We’re all living in a crazy time right now and if you’re in South Africa, we’re under a 21 day lockdown i.e. the government has officially told us to stay at home (if you’re not working in essential services) unless we’re going to buy essentials or get medical care. As I’m writing this, we’re on day 11 of 21 and we’re slowly trudging along.

I’ve filmed some videos about how things are going before and during the lockdown and you view them by clicking here.

For the lockdown, my daughter (Mpilo) and I went to my mom’s house. She arrived a week before the lockdown was announced and I followed the next week.

To mark this time and have a reference point of what we were up to, I’m going to share a day in our life and what we get up to. We defintely don’t have a set routine but I do try to have a structure to our day so we’ll know what our next move it.

Morning
I usually wake up between 6 and 7am, Mpilo is up anytime between 7:30 and 9:00 depending on what time she slept the previous night. Before she wakes up, I make sure to make the bed, get some coffee, write down my daily to-do list and fire up my work laptop to check for any urgent e-mails.

Once Mpilo wakes up, I get her bathed, changed and we both eat breakfast at the same time. I’ll do a bit of work while she is on her iPad or hanging out with her gran or cousin. I’ll then do a 30 minute workout if I’m due for one that day, then I’ll take a bath and get dressed.

Afternoon
I spend the most time doing work during the earlier part of the afternoon. Mpilo will take a 2 hour nap (after much fighting) and while she’s asleep, I’ll watch something, eat lunch, be on my phone. Once she wakes up, she’ll eat and play outside. She’ll usually ask me to play along with her and we either run around or play with her ball. Since we’re in the lockdown, we don’t go out of the gate so we’re limited to playing in the yard. By 5pm I log off any work that I’m doing and the rest of the day is family time.

Evening
The evenings are for eating dinner, Mpilo taking a bath and watching TV. WE basically watch SABC 1 soapies from 18:30 till 21:30 because that’s what my mom watches. I’ll squeeze in a few episodes of Money Heist before bed and I’m usually asleep around 11pm. Mpilo has been sleeping in her granny’s bed for this period – which I’m so happy about!

I must say that the lockdown hasn’t been that hard on us, apart from the times when Mpilo is acting up, we’re having a relaxing time. On the work front, it has dialled down a whole lot and I don’t have to be on my laptop for 8 hours in a day, which is also contributing to my relaxed state.

How has lockdown been going for you?