a go in the garden with different methods of lighting fires.
Order a ferro rod, find some tinder and try to get a flame.
Purchase a flint and steel and see if you can make a fire in the age old way.
Use Youtube.
With such a wide collection of information available on youtube from instructional videos to multi-way wild camping trips. Have a look and get some ideas from some great you tubers. Here is a list of some of my favourites.
I hope this gives you some ideas to get through the lockdown. I know we all want to be outside but the outdoors will still be there when this is all done. Personally im finding the time to do things with my boys, cleaning kit, remaking videos, looking back at old films and thinking about what to do when this is all done.
So far it looks like my plans for this year have been thwarted: Sweden trip to Tyresta in June I doubt will happen, Volunteering on the Fjallraven Classic UK in July I doubt will go ahead, but like any trip you are doing you will come face to face with many hurdles which might need to adapt your original plan to get passed and it is the same with COVID-19.
We will overcome. Let me know your ideas of what to do on lockdown in the comments.
Visit my YouTube Channel for some things to watch and hopefully give you some ideas what to do when we get our freedom.
