Sunday was spent doing home stuff like rewiring the light switches in the kitchen and clearing the decks for the week to come.
Today, Monday, I get up, shower and head for the GP surgery to get my 28 day injection and my three monthly B12 jab. Back home straight afterwards to a day full, literally, with zoom and teams meetings. In the gaps there are e-mails to send and admin to do. By the end of the day of work all I can do is stare at the TV and listen to the waves of COVID news. As the day wears on towards the Tesco delivery I am feeling progressively under the weather. No temperature, and my heart rate and oxygen sats are good, but I am feeling chilled and I ache, my joints feel stiff, especially in my hands. I resort to chocolate. An early night for me. Hopefully its just the effects of my injection.
Saturday, the day before weigh in and a day to risk Sainsburys for a new frying pan and fish food. So after a late morning bacon bagel its off to the supermarket. I strange land of queuing, sanitizer and designer masks. No car washers in the car park, a disappointment but I guess they lack the moral fibre of the car washers of my youth. We leave with more than we planned of course and head for the garden centre with a good butcher but alas no turkey crowns. This is part of our plan B Christmas contingencies. So we assuage our disappointment with fruit scones and some posh strawberry daiquiri jam.
In the midst of all this my new tracksuit arrived. An understated combo which I shall use to train in the chilly garage gym over the next few weeks to build some core strength and tone up.
As I said understated track suit for the chill of the garage.
It’s rugby semi final day so we settle down to watch while indulging on the scones with daiquiri jam. Good games but by the time they are over it was getting dark. Time to retreat to the shed and train. Today the aim was to reach 1000 kilometre mark. So in the dark and rain I get set in the shed and start to pedal wearing my altitude training mask on for the first ten minutes. I cannot see the garden so I sweat and pedal by the light of the desk lamp while the heater pumps out heat. For almost an hour I grind out the work and then at 57 minutes the magic 1000 kilometre total appears on the monitor. I ease off for the last four minutes but manage to get 500 calories burnt.
I hit 1001 kilometres
I go through my usual post training routine to close up the shed and get into the warmth of the house, where I can shed my kit and recover on the sofa watching a film and beginning to write the blog. This was interrupted by dinner and the start of a new Tom Hanks film. So I finish the blog and settle down to watch the film while my legs recover. Tomorrow is crunch day, I weigh in on the scales that today I put a new battery in and cleaned. I am hoping for another decrease on my weight so that Sunday can be an indulgence day, chocolate orange perhaps.
Thursday: a day when I take delivery of my prized Honka FC football shirt. My favourite Finnish football team who currently are riding fourth in the Finnish top league. Who could not like a team called Honka. My football highlight is the Finnish derby of Honka versus Haka. Below is my new shirt, which I shall be wearing to meetings in the near future.
FC HONKA shirt. Being worn near you soon!
The HONKA badge.
So Thursday was a good day. It also included a good open forum session and a rare reasonable performance by the England football team, watched in my Honka shirt of course, which saw them beat Wales 3 nil. So they were the highlights that framed stuff like checking the wiring on some lighting switches, tripping off to Wickes to buy replacement switches and the excitement of a power cut, unrelated I hasten to add to my wiring check.
Friday. The door chimes ring out the Ode to Joy at four in the morning. Another power cut, so back to sleep. Up in the morning, breakfast and some Enabling Environment work before retreating to the shed in my training gear to write up the notes from yesterday. This process is always a longer task than I anticipate due to the nature of the notes and the work. I get them finished and then clamber up on the exercise bike to do a session for an hour. A good session that was completed to the noise of Rammstein. Always works for mem every time. I am within 25 kilometres of completing 1000 kilometres on the bike. I am still determined to get my weight down and get fit. Its begging to feel as If I am getting fitter, mostly because my clothes are starting to fit again ad I am once again looking in my wardrobe and fancying wearing some of my nicer clothes. Anyway I get my session done and take a shower. As I am getting the ingredients together to cook the evening meal a friend rings for a chat , which a was a nice surprise and a welcome distraction from the chopped vegetables. I got the meal in the oven and settled down to watch the French Open while my partner trained in the garage. Djokovic won eventually over Tsitsipas. An evening of TV and popcorn. Tomorrow I might venture to Sainsburys, just for the excitement of the peril of COVID restrictions in a supermarket. What would be a bonus would be if the car wash teams are there but I guess COVID has done for them.
