The Kids Are Alright: Staying Home With Teens

[By Róisín Curé in Galway] Who would have thought that a tiny little microbe could cause the world to stop in its tracks? Okay, lots of people, I guess, but I didn’t. I never thought about it. The last time I thought about viruses, apart from when someone in my family came down with a cold or the flu, was in a lab in NUIG (our university here in Galway) when I studied microbiology for a couple of years. I can see us now, sixty students in white lab coats and the blue-eyed lecturer, similarly attired, calling out in exasperation, “Aseptic technique, how are ye!” This is an Irish way of saying ” despite my best efforts to teach you the correct technique to avoid cross-contamination, you are failing woefully.” We did all kinds of fun things with plates of agar jelly and petri dishes, autoclaves and cultures: we would smear a thumb onto the surface of the agar plate, and watch what grew after a few days. One person in each team of four would introduce something different: an unwashed thumb, a thumb washed with water, a thumb washed with normal soap from the dispenser in the university bathroom and one washed with an antiseptic soap such as Dettol. The dirty thumb was the worst in terms of the nasty little colony of bacteria that would grow up, but while plain water was surprisingly good, there wasn’t a huge amount of difference between the regular soap and the Dettol. I remember that bacteria were pretty straightforward, if very virulent at times, but viruses were tricky because on so many levels they refused to come out and fight like men. They skulked and hid and even killed bacteria. They were tricky.

Anyway. That was then and this is now. I am at home with my teenagers and my husband and we’re learning to fill our days productively.

My daughter is going to do some lovely embroidery on a denim jacket…

My son and his friend traded haircuts now that the barber is closed. My son’s friend got the better deal, as my boy Paddy is 18 and has a very good eye, while his pal is 15 and not quite as used to drawing and so on as Paddy is. So the back of Paddy’s head is a little uneven.

My kids are mean, and use any excuse to call me a “boomer”, which I’m not – I missed it by a few years. But I kind of deserved it here: I shouted for Paddy not to change the song, when it was only his calculator he was poking. It’s my eyesight…

My girl took a notion to make some gorgeous apple muffins, and made a mock-cross face while I sketched her crumbling flour and butter together. 

I have made this image a little smaller so as not to induce too much envy. The muffins were divine but after two I had a sore tummy. Serve me right.

USk Milano sugegsted people draw the view from their windows. This is the view from my studio window. It was windy but not raining, until I put the laundry on the line, at which point it started raining, of course. It stopped when I brought it inside.

There is lots more on my blog, where I am keeping a daily record of the “quarantine” and have some very silly non-urban sketchy cartoons. You’ll find me at this address. I hope you enjoy it. 

Meanwhile, please stay safe everyone.