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the lockdown log 12
Life has really not changed too much for the Berkshire Belle and I. We have refined our choice of intent supplier here and there, but the only real change so far is that the double B has not been out.
By that I mean that she has stayed in the house apart from two occasions when she has walked down the front path to bring in out dustbin and recycling crates. This she will do if the weather is good and it is important for us to get these things in quickly after they are emptied because the team doing the emptying often replace them at the wrong house. Other than those two outings she has not been outside of the house.
I am still working on the front line five days out of seven, but other than that my trips have been confined to food shopping plus one trip to a garden centre and I felt guilty about that. Last week I drove over to Cirencester and back, about a forty mile trip, on a business matter regarding something that I am currently involved in restarting on June 15th. That felt really weird, but made more so by the number of tourists I saw up there; where have they come from? Well in the case of a group of around half a dozen from Italy. I did not stop to make further enquiries.
So far here in Swindon we are not doing too badly on the Covid-19 front compared to some other areas and, whilst we are part of the South West where numbers of infections are rising, here we don not seem to be getting too many. I wonder if the mass exoduses to the beach and other beauty spots over the bank holiday weekends have contributed to the rise in cases.
Today it is raining and looks to be wet all day so my plans for a few hours in the garden have been shelved. I have to go out at lunchtime to the doctor’s for a routine blood test. I would rather avoid the place, but have already pout this appointment off once and they are nagging. To me this is an example of today’s society at its worst because the appointment is largely a waste of their time and mine.
The problem started when the health practice that I am registered at decided that periodic reviews of regular medication would be carried out by a pharmacist to save the doctor’s time. My review came up and the pharmacist rang me for a chat. She called top my records and latched on to the fact that I have had, from time to time, high blood pressure. I explained that my doctor had elected to stop the periodic blood pressure tests on the basis that he was happy enough with me to have stopped the blood pressure medication, but this was not good enough: I would have to come in and had a BP test plus a blood test for a variety of routine function checks.
And so I am going today and am fairly certain that what the pharmacist gets back will mean that she will compare the results to whatever chart it is that they have and she will want me to come in and see a doctor. There will be no peace until I do and so I will make an appointment and go in for a chat at which we will agree that I am an overweight 67 year old white male who is vulnerable too certain risks. The same 67 year old etc etc who has walked an average of 5.8 miles a day over the last 12 months (according to my tracker), works 4 hours a day 5 days a week at a physical job, does not smoke and drinks little. Whatever else we achieve from that appointment I doubt that it will be a productive use of the doctor’s time, but they have to go through the motions because of a duty of care and all that bureaucracy that is in place these days. This is one of the areas of waste that I would love to see swept away.
Please do not think that I am knocking the NHS; I am not. The health care practitioners are wonderful and have saved my life eight years ago. They have also saved the life of my son who is 38 today. It is the ludicrous bureaucracy that costs too much that is drowning the NHS, but that is a feature of the world that we have created now whereby nothing is our fault and there must always be someone else to blame (and sue).
Anyway, rant over. It is a wet day, I will not have to water my plants and my water butts will be replenished. There is alway some good in everything, no matter how bad it might seem.
Stay safe and have fun.
the lockdown log 11
I was distracted by other things on Thursday and forgot all about writing a lockdown log so here it is a couple or so late. Part of my distraction was self-imposed in that I was taking an absence from social media. Every now and again the puerile level of content gets to me and I just use the off button so to speak. Other than to check in to see if there are requests to join a group that I run or to pass on birthday wishes I will continue to ignore it for the time being.
Most of my disgust at Fb content at the moment is around people seeming to want to apologise for being white. As no-one can influence where they were born nor the colour of their skin it seems to be an extraordinary thing to do. As for some of the behaviour being demonstrated at the moment I despair of the human race.
At a time when we need understanding and compassion the level if anger seen on the streets of some countries is unhelpful to say the least as is the desire to eradicate history. When should be learning from history and seeing how far we have come not wiping it from the slate. Living forty miles or so from Bristol it appals me to hear people talking about all off the slaves who were brought through the port when the reality is that whilst Bristol ship owners were amongst those plying that trade they were not wasting time bringing them back here before taking them to the Caribbean and the USA. Ignorance is not a virtue.