Wednesday, and today needed to start with breakfast followed by training as today our garden man was due to arrive this afternoon. There was also another good reason to get training in early and that was the new grill element was due to arrive today and that meant I was going to enter into DIY mode with the range. So I spent an early hour sweating in the shed and determined to get to the end of the hour. I was pleased to survive and returned to the house to play with my new WIFI headphones, connecting them to my laptop and my phone, discovering on the way that Spotify plays automatically allowing me to hands free “groove around” the kitchen while I sized up the task in front of me. All my research tells me I am going to have to take the back of the cooker off to access the wiring of the grill element. That in itself is not a problem but what is a pain in the butt is the filth and grease that will have accumulated over the years since it was installed.
I was right. It was a war zone, muck and grease encrusted on the floor, walls and the sides of the adjacent kitchen units. So it was out with the kitchen cleaner, scourers and hot water to clean the area out. Of course the cooker had to be unchained from the wall before it would ease its way out into the main part of the kitchen. Once freed from its greasy moorings the cooker was striped of pans and shelves to give me access to the burnt out elements. Fuse off of course.
The dead grill element
The first step is to get to the back of the cooker and remove the casing hiding the wiring to the element.
The pristine back cover
So here we go, simply take the back cover off. This little cover was sneaky and used two types of screw, lucky I noticed, but it came away easily to expose the wiring to the element.
Wiring exposed, picture taken
Being kind of obsessive I take the extra precaution of labeling the wiring. Never can be too careful.
My obsessiveness comes to the fore.No turning back, the wires are off.
I then returned to the front of the cooker and started to remove the retaining bar and then the screws that retain the element. The first retaining screw fell behind the rear oven plate so that had to be taken out as well. More grease and muck to clean. The second screw came out easily enough, allowing the new one to be slid into place and secured. So far so good. So its returning to the rear of the cooker I rewire the new element contacts.
Happily re-wired
So now its all about putting everything back and securing it all. I do all this and start to repair the light on the cooker hood which had not been working for sometime. I discover the glass on one of them is in four bits so naturally I reach for the glue to find there is not any in the garage. I abandon home and drive to the local Wickes and buy glue, filing my partners car up on the way back.
So at last the job is done and I put everything back and go and flick the fuse back on. No loud bang, that’s a good sign, as is the oven lights working and the cooker hood light coming on. I put everything back and take a celebratory photo.
The finished job, at last it all works again.
As I finish the job our garden guy has arrived and is mowing the lawns. I put away my tools and flop on the sofa to rest and check my e-mails and take a couple of calls. It feels like a long day already as I ease into NCIS having closed up the shed for the night and said farewell to garden man. In front of TV I eat tea and settle down to watch the last episode of the Great British Bake Off, bread week. I have to say there was nothing that blew me away but I did get the urge to make soda bread with some sort of weird flavouring. This done I settle down to write the blog. Tomorrow I have an open forum to look forward to and another training session to get through.
Monday, letter writing, mending the shed window. Doesn’t sound much but it was all so time consuming, however I did manage to get a good training session in which made me ache and dash to the shower. By nine o’clock I went to bed to read as I was more tired than I realised. Very little got read before I slipped into sleep.
