I thought I would be good at home isolating – but I was very wrong

In certain circles, I’m known for my domestic goddess abilities. I cook delicious meals, make my own Christmas cards and sew dress-ups for the school Book Week parade.

The washing is always done, meals are planned in advance and the house is usually nice and tidy. It’s safe to say, I run a tight ship. But ever since COVID-19, I’m failing dramatically.

And to make matters worse, everyone else seems to be over-achieving. All I see online are posts of people baking gourmet delights, sourcing highly educational activities for kids and having virtual drinks left, right and centre.

The pressure to use this time well is so intense that I seem to have forgotten how to make toast, let alone bake the latest no-knead sourdough.

One of my goals during this time was to completely spring clean and declutter the house. And it started out well. I cleaned windows, dusted picture rails and wiped the forgotten top shelf of the bookcase. But with the family at home 24/7, the house is dirtier than ever.

Cleaning has become an un-climbable mountain and I’ve only done half the house. And as for decluttering, my daughters’ bedroom is still closing in on itself and the over-packed attic is set to explode.

My cooking skills have also declined. Everyone else has managed to bake fresh bread, bagels and beautiful Easter buns, while I couldn’t even source plain flour.

Then when I finally got my hands on a packet, my bread was like a rock, my chapattis thick and rubbery and my hot cross buns had no crosses. Even casual weeknight meals have become a puzzle.

Since we’ve all been home, dinnertime has become a highlight of each day, so the pressure to create gold every night is enormous. My usual variations on either chicken or mince are just not cutting it and I’m struggling for new ideas.

Home schooling has been another major hurdle for me to trip over. I spent the first week trying to get my head around the technology, how it works, how to download tasks and then upload them when completed – with very little success.

Other parents were all over it from the get-go, uploading their kids’ amazing completed work before I’d even managed to log in. Then social media has been offering no end of suggestions of other online activities and workshops for kids to take up, only increasing my feelings of guilt and inadequacy.

Not only am I falling short in home schooling skills, but I’m also not providing my children with any extracurricular learning or cultural enrichment. What hope do they possibly have?

To top it off, I haven’t done any online socialising. No Friday night drinks or Zoom coffee meet-ups.

Apparently, last week, there was an online school Trivia Night that I knew nothing of. I usually love to organise social gatherings and keep up with friends but since home isolation, I’ve really dropped the ball.

Some people are managing very well and clearly I’m not one of them. But I’m determined to get better.

Hopefully I, too, will be able to conquer my own pizza dough, organise a virtual dinner party and sign the kids up for an online circus skills workshop. But since we’re all home isolating, if I don’t succeed, no one is ever going to know the truth.