Thursday, a grind of a day on the sofa, meeting after meeting and then the typing up of all the notes and ideas. The night is football sofa time. I am bored with my self and devour a bag of chocolate buttons vowing to exercise some time soon. The last time I felt like this I ended up with a baseball bat and becoming an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church Monastery, I even got an honour doctorate of divinity out of it.
I’ve got 11 days to memorise my fifteen minutes of debate opener prior to a conference on line. Having watched The Rap Game UK last night I am tempted to drop it in bars and lay it on them. However given my appalling dyslexic memory I doubt I would get through the first bar without weird alternative lyrics spilling out. So its an idea I might as well drop the mic on now. Fierce eh! I did have a favourite, Shogun, an angry young scots guy who was up front with everything, I just admired his skills. Not for everyone but I could not do it.
Told you it wasn’t for everyone but got to admire his energy and spirit.
Tuesday and what a pain in the arse it was for a lot of the time, basically because the IT system at the Royal College of Psychiatrist’s new security protocols are faulty. So for most of the day I kept getting the message that my machine had been deleted from the system. Eventually a very patient and kind man from the IT help desk rescued me and between us we managed to get my machine undeleted and up to speed again. I did manage to get a zoom call session in with my manager at the RCP, which was useful. I was so wrung out by the end of the day wrestling with the IT that I had no desire to do any work whatsoever, so I didn’t. I was at the end of a darkening autumn afternoon and frankly could not give a toss about enabling environments or helping the world be a better place. So I baked ginger and almond Florentines from Nadia Hussain’s BBC recipe. My first attempt, which went okayish, but I think I will adapt them to include glace cherries and sultanas, a more traditional recipe.
Final cooling
Virgin cooling
My evening consisted of watching Liverpool win whilst keeping an eye on Japanese week on The Great British Bake Off and devouring my favourite tune pasta dish. Of course I had to try the Florentines with a coffee and being sweet toothed me I end up eating at least four of the chocolate and sugar laden little beauty’s. Pleasant enough but immediately followed by the guilt of knowing that sugar feeds my cancer and I wonder why I have this sudden urge to bake stuff, all the things that are not good for me in a very real sense. I can’t be that fed up with COVID, can I?
Once everyone has gone to bed I curl up on the sofa, put the fire on and settle down to read my new book that arrived today. On Connection by Kae Tempest, one of my favourite poets and play writer. Its her COVID contribution and is an extended essay on creativity and connecting to people, typically lyrical, raw and honest. I sit and read till I have finished the book, stare into space for a while thinking about friends and what I have in hand to create and go to bed with a head full of “stuff”.
READ THIS!
Wednesday, bins will be collected, the Hoover is being used followed by the sound of office chatter, I think about staying in bed but the thought of bacon bagels is overwhelming and I need coffee. I’ve decide to spend the day writing my contribution to a debate I am taking part in at a conference in November. I have fifteen minutes to fill and I’ve read five books in preparation, that feels like over kill, if I don’t write it now it will just become impossible, I’ve got so much new material and ideas that its going to take time to edit it down and make it cogent. The irony is that I am on the wrong side of the argument, I’m hoping my opponent is dazzling and persuasive enough to win the vote, however in the spirit of fair play I am going to give him a run for his money. So I am off to the shed to write my notes and to think. My reading last night has left me churned and in my head I carry the section that noted that the difference between a poet and those that think they could be a poet is that the poet has finished work. It is the creativity that leads to the work: the writer, the work, the reader, then there is the possibility of connection.
Monday, time to catch up with my letter writing, which is way behind. So I cook a quick egg roll breakfast and head for the shed. For the next few hours I write letters to all those good people who have written to me over the past two or three weeks. The shed is warm and dry and I listen to the rain beating on the roof and watch for our wet and hungry squirrel. Lunchtime arrives and I go inside and wonder why the laundry area is steamed up, it turns out that my eldest has manged to leave the shower on all night, no wonder we ran out of hot water this morning. I guess that’s family living for you.