I really do not know what the world has come to and am glad that I am approaching the end of my time here.
the lockdown log 10
The black dog of last week did leave me. I know that it is still lurking nearby, but choose ignore it. I have said often that I have never really grown up and I still have childlike delight in small things that usually works to lift my spirits.
My cure for depression this time came with one of the various projects I have on my list and this time it was the finding of some tools that I knew were somewhere, but hadn’t yet rediscovered them. I found a love for tools as a boy when I realised that you could make things to play with that there was not money in the family budget to buy.
Tools now are my big boy’s toys and finding what I did cheered me up a lot as they brought back memories of where and why I bought them. Most of what I found at the back of the shed were used on a previous lockdown project, one where I was working from home for about four months back in 2002.
It was one of those jobs where we would, as a business, pull in a good revenue at a decent profit for that type of work, but whereby there would be considerable grief from the client and, to some degree, from with our own people around the country.
My role was to co-ordinate reporting on progress and was frustrating for me because I had no leadership or executive role. I had no authority to bang heads or thump the table and had to work with what I got rather than what I needed. I only got roped in because I knew the client’s upper echelons better than anyone else and had a better understanding of how the client’s local offices worked.
Trying to get information was like drawing teeth and I would normally start to get numbers come through late in the afternoon with the final emails arriving around 5.30 to 6pm. I had to have my reports with the client first thing the next morning and so I ended up time shifting my day so that I worked after dinner until around 11pm, sometimes until 1am the next morning. This did little for home life as the Berkshire Belle was working full time on normal office hours back then, but it did mean that I had almost nothing work related to do through the day.
What I did do was DIY around the house and garden all day. On the rare occasion that my mobile ‘phone rang I would take the call and deal with it, but I had been withdrawn from other work to handle this one project and, as long as the client was kept quiet and happy my boss was quiet and happy too. For sixteen weeks I stayed at home aside from two trips out, both to resolve accusations of work not having been done. On both runs I photographed the completed work and went back home. After that there were no more problems.
After seventeen weeks of isolation it was agreed that I was no longer needed in a full time role, I would just be thrown back in if a wheel came off, and I was able to rejoin the team that I worked in. I was still based from home, but was back into the round of meetings here there and everywhere.
With the discovery of that box of tools the memories have all come flooding back of that time. It was not a happy time especially although it had its moments. I came to terms with the concept of time shift working, my employer earned something north of £15m quid from the project and my darling and I enjoyed the benefits of my labours through the daylight hours even if our evenings were ruined. Such is life.
Stay safe and sane out there.
the lockdown log 9
Another week and, despite some relaxing of restrictions, not much changes for us here. Some jobs have been finished, others not yet started as I focus my time on the little homestead.
The one change to lockdown for me has been a trip to my nearest garden centre. I set off just after lunch because that suited me and was surprised to see that there was no queue in the elaborate zig-zag set up by the entrance. Half an hour later, with a couple of the things on my list, several that weren’t and some knowledge of what paving was available I left to find 40-50 people queuing, the zig-zag area overflowing into the car park. My timing had been impeccable, even if the centre had little of what I had wanted to buy.
Going to look at stuff before buying is important to me. Possibly it because I have grown up through a time when that was the norm, but I do not like the concept of buying relatively blind (yes you can look at photos when buying on line, but it isn’t the same) and sending it back if you don’t like it. To a degree I have had to do that over the last couple of months and have been fairly successful in that only one item has been sent back.
This was not a bad week until late Wednesday and then an incident brought the black dog bounding to my side and yesterday I was in a very dark place. Mental health gets a lot of publicity these days and it is good if people who would benefit from help, but would not have sought it otherwise, are persuaded to do so, I am very much in the self help camp though and deal with such things in my own way. I am not out of the cloud yet although I am on the road out. I know that I may yet be turned back, but I will get out eventually and move on (again).
