DVT DAY 277

Sunday, I wake and find my partner already on the phone talking to the hospital about how her mum is doing. Its a long call but some of the unclear areas are clarified, which make the conversation with her mum easier later. Breakfast and then it is time to do something about the mountain of cardboard, packaging and jettisoned “stuff” that is sitting in the hall way. However before breakfast is over I’ve ordered a new mirror for the back bedroom following the window shaped mirror theme. I was initially miffed to find the one that would do the job can only be collected from the store after about three hours. I press the go button not expecting to hear from the store for a long time but almost immediately I get a text to say I can collect the mirror immediately. My youngest daughter rings and we discuss what the new COVID restrictions means for our Christmas arrangements. She and her partner can no longer come to us for the five days that we planned. We agree that they will come on Christmas eve and leave on Boxing day. I know she is disappointed and upset but I think this is the best adaptation we can make. After the call I decide to do battle with the cardboard mountain in the hall way. I bag, I fold, I crunch and I take a sledge hammer to the bins contents to compact them enough to take the new waste. Finally after stuffing, ramming and compressing I get everything into the bins and the Hippobag, which is now waiting to be whisked away. So at last for the first time in months the hall is clear.

• 

While I have been beavering away my partner and daughter have been putting new cushion covers on new cushions to match the new colour scheme in the lounge. It works well and lifts the room.

• 

• 

My partner and daughter go for a walk while I continue to put stuff away and walk in the garden organising the shed. I notice that the flowers are already showing signs of budding and that there are fresh green shoots of bulbs poking through. I find the hint of spring encouraging and strengthening.

When my partner returns from her walk we get in the car and go to the store to collect the mirror. Because I have elected to “click and collect” I can text my car details to the store so that when I arrive someone comes out to the car with my goods. I am dubious but it works brilliantly. We drive home and drop the mirror off and go to the garden centre and buy a Christmas tree and some food. Once home I set about hanging the mirror, which goes relatively well. Our decision to put mirrors in the bedrooms to reflect the wallpapered walls appears to work. It adds light, depth and colour to the rooms, so we are pleased with ourselves.

I clear away my tools and settle down to watch “His Dark Materials” over tea. I have to say I’m not as captivated as I was, I have got to the stage where I think I need to read the books as I am clearly missing something in the TV version. A combination of football and Sport Personality of the Year occupy me until I abandon the TV to write the blog. Tomorrow I shall bring the tree in and set the lights up but the dressing of the tree will be the task of the rest of the household.

We are almost there, heating system working, house redecorated and fresh. We have an environment in which to ride out the worst a winter can throw at us. Now there is only my partners hospitalised mother, my cancer and the grind of working from home to contain and deal with, Oh yes and Christmas and new year. Alongside this is the constant of missing friends, missing conversations and missing the ideas and thoughts of others. It restricts the ability to make meaning of what all this is, one of the advantages of diversity and engagement.

DVT DAY 286

Saturday and it is time to clear the decks and get the house straight for the Christmas week. So a breakfast of bacon bagel (with gluten) and then we set to to clear the boxes in the dining area and the office. We spend hours putting things away and finding new ways of storing stuff. We are ruthless and throw out lots of stuff and gradually reclaim the dining area. I crack on in the office and pack up a lot of the stuff that I have accumulated over the working years. It goes into a box and into the loft. The office is now my partners now that she is the one who is working full time from home.

We continue with the dining area and finally get the new rug down. Because the new rug is bigger than the old one the table looks smaller and the room bigger.

• 

• 

By this point we have a hallway full of cardboard and rubbish and begin to get messages that Boris is going to do a COVID news conference at 4 o’clock. So we tune in and watch Boris invent tier 4 and totally fuck up our Christmas. Typically it is the bastard southerners who have screwed it for every one with their mutant virus that goes faster then the normal COVID. I am gutted. God knows how we are going to mange to eat all the turkey and the sugar mountain that has just arrived for Christmas.

So its tea, ironically turkey and beans, and then Strictly Come Dancing, the final. Won this year by Bill Bayley. I retreat to the bath and soak. Headphones on I laze and think through the Christmas options, and review where I stand on this screwed up festive season. I order some pixie dust and decide we will have a Christmas tree despite everything because we are worth it. Decision made I get out of the bath, watch football, mend a broken trinket from my youngest daughter and write the blog. Tomorrow I will clear the hall and buy a Christmas tree.

