Back to Shiftwork {The Ordinary Moments}

Welcome back to another week of the Ordinary Moments. If you haven’t joined in before this is a weekly linky that launches every Sunday morning and is open until midnight on the following Saturday. It’s a linky that celebrates any ordinary moments in your life – or the not so ordinary some weeks too. Basically – anything goes. I’ll be sharing and commenting on the posts that are linked up during the week and there’s a badge at the bottom of the post if you’d like to add it to yours too.

And just like that Dave is back to shifts. It’s not forever thankfully, just redeployment whilst the country fights the pandemic. It’s something I was so used to a few years ago but something the children hardly remember Dave doing.

Now, Dave has two shifts, followed by a day off before another two shifts forever more where he’s working a combination of earlies, lates and nights. We both thought that his shift pattern would be awful – and that six shifts together and a chunk of days off would be better. Getting work out of the way and then having a chunk of days off together. But, after doing one set of shifts, with a day off in between, we realise that having the shifts broken up is so necessary for his mental health right now. I don’t think anyone would cope doing his new role for six days in one go.

We haven’t had enough time to get used to his shifts but the main difference for us is that since the children stopped going to school Dave’s working pattern helped us know what day of the week it was as he had every weekend off. Now, there’s no chance of us knowing what day it is – and weekends are just another couple of days at home.

We’ve been having meals at different times of the day to fit in with Dave’s shifts – dinner at lunchtime before he goes on a late, brunch when he gets up from sleeping off a night shift and normal meals together when he’s home. We’re rolling with it and it’s working so far.

The children have been amazing, getting used to every change that has come their way – and Dave working shifts is just another change to add to the list. They’re so resilient and I know this is a time we’ll talk about in the future. I hope they look back at it, remember all the changes but see it as a positive time – one where we did the right thing, where we had as much fun as we could and where we appreciated the little things.

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If you have an ordinary moment this week, come and link up – I’m looking forward to reading the moments that you share and will comment and share them on Twitter through the course of the week. Thanks so much for taking part.