Pandemic play (Anne Rooney)

On the covid ward

This post has snuck up on me and I don't have time or ideas. No, I have ideas but they take too much time to develop. This is the irony of a pandemic that stops you doing anything... no time to do anything. I've tested both ends of the lockdown spectrum. Last spring, complete isolation (well, except the tortoise), separated from the child I've looked after all her life and with allmost all my book contracts cancelled. Deserts of time, but not the emotional resources to use it for all the projects I planned to do when there was time. Now, I have the child 5 or more days and nights a week and am trying to homeschool alongside work that has returned to near-normal levels, and all urgent (of course). Today is one of two days this week I don't have to play Playmobil covid wards and try to enforce rainbow writing, so I'd better get to work. But first, a tip for playing the time stock-market. Marzipan.

 

 

Marzipan Dimetrodons, random bird and starfish

 For an investment of about £2.50 and 10 minutes, you can occupy a child with marzipan for quite a long time. Warm it (the marzpian, not the child) for a very few seconds in the microwave to soften it. Really not long, 10 seconds is probably enough — it gets unevenly hot, and once hot marzipan is stuck to your skin it (a) hurts and (b) doesn't come off easily. This is not a good time to go to real hospital. And it's never a good time to explain that your burns come from microwaving marzipan to make extinct animals. You can mix in a few drops of food colouring: poke a hole in the blob of marizpan, add the colour, and knead the resulting mess thorougly. Do this bit yourself, unless you have a good washing machine and lots of hot water to spare. Wash your hands between colours or everything comes out muddy brown and then you are stuck with making walruses and other brown things. 

Use your marzipan like playdough. You don't need to worry about the child eating it. And you can make lovely things that you leave to harden for a day and then eat them on purpose. OK, it's high in sugar (and possibly colourings), but it's not toxic. Don't do it if you or your child is allergic to nuts, obviously. If it all goes horribly wrong, you can still eat it and it's kept them busy for a while. And they learn a lot about which animals are basically blob-shaped. Seals are quite easy to make. Slugs are very easy to make. It's not a day for celebrating the biological wonders of giraffes and elephants. Worms are a good starter-aninal. You can press the little lines into them with a comb (wash it before and after, obvs).

Now I'm going to correct dinosaur layouts and eat leftover Dimetrodons for breakfast... Have a nice day, everyone.

Anne Rooney

Latest book (doesn't mention marzipan)
Salariya, 2021