A lunch of noodles and then I am back in the shed to finish the letters. For some reason I could not get my seal ring to work properly on some of the letters, I guess it will reman a mystery. I continue on until I realise its getting close to post box collection time, so I pull on jeans and take the postal walk. Back home I find a parcel for me, its my duck down winter jacket. Its just warm and snug and now hanging waiting for an appropriate moment for its first run out. I seem to be focussing on being warm this winter. The urge to hibernate is strong.
So its back to the shed to climb aboard the exercise bike and try and pedal the stiffness out of my thighs after yesterdays exploits in the garage gym. As I pedalled away hoping to make the full hour the rain teamed down and I began to realise that it was getting dark, this genius forgot the clocks went back on Saturday, and of course its getting dark. By the time the hours up its dark. I pack up the shed and head for the house having to return in the dark once I pull the power plug to the shed. So I settle down to write the blog and eat tea before having my thickness confirmed by watching Only Connect and not being able to get a single answer. The saving grace is that it is hosted by my favourite poker player. Tomorrow is back to the work a day world of enabling environment, supervision and developing tools. Rumbling away in the back ground is the need to write my part of the debate to take place in November.
Saturday and a day of technological challenge. My partner and I visited her mother to install a new cordless phone. This particular model has a shielding facility, which of course got labeled a “fuck off button” in my mind. But it was what this person was looking for as she wanted to be able to avoid repeated nuisance calls from cold callers and other such unwanted folk. Of course such advances in technology demand greater set up skills not to mention the reentry of all the stored telephone numbers in the directory. I discovered just how many people a 92 year old can know and how wide a support network of services can be. In some senses the mechanical re entry of numbers was easy, it was the setting up of the “fuck off button” that took the time. The other impediment was sorting out the spaghetti junction of wires that fed the phone, printer, home alarm, personal alarm and other bits and pieces behind the computer desk that housed the extension sockets that everything was plugged into. I had to label the plugs to make sure everything was plugged in and that the extraneous wires and plugs I removed really were redundant. In the end I was ringing the number from my mobile and going through the vetted call procedure. Then it was a case of putting together an impromptu seminar on the usage of the new system. So there we were ringing the number on my mobile with the speaker on so that she could hear what people ring her would hear and then listening to what her phone was saying to the caller. We ran through it a couple of times and hopefully she got the hang of it.
Home to watch the rugby and the days football, my team losing. During this we discovered that our planned break in December had been cancelled due to COVID restrictions. We immediately looked for a replacement and found one close by, which has alpacas on site, who could ask for anything better. So between going to Longleat and some night illuminated gardens we can spend some birthday time feeding the alpacas.
Sunday, clocks gone back, so this is winter. A late breakfast and a general organisation of the place and it is soon time for me to be worked over by my weightlifting, personal trainer daughter. We meet in the garage gym and she puts me through some test exercises as she assesses my flexibility, strength and general ability. I end up doing lots of things I would not normally do and feel the stretches and the twinges in bits of my body I do not usually use much. By the time we finish I know I have been well worked an also know that the final programme is going to push me. I retreat to the lounge and indulge in a toasted tea cake as I unwind and relax as the Scottish women draw with France at rugby. Hamilton of course wins another grand prix as I update the Tesco order and catch up with the blog.
I was thinking this morning about the COVID child hunger that is going on and wondering what the Labour party that my parents subscribed to would have done in response to hungry children. The Labour party of old, along with the trade unions, would have been active in their communities organising food for the children and the poorer families. The party of old would have looked after their own, the working classes that were bearing the brunt of a society that view them as profit making units. Where is that “on the street”, response, the practical communal help to support comrades in the struggle. All I hear is fine words and political posturing by the politicians, how do they think they are going to win back the trust of the working class if they do not get off their arses and do something that their people would understand and know they were being heard and responded to. Who knows they may get there at some point.
STOP PRESS: Official Weigh In: 94.4 kilos, officially out of Obese and into Over Weight again. Progress!