DVT DAY 285

Yep its raining, again. I get up, take meds and cook a bacon gluten free bagel. Gluten free bagels taste crap, I wont be doing that again. The first learning point of the day. The guy who tidies our garden turns up for the last session of the year. I make him tea and listen to him talk about his work and agree what needs doing this morning. Once he is under way I go to the local shop and buy Newcastle Brown and a paper. I note the young couple that come in without masks. I avoid them and wish them ill. Returning home I wrap up a gardening book and the bottles of beer. I find a box to put them in and wrap it up with a card. My partner delivers it to the gardener and pays him before he heads off.

I start to put the pictures back on the walls during which the post arrives. Christmas cards, one includes a surprise letter, which is a very welcome distraction but what was most exciting and cruelly disappointing was a wooden Christmas post card from a friend and her family. Yes a wooden postcard Christmas card, a delight, but it is in a plastic bag with “Our Sincere Apologies” emblazoned across the top if it.

Some how the Post Office has managed to break a wooden postcard! The card is lovely and is signed by all the family, I am really touched by it and consequently monumentally pissed off that that some twat has managed to damage a wooden postcard.

• 

• 

• 

I vow to follow the instructions on the plastic bag and complain bitterly to the post office. I will see what happens. Ideally I would want a sacrificial apology to the family, preferably someone flagellating themselves publicly.

I return to hanging pictures and trying to empty boxes. Of course I cannot remember where all the pictures go and of course the decorators have mislaid one or two of the picture pins. I do quite well and end up with only two small pictures that I have no hooks for. We are getting to the tricky point of any redecorating, that tricky point of deciding what is destined for the Hippo Megabag, the loft or a new place in the house. I already know that some of my trinkets/gifts/memorabilia will be boxed and lofted. Now that COVID has relocated and reallocated working spaces the old arrangement of “Nick Nacks” has to change to reflect who occupies the space. The question is whether I can get shelves up in the shed before Christmas, actually thinking about it I am pretty sure that I have a set of shelves stashed in the garage.

As evening sets in I settle to watching some rugby and thinking about the coming week and how I am going to go into the new year. One relief is that the RCP are actually going to pay my August to November invoices, which of course has been balanced out by the decorators bill arriving. What comes in flows out, it was ever thus. Time for drugs and bed.

DVT DAY 284

So Thursday dawns and the decorators arrive for the last time. I get up and get ready for a meeting followed by an open forum. They went okay. I have time for a quick spat with the RCP over their attitude to services and me. Anything out of that can wait till 2021 if I can be arsed. By the time I emerged from the bedroom, which was the only space available to work in this morning, the decorators had left! its time to set about putting the house back in order. I re-wax and polish two big storage chests that live in the hall and return them to there places. I clear the lounge and put the new rug down. I designer affair that is supposed to be inspired by the frozen ice of the skating rink in Central Park.

Gradually things come together but it will take tomorrow and the weekend to get everything sorted. I unpack my Amazon parcels and set about replacing the machine heads on the banjo that I’m restoring. It goes well.

Next comes the restringing and tuning, which also goes well with the aid of the banjo tuner app I downloaded on to the phone.

Tea and a film while my partner does her on line singing lesson and then we try to find new curtains for the lounge. We succeed but of course they are out of stock. That’s life for you. I write the blog while watching Christmas specials of Mock the Week. Midnight, time for bed, reflection and recall.

DVT DAY 283

Wednesday and the decorator arrives to continue the hall way. I cook a bacon bagel and settle down at my end of the sofa. I work on the banjo project removing the machine heads and discover that one of them is a bodged job. Someone before me has tried to mend a broken shim on one of the winding posts and made a hash of it. I desperately try to find a set of machine heads for a tunnelled 5 string banjo. No chance, no one makes them anymore, this banjo of mine is an old English traditional resonance 22 fret banjo with a split head and tunnelled fifth string. I decide to replace the machine head plates with individual machine heads and set about trying to find some. Eventually I get to order some and for good measure I order a set of finger picks. With luck they will arrive tomorrow and I can crack on with the renovation.

