Its Thursday and an early work meeting calls so it a quick breakfast and coffee before I’m sitting in front of my screen. Its a catch up meeting, very practical and explores how the world is changing and what will happen to our role. We range over several areas and try to get a perspective on the work we are doing and the services we work with. It goes on for quite a while and includes catching up with each other and our weekend plans. It gets towards lunch time before we end. I get to my messages and find a friend has gone down with COVID and is feeling grotty. Difficult to support at a distance but I try. Lunchtime comes round and my partner and I go for a lunchtime walk round the village and to collect some scones and a paper.
A simple lunch. I try to ring my sister again and once again the phone rings till it cuts off. I am becoming concerned as its been doing that for a couple of days and to make it worse the BT email system has crashed. I spend some time tending to my fish and renewing their view on the world. Its a bit of a tiresome task but a necessary one. I try to ring my sister again but the phone rings and then rings off. I am concerned as I realise that I have no one to ring in order to be able to check if my sister is okay. I realise that I know the family solicitor and the local church, neither of which are practical options, but no practical options. In the end I ring Hounslow Services with a view to raising a safeguarding issues.They advise me that my best course of action is to ask the police to do a welfare visit by ringing 101. I do this and get put through to an operator who takes my details and asks about my sister. In a short time they have arranged for someone to check, apparently all the services will undertake these visits. The call ends and I get a text with all the reference numbers I need. In a very short time I get a call from the police administrator telling me that my sister is safe and well verified by the visiting officers. It is a great relief. Clearly we need to get the communication channels sorted for the future. Apparently my sisters internet had gone done.
My partner and I eat tea and then I go to collect my eldest daughter from a circus skills session. I get back home and settle down to read Dead Man Running. It is a tricky read for me. I identify with the medical processes and that moment of diagnosis, although I have to say my response was different. Kevin Webber was 49 when he was given his diagnosis, I was older and I think that makes a difference. He immediately got into the cancer support systems and charities whereas I went in the other direction. Having said that his running two marathons during chemo is a magnificent achievement. The book is sold on the basis that he was told he had two years to live, that’s not quite true. In the book he explains that he was told he had two to ten years but to think three to four not ten. So the fuzzy stats where there for him to. There is a limit to how much I can read this at any one time so I set about writing the blog. Tomorrow I’m having my COVID booster jab and filling so that’s me sorted providing I can get some gym time in.