Friday: a day of work telephone calls and meetings. I venture out to seek Krona and get told they are not in stock and there is no way of knowing when more will be ordered. Apparently there is no demand apart from me, once again Sainsburys fail, I’m so glad we moved to Tesco. The irony is that Sainsbury’s sent me an email telling me they missed me. Meaning of course they miss my money. No Krona, none of my money will pass their grubby vault’s portal.
I feel that I have been in front of a screen most of the day, which I guess is not an unusual experience for lots of people. As things drag out it cuts into my opportunities to train so I find myself post dinner wondering if I’m going to get into the garage gym, especially when Scotland’s rugby match against Georgia is on TV tonight. I either will or wont, either way I am not going to beat myself up, life’s too short.
Its Christmas that swims to the top of the houses agenda as packages appear and get squirrelled away. We have our stock of Christmas cards and will soon sit down and write them. Folk could be getting early November cards. Next weekend is Christmas cake making weekend and there will be more scouring of shops and internet sites for inspiration. Its all part of the move to hibernate as the clocks go back this weekend. I think we are turning squirrel.
Its easy not to bother, to have another cup of coffee and not do it. And so the distance grows. Winter COVID will make strangers of us all if we are not as careful of our friends as we are of ourselves in this time of isolation, fear and uncertainty. From living to survival in one easy virus. Even the previously easy solutions become risk laden and so we are entranced into doing nothing. Dangerously we stop making the effort and then we begin to think no one cares enough to respond or make the effort. It is this that will eat away at our being and undermine our friendships, affections and loves. It becomes a “the sun is shining but I cannot be bothered” syndrome and soon winter is upon us and we will huddle like squirrels in drays waiting for spring, but in our case waiting for someone else to be spring for us. So today I shall make the effort, write the letters, make the calls, persist and knock once more on the doors of friendship, family and loved ones just to say hello and ask if they can come out to play in the autumn leafs before winter truly arrives.
And if you are reading this and thinking the bugger has not written, phoned, hailed me then do something about, spend a stamp, make a call, you never know the response might surprise you. It might surprise me to.
I now go to mount my exercise bike and continue the fight as I see the postman pass my door empty handed. Later I will talk to others in an open forum full of strangers and people I have never been in the room with and wonder why I do not do this with those I have. Another leaf that falls in autumn before the trees are laid bare in winter. I perhaps need to be more creative but then I need to take care that this is not merely a distraction from what this virus is really robbing me of, and that is more difficult to face. Which reminds me I have two letters to reply to and a coffee ZOOM in the diary, I am perhaps more blessed than most but still need to remind myself to pay attention and make the effort.
In the middle of writing up my forum notes I noticed the sun glinting off my coke can onto the television and where it fell at the right angle it produced rainbows. I took some time to play.
Amazing what pops up from sun and coke can in an idle moment.
My evening was full of football and watching Leicester win in the Europa League and watching a film about an ex Olympic gold medalist turned missionary in Japan having a crap time in a Japanese camp in the war. Now that’s multitasking when you throw in finishing the blog for the day as well.
Its Wednesday and it is one that starts well, the squirrel has found the refilled nut feeder, so my efforts yesterday were worth while. Its good to start the day that way.
After a light breakfast of muesli that looks suspiciously like hamster food, I checked my diary and headed for garage gym to row for half an hour. I was pleasantly surprised how well it went and felt very happy skipping off to the shower. I prepared for my two o’clock meeting and while doing so a surprise package arrived for me, a late birthday present and a “test piece” T shirt from a friend. The T shirt is spectacularly “Tucany” and fits to a T. I am sure it will not be long before I wear it for a work zoom call. The other part of the package was my belated birthday present. Ear drops that contain dandelion seeds, which reflect the image I use to symbolise my life time clock. A thoughtful present, I like them a lot, those too I shall doubtless wear one for a meeting.