I write a letter using my re-found dipping pen, its slower but satisfying. I write till lunch tine and then go to my partners mothers house to collect her post and make sure the house is okay while she is in hospital. In all its about an hour and a half round trip. Back home we eat lunch and I return to my letter writing. At three o’clock I take a break to attend a webinar on Forgiveness in 2020 given by the Elders group. The speakers included the ex presidents of Ireland and Columbia and an ex United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights so the quality of experience was interesting and brought a new view of transitional justice and the process of achieving peace in nations coming out of conflict. At the end I finished my letter. I try to tidy some of the chaos that is around but end up framing a set of water colours that my eldest daughter brought back from Italy a summer ago. I had order the frame a few days ago and it turned up today. Now I have to think where it will go when we rehang our art after the decorators have finished. Post tea I clear the kitchen and help my partner select a radio for her mother and half watch football. During the day I have WhatsApp messages from friends, one in particular is under the weather and retreating to bed. It makes me “itchy” to be back to normal where I can comfort friends and be able to interact normally. Now its time to blog and get ready for tomorrows work meetings and open forum.

DVT DAY 282

Tuesday and its been a day of dancing round the decorators as they are doing the ground floor hall. So after a quick bowl of muesli I settle down to write letters. I find an old dipping pen and a bottle of calligraphy ink and set about writing letters. As I get used to the pen it begins to flow okay except for some reason the letter D creates me problems. I reply to a letter from a family friend who is the president of the local WI and refers to her efforts to write a WI news letter during COVID. Out of curiosity I go the website and read her newsletter but in doing so I come across a “women only” contribution from a member. Of course anything that suggests that it is not suitable for husbands is an instant magnet. I find myself laughing out loud at the description of knicker buying habits and hospital visits for women’s reasons. Apparently M&S knickers are not just knickers they are M&S knickers. By lunchtime I have letters to post and have two interesting parcels to investigate.

I prepare the tools I need to hang the new mirror that has just arrived, but before I can crack on with this I talk a walk to the post box and send my letters on their merry way. Back home I start the measuring up for the mirror and select a large rawplug and appropriate drill. It all goes well, I think and then I try to screw the retaining screw. It fails the rawplug rotates in the hole. FFS! I take the rawplug out and use a rapid self setting filler to fil the hole. Before it sets I screw the retaining screw into it and leave it all to harden for a couple of hours. In the interim I eat tea, wrap a Christmas present and begin to put things back into the library room. It comes time for the moment of truth. Joy the filler has set solid around the screw. I hang the mirror and I am greatly pleased with the outcome.

A good job well done, so I move on to setting the library right and then I ck turn my attention to renovating an old 5 string traditional English banjo. Quite a rarity but it has been kicking about for a long time. Its unusual as it has a solid wooden sounding box. I start by unstringing it and cleaning it. I have new string and a phone app to help me tune buy one of the machine heads it faulty and I will need to replace it. Time to write the blog and plan tomorrow.

Tomorrow I have a discussion to go to on line. Its given by the Elders, a group started by Nelson Mandela to discuss international issues related to peace and co-existence. The ex president of Ireland is leading tomorrows discussion on forgiveness. I’m looking forward to it.

DVT DAY 281

Monday, cue 8 o’clock mild panic. I need to clear the hallway before the decorators arrive and that means filling a Hippo megabag, moving a car and setting it up by the front hedge. So I ploughed on and lugged stuff out to the megabag until the hall way was clear. Target achieved by 8:50 and I have a meeting at 9 o’clock. Time for coffee, three ginger nuts and to set up the laptops in the lounge. At 9 o’clock I am chasing links from Zoom to Teams and back again.

For a few minutes its IT chaos as people grappled with getting on the right platform and getting through the hosts firewall and security protocols. We all eventually find a space on the screen and say hello. We prepare to meet our guest a half hour later and try to decide what we want from the meeting. Our guests arrives and we begin our presentations which were to lead onto discussions about the future nature of our work. Of course I cannot tell you the details or I would have to kill you.

Our guest leaves and we take a quick break before retuning to our beloved Zoom platform and continue with our meeting. Of course if I told you the content of this bit of the meeting I would have to kill you again. Enabling environments can be tricky things.

The meeting ends before it was scheduled to due to medical reasons and we all went our different ways. Time to grab something to eat and to realign the day. Time to clear the kitchen and to deal with the post.