It is not lockdown that is at the root of my problem, rather it is fear. The worst case scenario for me is that I could bring this little bug home and pass it on with fatal results for the Berkshire Belle. I do recognise that there are indirect aspects of lockdown that affect me such as the impact it is having on the BB who has not been out for 9 or 10 weeks now. She wants to go out and could, but will not. She feels safer staying in and that is her decision even if confinement is getting to her, and thence to me.
One of the things that keeps my glass half full is that we do not have it as bad as others do, or have had in the past. Our biggest problem is merely inconvenience and a twenty minute queue to get into a supermarket where I can buy almost anything that I want is nothing compared to having to queue for hours in the hope of getting a little of what I need. A gentle stroll will get me to my local supermarket in around 15 minutes and I have enough money to spend on the essentials when I get there. There are a lot of people around the world for whom such an easy life is beyond their grasp.
I have the love of a good woman and children that I can be proud of. Possibly most of all at the moment I have my garden. It may be small, but I can enjoy pottering in it and getting lost tinkering with my plants and watching the wildlife. I have said that I am a lucky man in terms of the work that I have done, the places that I have been and the people that I have met. All of that got me here where I am today. Yes the black dog still has its teeth sunk into me, but what have I really got to be depressed about?
the lockdown log 8
Another week has passed and our routine here stays the same. On five days out of seven I potter off to work and then come home to work in the garden, house or garage and often all three, albeit I have not developed the superpower of doing all three at once.
Today is main shop day and Sainsbury’s is my target. It is somewhere that we rarely go now and this will be my first foray there since before the lockdown so I have no idea what sort of queue I will face when I turn up in about 90 minutes from now. The Berkshire Belle has provided me with a list and I will do my best to get everything on it..
Most people seem to have got into the 1 Person – 1 Trolley way of shopping, but there are a few exceptions. The idea is that more households are allowed to shop; if the store has a limit of 80 customers at a time then 80 homes can shop at once if there is one person to a trolley (cart for my US readers), but if two people come in to shop together it spoils that. If ten people are shopping as pairs then it makes a big difference.
I accept that sometimes it is necessary; vulnerable people, those with kids etc, but when I see the wife pushing the trolley and doing the shop while hubby trails along behind the selfishness disappoints me. The Berkshire Belle flatly refuses to shop. I have offered to drive her and wait in the car, but she prefers not to go so I do all of the shopping for now.
At home the projects are being knocked off without resort to going the DIY stores that have now opened. I have most of what I need lying around and the internet fills in the odd gap. As always with plans the original tactical plan has gone out of the window and I just hop about between jobs doing anything that moves me towards the overall aim. The only spoilers have been the things that suddenly need fixing; the light in the oven stops working, that handle has come loose etc. ‘Twas ever thus.
I hope that you and yours are coping. Stay well, stay safe.
the lockdown log 7
So far the day goes well. Thursdays I have off from my part time job and so I, being an early riser, get on with more personal projects. This morning I have written a new page for the companion blog to this one and saved the draft for reviewing later and been out for my essential chores trip. Read more…
the lockdown log 6
Not quite nine o’clock and I have been working for about three and a half hours now, including a quick trip to my local Waitrose for a fix on some of the things we have not enjoyed for about two months. It has been a productive morning so far. Read more…
on a question of discipline
I wrote in a midweek blog recently about keeping one’s skills current when on furlough or just unable to work. With the Covid-19 lockdown continuing (this is being written two or three weeks ahead of publication) another skill comes to mind; that of discipline. Read more…
the lockdown log 5
Another week gone and the weather has broken. It is cold and wet out there, but I have plenty to do indoors, not least a little blogging. Looking at the rain outside my window here reminds me of the least pleasurable lock down that I have had to endure so far. It was a bid bunker and, like so many of those events, the schedule was blown. Read more…
the lockdown log 4
There have been a few lockdowns in my business life as I have mentioned earlier in this series. Some have been a condition of my contract and one, for Libya, included a very formal risk assessment spreadsheet. I was not arguing about that one though as I left the country a day ahead of my colleagues to get to another contract. They only just made it out and in another 24 hours the country was shut down. Read more…
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