A rare designer label
I attend my meeting and do the follow up emails and calls. This work somehow continues through calls and follow up emails till its time to head for the kitchen. I start the preparation for a signature one pot only to find the remains of the last one still in the pot! So after a hygienic delay I continue to make the dish and pop it in the range. Time for football! Suddenly the evening is all but gone, just time to write a bit of a blog.
Monday and I head off in the morning to see my clinical supervisor and mentor. A drive north, further than I have been for a while. I spent four and a half hours talking and exploring how my work was going and how I am coping with my cancer and the constraints of COVID. It was a crucial time very well spent and I came away with a head full of information, questions and ideas for how I can keep myself working well, staying healthy and maintaining a reasonable, rational balance in my life. Given that in all likelihood we face a COVID infected autumn and winter keeping that balance is what will see me through what is ahead.
In my hotel room I order pizza and a couple of Becks Blues and write notes from the afternoon. A time to think, plan and be out of my usual bubble. It was relaxing and a brief time to reconnect with what is central and crucial to living. I finished my pizza and Becks before settling down to sleep.
The luxury of room service
Tuesday and I skip breakfast to leave the hotel early. The key was to have as little contact with people as possible and to drive home to get some work done. Apart from having to change my route to avoid a motorway closure I got home okay more or less on time. Home and the luxury of a bacon sandwich before I unpack and get ready to train. Before I actually get to train I find myself cleaning and refilling the bird feeders and our squirrel box. Whilst on a roll I managed to get the cover over the swing seat after tediously rethreading the retaining cord through the hem of the cover. So now the garden is more or less prepared for winter. At last I get to climb aboard the exercise bike and grind out an hour of effort, the first for several days. This is the start of my revamped strategy to get my weight down, strengthen my core and build some upper body strength. The gardener rocks up later in the afternoon and sets to work on the garden clearing. It soon pisses with rain and he goes home and I settle down to watch what turns out to be a really boring football match. Out of all this what have I learnt? Dry your hair after you’ve washed it or your head gets cold and your nose runs. Tomorrow starts three days of work and my new exercise regime so an earlyish night for me.
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday was recovery time, which basically meant me laying around and then having spurts of energy as I caught up with a vague to do list. Amongst which I am ashamed to say is catching up with my grandsons birthday which passed me by. On Friday a rowing machine got delivered, one of my bursts of energy was to put it together, so now the garage is beginning to look truly like a gym. All I need now is the energy to use it.
The garage gym comes together all that is required now is energy.
All Saturday afternoon was spent in the office glued to the computer screen as I “attended” a webinar that I had booked and paid for some weeks ago when I thought I needed to do some cpd. From there it was a drive to friends for a meal. Fortunately we are both in tier 1, moderate, zones. No touching, hand shaking, fist pumping, elbow clashing at all, just socially distanced dining and conversation. Actually it was a real pleasure after the week I had had and good to know that others are surviving. So a late night to bed and a lots to think about.
Sunday up and the ritual weigh in. Disaster; 95.4 kilos, I’m officially obese again. Too much comfort food and no exercise during being ill has made me a fat boy again. We eat a late breakfast before confirming my arrangements to see my clinical supervisor on Monday. I’ve done a lot of work over the last few months amidst all the other stuff that COVID has brought alongside my cancer and I need to get it all straight in my head for my own wellbeing. It looks like I and the family are going to face weeks and months over the autumn and winter of going no where and being hunkered down in the house together. I need a plan to stay balanced and clarity about what I am going to do with that time. So today I catch up with washing , packing, and putting the garden to bed for the autumn. Still the garden gives me unexpected gifts.
Still the garden gives gifts
I’ve no doubt I’m going to watch trash television at some point as there is no sport to watch. I’m hoping my motor will begin to run again as the coming week gets under way, there are meeting to attend and a lot of catching up to do. I’ve just discovered the calendar on my phone has wiped all the events and entries prior to September 2019, all my records of the time in Jamaica from when I became ill have just gone, I hate IT. I feel like I’ve lost an important document of my last two years experience. So much for having control of your own IT, clearly its a myth. Back to pen and paper for me.