I spend the afternoon continuing to clear things up and tidy up some of the house chaos that has resulted from the decorators being let lose on the house. Eventually I sit down to organise an updated to do list and think about what I am going to be doing for the rest of the week. I settle down to read a chapter in my latest book to research the paper I am writing about the learning from the enabling environment work. Its strange stuff and I am rereading some old theoretical stuff about group behaviour, or at least perceived group behaviour. By tea time I’m ready for some TV and a programme on the development of the COVID vaccine. Fascinating stuff and fun to watch scientists becoming celebrities and being rather taken aback by the experience. Along the way my new set of five string banjo strings arrived followed by the dozen gold candles I had ordered.

So I plan an early night to catch up on my sleep deficit. I need to train and get back to a routine but while my environment is disrupted I find it difficult to settle and to do the things I want to do in the way I want to do them. It is discomforting and I miss not being to be able to be myself.

DVT DAY 280

Sunday after a night in the spare bed as I was having trouble sleeping, I get set to install the replacement microwave. I sort the tools I need, to wit one screwdriver. The new one is unpackaged and checked for damage. No damage. I unplug the old one from its socket that is above the shelf above the microwave. The only way to get it out is to unwire the plug because the shelve cannot be taken out without dismantling one end of the kitchen units. It works, the cable pulls thorough and the old microwave slides neatly out of its nest. I was hoping that I could unwire the new plug and then rewire it through a small hole in the shelf which I intended to drill. The new plug is moulded. Change of plan, a square big enough to take the plug and any future renewals. Sounds sensible doesn’t it. So I cut a square by drilling holes and sawing through.

• 

• 

Feeling a moment of pride ( I should know better) I thread the new cable through lifting the microwave up to ensure the fixed ended cable threads fully. At this point my day turned to rat shit. The bloody new (identical model of microwave oven) is 3 millimetres too tall to fit the space!!!!!!

So I get nearly every tool I own out of the garage and set about cutting a slot in the upper shelf in order to get the damn thing in. Jigsaw and drill to the rescue. It takes time to get it set up and completed. Everything has to be cleaned and cleared away before I try to fit the new oven in .

The moment of the truth as I once again thread the plug and cable through the square in the shelf and then slide the oven into the space. Smooth and perfect, it slides in. Three screws later it is firmly fixed in and the facia is clipped in place. I win.

I am knackered from the aggravation, I clear the decks and have a non alcohol beer. I am mildly satisfied but there is more to do, there always is, so I start to help to clear the library and hall way ready for the decorators tomorrow. I also set up my office end of the sofa so that I can attend a day long meeting tomorrow. We have gathered a lot of stuff that is going to be jettisoned so in the morning before decorators adn meeting a Hippobag will need filing. We are getting close to completion but it is always the odds and ends at the finish that take the time and are the most irritating.

So eventually I get to sit down and think about what I am going to present in my 5 minute slot in the meeting tomorrow. Mid way in my thoughts a colleague emails with the 26 slides she intends to present in her slot. I ask you 26! Another colleague WhatsApp me and makes his view clear as well, which he has emailed to our colleague. Already I am absent from the meeting and wondering if the rug I ordered from a dodgy Chinese website will ever turn up.

An evening of His Dark Materials and writing the blog whilst keeping an eye on the football results fills the day.

DVT DAY 279

Saturday, its wet and dreary outside so its time to get breakfast and crack on with the task of getting the house back in order. Before I can get going I have to fill my weekly drugs wallet, its becoming a Saturday breakfast routine. So we set to cleaning and returning things to their former places and doing the washing. So basically its controlled chaos. I get the tools ready to put the new roman blind up in the office, the final finishing touch. I know my house and take time to look at the fixings that came with the blind, I am suspicious. The screws and the rawplugs do not look compatible with the fabric of my window surrounds. I do the measuring and mark the screw holes necessary. Sure enough when I start to drill I find at least three layers of different types of material. I pop in one of the supplied rawplus and attempt to screw in one of the holding brackets. The screw jams short of a full securing. I remove the rawplug and replace with a different type and make another attempt. Success. I get on with the other two fixings using the new rawplugs. Once in place I clear the area and clean it before taking the new blind out of its wrappings. What looks easy on the “how to do it” video turns out to be a real pain in the arse. Eventually I achieve the three satisfying clicks as the retaining brackets slot into place. Some tinkering and the securing of the chain loop and the blind i operational. A quick Hoover through and the office is finally finished.

