Tuesday and I wake early and read for an hour. More of Flowers for Algernon. I get up and have breakfast and go to the Shed. Its sunny today and the Shed is warm but I still light my scented candles. I write a letter and spend quite a lot of time starring at my garden. Once finished I walk over to the post box and send my letter on its way. Its hot and getting hotter. My partner makes me a bacon sandwich for lunch and we sit on the patio and chat. My eldest daughter is there as her train had been cancelled, so she had returned home and visited her favourite cockatoo at the local bird garden. I tried to ring my sister again but got no reply. I rang the garage to find out how my car was doing on its MOT. Failing was the reply, a coupling on my suspension had come loose. The garage is getting in the part.
My afternoon starts with some home work for the meeting at 2 o’clock. I browse the internet and look at some documents until I feel that I know enough to attend the meeting with an idea of what is going to go on. In setting up for the meeting I find two poems that I had recently written and forgotten about. One of them was written on the day I re-retired on the 16th of June. It made me realise that it has only been almost seven weeks since I re-retired. It seems so much longer. The other poem was written on the holiday just before I re-retired and as I was going down with COVID, although I did not know it at the time. I typed the poems up and added them to my “All I Have” collection, with them becoming numbers 339 and 340. For what its worth here they are.
Like sitting by the pool No sun No waves No laughing children Or ice cream cones. This is Windermere Twinned with Sparta As its babies die On wooded hill sides In the depths of June. This is COVID meets BREXIT This is empire alone, A commonwealth of cold. This where I sit Balconied and over looking The memories of sun And welcome on the continent, Now the fog of Englishness Cuts us off But still the bulldog Gums its defiance At bears it used to bait. This is where in my woolly I make my stand. 5-06-2022 The Lakes, Windermere 339 I am alone in my garden Sun on my back The air still. This is my last day No more employment, Being useful Making a difference. Today I stop being, A forensic psychologist, Professional Expert. I am alone in my garden With days to fill A brain to feed And all the fears That stopping brings. There is no me out there No place in this world, So this is it. I am alone in my garden Somehow the words are sticky, The ink blotchy The flow difficult. There are ghosts in my garden And fears budding, Flowers going over. A noisy neighbours mower. I am alone in my garden. 16/June/2022 340
At two o’clock I log into my Zoom link and find myself with about 50 other people, many Ukrainian, some colleagues from the Elders group and a lot of people from all over the world. The meeting is an update and information gathering event in order for the host organisation to form a task force to support children and families that are displaced by the war in Ukraine. There were presentations from educationalists, pupils and families from the Ukraine all describing their experience and describing what their needs are. There are also videos made by some of the schools in Odessa and Kiev trying to explain what the experience of waking up to war and its disruption to education and life was like. It was a tough watch but mercifully they were short. The problems of maintaining an education system when huge numbers of pupils and teachers have been dispersed either internally or across Europe. The educationalists all agreed that COVID has turned out to be a blessing because they all had to learn how to devise and deliver distance learning and the skills they learnt are the ones they are using now. There were some real awakeners, for example one of their needs is for shelters at the schools. There is also a growing need for resources that can be used to deal with PTSD and the traumatic experiences of war. All of this content came through interpreters. I found it interesting that one of the presenters did so in Russian but apologised if it caused any offence but his Ukrainian was not good. It goes to show just what sensitivities are around. I log out of the event and sit and think for a while.
When I ring the garage I find the car is not ready so it will mean picking it up in the morning at some time. I try to ring my sister again and get through so we have a chat and I am able to pass on the message that I got from the hospital. My partner and I walk down to the village shop and get ham and strawberries before returning in the sunshine to prepare tea. I start to draft the blog while my partner prepares the meal. We dine and as I continue with the blog we watch the end of Witness 3. This evening just needs me to feed the hedgehog and close up the Shed. Tomorrow is going to be a juggle but it should be doable. The good thing is that there is a meal with friends at the end of it.