Today started with a omelette breakfast and a challenge, the window I am mending in the shed had dropped so much that it would not close plus I had run out of sealant. A trip to the local Wickes via the garage to fill up and I was in possession of all the required materials. After a bit of a wrestle I got the window closed and sealed. So now it is weather proof but it will not open without serious force which will mean it is likely to drop to pieces. As long as it keeps the winter out I will be satisfied. I turned my attention to the broken oven grill and discovered that there is a company that specialises in elements who could deliver the part I need by tomorrow. The thought of bacon sandwiches spurred me to action and one will be delivered tomorrow. Hurray for the motivation of bacon sandwiches. After a brief lunch of noodles I retreated to the shed and set about designing things to be made out of wax for the jewelry set. I eventually got an idea and made a rough cut out of one of the waxes. After some experimental filing and drafting I got to something resembling a worth while object, or at least an idea. I registered my efforts with CAST and got a code and popped my effort into the provided prepaid mail tin. I thought I had missed the posting time but I got to the post box just as it was being emptied. Home and I close up the shed for the night and settle on the sofa to write the blog, eat dinner, take a call from a friend and wonder what to do tonight. Perhaps a film for a change.
Sunday; weigh in day, so after getting comfortable I step up onto the scales: Result: 94.5 Kilos. It is official, I am now “Over Weight” and no longer “Obese”. I have another 2.5 kilos to go to my first goal. My new status was celebrated with an after dinner Magnum. A real treat. If I can drop again next Sunday then I shall celebrate again. My coming week has very few work slots in it so I am hoping to put in a good training week on the exercise bike and in the gym.
As for the rest of the day it was a mixture of watching Leicester Tigers losing the last game of the season, baking bread, planting pansies and raking leafs up off the lawns. Since having the central heating re-piped the shower in the bathroom now works which means I sneak off and have a shower at the drop of a hat. As a result my hair seems to be adopting a Ted Danson style. I suppose it has to adopt some sort of mid stage style as I grow my way towards my final goal of the Lucius Malfoy look.
Ted Danson
Lucius Malfoy
It seems it will take some time to make the transition but I think in the long term worth it. To bead or not to bead? I shall see when I get there.
My evening saw me finish series four of Heroes and watching football highlights. Tomorrow sees the start of a week of work and training opportunities so I will be spending time in the shed.
Saturday and it starts with the usual lay in and negotiation for a bacon sandwich start to the day. Its raining hard and does not stop all day. Mid morning and I make my way to the shed to climb aboard the exercise bike. I spend over an hour grinding out the effort and get through the last phase with the help of Rammstein loud in my ears. Any thought of planting pansies in the pouring rain disappeared in the deluge. I was pleased to get back into the house and get a hot shower and settle down to read a letter from a friend in Scotland. The rest of my day was spent watching rugby and football in a splurge of self indulgence. During the various breaks in games I ordered a new heating element for the grill in our oven, which is no longer cooking bacon efficiently, so it is essential to get it back to full power. I put a loaf into bake and checked my mail deliveries had occurred. My other moment of indulgence was buying a shirt from my favourite Finnish football team, Honka! Who could not love a team called Honka. My favourite Finish derby match is when Honka play Haka. So my Finnish team is currently fourth in the Finnish premier league, now that’s a little known fact that you can use at your next dinner party. The last Honka v Haka derby ended up one each. My evening was full of Heroes, we have almost got to the end of the fourth series and then there will be a search for our next box set to binge. My last task of the day is to write the blog. Tomorrow is weigh in day and I am hoping for another decrease in my weight to move me from obese to overweight.
Of course all of this stuff goes on while in my head the pixies are working on why there is so much COVID polarization, cognitive dissonance, depersonalisation of people, irritability and trolling behaviour due to COVID. This, along with the mental writing of my conference contribution on IT and therapy based on the tension between a digitally based logic system being used by analogue beings,us,as a form of therapy, is keeping the pixies busy. The everyday always conceals the really interesting stuff.