There was more stuff to put away but I had a moment to read the installation instructions for the new built in micro wave that was delivered in the morning. To say the instructions were minimal would be an understatement. There are five pictures and a single paragraph in strange English, mostly about having a professional do it because anyone else is likely to kill themselves! I inspect our existing set up and partially unpack the new unit. I clear the area around the installation area and recognise that the power wiring is the biggest challenge. I recognise I am tired and make the decision to do the installation tomorrow when I am not tired.

I take a beer and time to read a letter from a friend in Scotland. Its a lovely letter, thoughtful and intelligent. Its soon tea time and we eat as a family in front of the TV and half watch Strictly Come Dancing whilst trying to select a new rug for the dining area that matches the new colour scheme. All evening we sit on phones looking at options. Nothing pleases everyone and so we go on looking. It reaches a point of being futile so I start to write the blog. During the day I get various WhatsApp messages from friends all sorting out Christmas or hospital issues. I get pictures of my grandchildren in Sweden enjoying the felt Christmas tree and stick on decorations that we sent them as a pre Christmas activity. It seems that there are pockets of Christmas joy breaking out all over the place. Once the decorating is over then we can get to putting up our tree and decorations. I receive the date for my next oncologist appointment for early February, of course its a phone call, no face to face of course. All I need now is my scan dates.

Tomorrow I will fit the new microwave and find some thinking time to consider what I am going to contribute to the work meeting on Monday, an epic of a meeting on Teams for about six hours.

DVT 278

Friday starts slowly with coffee in bed. The decorators arrive and as they get to hanging wallpaper I get to checking my e-mails and the other phone messages. Amongst them a message from the ombudsman and her final statement and decision on our claim that arose out of our Jamaican adventure when my kidneys packed up. Basically she confirmed the initial conclusion by her office staff, so we will never recover the money we lost through an insurance company that reneged on their promise to pay the repatriation costs in full. So we will be awarded a small sum for the inconvenience and poor services we received adn that will be it as once the ombudsman has pronounced the outcome is legally binding on all parties with no appeal. So that chapter closes.

I get up and bumble through the morning eating a quick bowl of rabbit food and organising things like a to do list. In effect I keep myself out of the way and find myself just waiting for the decorators to finish for the day. I get a message from a friend who is having a small but painful procedure to her face today as she waits in the hospital. There is a break and then more messages post op as she recovers. Later in the day the anesthetic wears off and the pain sets in. Someone else not having a fun day but getting through.

The day drifts a little until I ring my sister to tell her that DPD are delivering her Christmas parcel from us. A call with my sister is always interesting and this one was as well. It did not last as long as usual as she had an appointment to attend. The morning continued to drift until I get a call from a friend and I have a welcome conversation with her about the how the real world is going. During this time the guy who comes and tidies the garden arrived and set about planting bulbs and clearing away the debris.

The day goes on and the decorators pack up for the day at about lunchtime. The kitchen and the dining are done leaving just the library room and the hall to do next week. I eagerly go to see what the newly finished areas look like. I go, I see and I am mightily pleased.

The afternoon goes down hill as there is a message that tells me a friend has been taken to hospital after a stroke. I am taken aback but before I can process this news we learn that my partners mother who is in hospital with a broken leg has now tested COVID positive. Another fact to add to the growing backpack of issues to be carried. I have a zoom call with a friend and talk about work and our respective Christmas plans and the effect COVID is gong to have. To stick to the rules or not, either way we were both expecting there to be a third COVID spike post Christmas.

By the time the household gets to the end of the working day everyone just wants to sit and stare into space for while. Of course in this modern era we stare at our phones and source a mirror for the bedroom. Having satisfied something or other we feast on fish and chips and settle down to watching The Prestige, a really good film. I settle down to write the blog and plan tomorrow. In theory a new microwave is coming, which I shall wrestle with either before or after I put up the new blind in the office. After that it is a matter of putting all our displaced stuff back into some sort of order. I foresee the biggest issues being the decisions about what art work goes back up, what gets stored and what new stuff gets put up. By the end of the weekend it will be time to fill the hippobag.