The Easter holidays are just around the corner, leaving a lot of us with two or three weeks of time to fill.
You’d think after practising the art of entertaining ourselves for the past year we’d have mastered it, but as we know all too well activities can get repetitive and our originality with ideas starts to dwindle.
Here at Keep Cardiff Live, we’ve got a few of boredom busters that will help provide some inspiration for adults and kids alike.
Bringing the bar into your home
Since we have to wait until April 12th for bolted bar doors to swing open again, why not shake things up a bit by trying your hand at being a bartender?
Creating your own cocktails, garnishes and favourite beverages can be simple. For example, using food that may normally go to waste, such as lemon peel or leftover herbs, as garnishes for your drink is a great way of saving food waste as well as adding extra oomph to your glass.
Or if you’re wanting to reduce the effort altogether, simply purchasing some ready-mixed drinks can help you bring the bar experience into your house still.
If you have little ones who aren’t ready for an alcoholic tipple yet, you can still involve them by whipping up some mocktails. By simply using the right glass, you can dress up any drink. Throwing together some lemonade, orange juice and a dash of orange peel to garnish in a glass with a little straw can make them feel like a little grown up and make them part of the party.
Easter egg hunts for all the family
Whilst chocolate eggs hidden around the house may keep the kids busy for a little while, it doesn’t mean you have to sit around with nothing to do. Yeah, you could get some chores done, but why not have a little bit of fun?
If you have a fellow adult in the house, you could create an egg hunt for each other. Making the clues a little more difficult and perhaps hiding them out of young hands reach can still be fun and bring out the inner child in yourself (you may want to opt for a boozy egg for the edition).
Or if you want to partake in the children’s fun, you could create voucher eggs. As well as the obligatory chocolate, you could pop in a little token that has a personalised voucher from each of the family. Get everyone to write down some before the hunt, with things such as ‘one hug’, or ’10 minutes extra TV’, and then whoever picks that voucher gets to use it once. Hint, having a few chore vouchers for the kids may work in your favour.
If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, then why not catch up with a friend over Zoom or a phone call? Maybe schedule the hunt for early morning so you get a cheeky lie-in? Or just put your earphones on and dance around to your favourite songs.
Logging on to internet events
Whilst we may be fed up with staring at screens, there are always some great online events running for all ages. There’s most likely something for everyone, from health webinars to online book clubs and cook-a-longs, why not enter some topics into your search engine and see what pops up. Here’s a few events you can find over the next few weeks:
Dennis and Gnasher’s Big Bonanza at Kew Garden, Wednesday 31st March- Sunday 18th April 2021
An Introduction to Music Making, Wednesday 31st March, 6pm.
The Ultimate Easter Experience on Zoom, Thursday 1st April 2021, 4pm.
Easter Bingo, Saturday 3rd April 2021, 3pm.
Livestream Rhiannon Giddens concert, Friday 16th April, 7pm.
Find more activities across several sites, with Eventbrite having a great selection especially and The List for musical events.
Get competitive
Whether you want to challenge your partner or friends to a fitness competition or add a competitive element to the kid’s chores, adding in little friendly competition can boost motivation and help get jobs done faster.
Instead of keeping a chores chart, why not make it a challenge? Who can wash the greatest number of dishes in five minutes? Who can walk the dog the most a week? It can help entice kids to get the job done faster and maybe even add a little fun to mundane tasks. Or if you’re dreading the spring-cleaning, set yourself time challenges. Having a 5-minute timer per room helps you get on with the essentials and speeds up the tiresome task so you can put your feet up sooner.
If you have a fitness tracker, connect with friends and see who can get to the top of the leader board. If you’re more musical, set a target for how many songs you want to learn how to play. Bit of a bookworm? Make your way through your reading list and challenge yourself to how many books you can finish by the end of Easter. Whatever your preferred activity, you can make anything a bit more competitive and a lot more fun.
Check out Keep Cardiff Live…
Something that can help you get your musical fix this Easter is checking out the Keep Cardiff Live website! From interviews, podcasts, features and musical memories, there’s a little something for everyone. You could learn something new through one of our written features, discover a new artist by watching to our vlog cast, or enter a reminiscent mood reliving people’s first music memories.
Not only may you discover something new, but it may provide some inspiration or help you rediscover some classics you may have forgotten about.
As you may have read in one of our previous blogs on wellbeing, there are plenty of other ways to help you take care of yourself and recharge your drained batteries over the Easter Weekend and holiday.
Why not have a look at our self-care suggestions to help you find some ‘me-time’ inspiration and incorporate some time for yourself amongst the chaos of daily life.