Thursday and Friday, gone. Odd moments of memorable stuff like a good open forum session, a nephews girlfriend announcing she is pregnant, an Indian take away, a zoom coffee meeting and the delivery of a new kitchen bin. I managed to train once, and order my months drugs apart from that the kitchen got cleaned and my washing done. How boring I hear you say, and you would be right. It is the grinding effect of confinement and the mundanity of everyday COVID life. I used to think that I should not discount the generative power of everyday life but now I am not convinced that this is true. I did have a the delights of discovering my that my hot wire saw will cut art foam. I need to see my clinical supervisor and spend some time doing the work I need to do to keep me balanced. So while I sort that out I am focusing on losing weight by the Sunday weight in. If I can dip under 95 kilos I will step from being obese to just over weight according to my phone. Now who would not want to achieve this?
Wednesday and the full excitement of the bins being emptied is almost unbearable. Nothing exciting to look forward to, not even a good drain rodding to contemplate. Before breakfast I give the shed a final layer of paint on its patched up internals. A glimmer of energy as the window cleaners turn up and leave almost as soon as they arrive. I watch the paint dry and overcome with the frantic activity decide to have breakfast. Post breakfast the paint is still not dry so I insulate the last lengths of the new pipe work, there is no end to the fun. The paint dries and I reorder the shed to a working and training space but do neither. Instead I attend an open forum session that I had almost forgotten I was having so much fun. It was to be the last of these open forums for this group of clinicians, so I get my Wednesday lunchtimes back. In a flurry of professionalism I change in to a proper shirt with a collar and everything to attend another meeting with a small group of managers I am working with over the next three years to establish Enabling Environments in approved premises. The meeting is relatively short but productive as we agree a way to work together over the next few months hitting one or two objectives along the way. After the meeting there is a flurry of emails and things to respond to. Something tangible to do and pointers to the future. At last the flow stops and I take my chance to pay the bill for our recent re-piping of the heating system. Time to pack and close the shed and settle down to the evening. Dinner and a documentary about T.E. Lawrence full of historians playing psychologist and pretending to know what the man thought, although in fairness T.E. Lawrence wrote a lot of letters and accounts of his time in Arabia. So as the historians take a dead man apart I write the blog. Tomorrow I have my Open Forum to host, some hobby foam to arrive along with a new kitchen bin, I don’t know how I contain myself.
Tuesday, all work and no training. Today was “mend the shed” day. So it was a quick bagel breakfast and then the gathering of the tools. I measured up, cut new lengths of lapping and preplaced the screws. Then it was off to the shed to fix them to the back wall. What a pain in the arse that was due to the fact that I had to reach between two sheds to hand screw the screws in at the far end of the new pieces. But I finally go them in place and ran sealant along the tops and sides.
Finally got the battens in position and sealed.
All that was left to do was to paint the new sections and then I could move inside to do the wood filling required. While I was at it I painted the side of the shed that takes the most weather. At this point it was time to stop the work and participate in an on line work meeting. A regular update meeting to share information and to plan for future meetings. A speedy lunch and then it was back to the shed repairs.
Outside done now for the inside.
I moved inside and scrapped away the rotten wood and then got to work filling the gaps with wood filler.
Not pretty but hopefully more sound.
The final step was to begin to paint the affected area. However the wood filler does not take the paint well so a couple of coats are put on and left to dry properly over night. More oats tomorrow, and then I get my shed back to work in. Hopefully the shed will see me through the coming winter.
The shed is left to dry over night.
I finally pack the shed away and put away the tools till tomorrow. Time to do the domestic chores like putting out the bins. There was time to catch some rugby before the Great British Bake Off. What got me was the following programme which was Sandi Tostig working with a group of dyslexics and others who have trouble with reading and writing. It was the second of two programmes that followed their progress as they tried to over come their difficulties. It reminded me what it was like at school avoiding all homework and truanting heavily to avoid being publicly humiliated and written off as thick. Adults mainly pitying, condescending or dismissive was my overwhelming memory of all my school age years. I seem to have turned out reasonably academically well enough, which reinforces my view that there is no big deal to miss school. In fact for quite a lot of children they are probably better off without the standard education experience.
