There are some of you who have found yourselves with more time on your hands than you had before Covid-19 emerged. According to the media, some of you are finding this to be a hellish experience.

As someone doing home quarantine with a high-energy 3-year-old and a 6-month-old, I find this difficult to imagine, but I thought I’d share two free courses that I would participate in if I were you:

Principles of Economics

This looks to be a super interesting introduction to the concepts that underpin the discipline of economics. It promises to expand our view of what economics is and how it touches broadly on decision making.

Find it here

The Science of Wellbeing

Offered by Yale University, and taught by Professor Laurie Santos, who also hosts The Happiness Lab podcast, this course in practical psychology is oriented toward teaching participants to understand their own brains and to think better.

Find it here

For those with kids, here are two free resources that I think are useful:

Elevenses with The World of David Walliams

David Walliams, the Little Britain comic turned children’s book author, is making a new audio story available each day at 11am (GMT). His narrations are hilarious.

Find them here

P.E. With Joe

Every morning at 9am (GMT), Joe Wicks leads a live P.E. class on YouTube for kids and their parents. From what I understand, a lot of primary schools in the UK are building this into their homeschooling schedules.

Find it here

Today our church met for the first time online. I don’t mean that we listened to a band, and then listened to a sermon as they appeared in a one-way ‘livestream.’

We met (via Zoom) and sang together, we learned a Jesus story, we discussed a Psalm, and we prayed together.

It wasn’t quite like being in the same room, and we are still learning what to do about the logistics, when to mute and when to unmute, but it was good.

It was also my Mum’s 60th Birthday and so later in the day we had another Zoom call, together with my sister and brother in law, to sing her Happy Birthday and to watch her and my Dad eat some of her birthday cake.

This was more bittersweet since it is a big birthday which would usually be celebrated with family and friends, but the plans had to change because of new regulations and advice in light of the Coronavirus pandemic.

All of the above makes me thankful for the infrastructure we already have in place to make this second best approach to connecting a possibility.