Lockdown Diary - Friday 31st July 2020

Too many early starts this week, considering I'm on holiday, so decided to lie in until 7 a.m. today - maniac!!

Got up and dressed in a reasonably leisurely fashion after the first carer call of the day, so by around 9 I had breakfast made and I was in my office eating it.  One advantage of this is that everyone else could get up and use the facilities with me out of the way.

Yesterday was so hectic at times I am planning to take today really easy. I was going to cut the grass, but it's way too hot.  I'll do that tomorrow, same with the washing apart from the things I had to do today for my wife. Unfortunately the antibiotics she's on have a rather devastating effect and so there'll probably be washing every day until the course is over.

My objectives for the day are to read a chunk of 'Machines Like Us', read a bit more of 'Ulysses', sit down and do a bit of life planning, re-watch last night's 'Good Omens' and listen to some music. Anything else is a bonus.

My younger sister called today, as a catch up after her birthday yesterday.  She has the next couple of weeks off and we are planning to meet up at some point, all being well. Her son got her a really unusual present, a custom birthday video message from actor Mark Heap, in character as Jim Bell the neighbour from hell in the series 'Friday Night Dinner'.  

I managed to find time to read 'Machines Like Me' and watch episode 3 of 'Good Omens' (again), but no time for 'Ulysses'.

Today was the last day of son #1's girlfriend's visit.  I think she had a good time, in spite of the chaos of Thursday.  In the early evening I took her and son #1 into town for a wander before she headed back home on the train.

Over dinner we watched the next episode of 'Good Omens', though again I missed the end of it.  I have been so tired this week, not helped by not sleeping well, being plagued by strange dreams and heat.

I'm not a big fan of nostalgia: it's too easy to see the past through rose-tinted glasses and is often a regressive viewpoint that things were somehow better in the past, often for people can't handle change. In saying that, I'm also conscious that the future for mankind looks the bleakest it's been in my lifetime. All this being a preamble to Lynyrd Skynyrd, believe it or not. There's one, maybe two, really well-known songs by them (you know which they are!!!) that I really can't listen to anymore, mainly because of the old 'familiarity breeds contempt' angle - in the same way I can't really listen to much by the Beatles for the same reason. Nevertheless, I still have time for this - 'Saturday Night Special', an anti-gun song - from the album 'Nuthin' Fancy' 


[[]]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Love, Poetry and Revolution - Wednesday 6th November 2024

Image
Not a great morning to wake up to. Unbelievable, yet true. Moving the subject several thousand miles East, all the news that's fit to print. I have a stinking cold (not COVID, I've checked) and am thus feeling rather factual, telegram-style, so this post may be short. E continues her slow decline, but at least we seem to have got her pain management under control, mostly, at least.  As one of her carers said, "...at times she's too strong for her own good." Hard as this is to see in black and white, her suffering needs to come to an end. There is no purpose or gain from its continuation. For anyone. Q and I spent an enjoyable week in Amsterdam, my first real visit to the city and country. It was great to spend time with family and friends.  We did a lot of walking, saw a lot of sights to remember and ate some wonderful food with delightful company. I would love to go again, there's so much we didn't see.  Just before heading to Amsterdam, I saw High Llamas
Read more

Tales From The Crypt - Tuesday 17th May 2022

Image
Started the day with an early morning brisk walk.  Hit my 30-minute target and managed to combine it with a joyous chat to set me up for breakfast and work. The working day has been going reasonably well, or at least it was until an expected occurrence threw a spanner in the works. My focus now is on spanner removal. Chicken casserole for dinner tonight and as it requires almost an hour of cooking time I've decided to start it early.  I've also decided I'm bored of preparing potatoes, so tonight, Matthew, I'll be doing couscous. Get you! I ate alone while watching a couple more episodes of 'Undone', which I'm really enjoying. It's very different and suitably strange. Right up my street. Cleared up, went upstairs, got ready for bed and sleep by way of papers and conversation. Working Men's Club / 'Widow' / 'Fear' [[I keep hearing this and it has wormed its way into my brain]]
Read more

The January Long List

So, the next step in my experiment is to identify a list of music to listen to in January 2011.  This really isn’t going to be difficult as a list has been bubbling under since well before Christmas.  At the moment it’s a fairly long list – a long list I need to whittle down to just five (or maybe six – the rules are not that prescriptive) candidates for my album of the month. This post heralds the full list of hopefuls, possibles and downright eternal optimists that are fighting it out to be included in my January short list. I’m sure you’re wondering how I get to hear the albums in the first place:  any way I can!  In practice this means if it’s not on Spotify , the band’s / artist’s My Space page or streamed somewhere ahead of release ( Pitchfork , the guardian music blog or wherever) it’s not that likely to make the shortlist. After all, one of the rules is that the album must be heard in full, more than once, in order to stand a chance of becoming album of the month. That way
Read more

Lockdown Diary - Wednesday 26th August 2020

Image
First day of annual leave this week, but still up at 6:25 a.m. in order to be ready for pranayama yoga session at 7.  I missed it last week owing to the training course I was on for work: I really notice the difference when I've not done it (and when I have!) After breakfast I got myself organised to visit the shopping precinct to post a letter and visit the bank: son #3 has a couple of cheques to pay in, so I invited him to join me, which he did. Whilst there I grabbed a flat white from Costa and a copy of the latest issue of 'Wire' magazine. Such is the excitement of life at the moment. Strange facts: son #2 informed me the sieve had broken when he was separating the dust from the last of the Rice Krispies he was having for breakfast. Initially I wondered how large a portion he was having, but, on looking at the handle and how it was fixed to the rim of the sieve, I wondered how it lasted so long. At least it hadn't broken when I'd been rinsing rice. I have ordere
Read more

I’ve forgotten more than I remember….

Image
…which is probably just as well. Apropos of absolutely nothing, some random misfiring of synapses prompted me to give another airing to “Hermit of Mink Hollow”, Todd Rundgren’s first 100% solo album on which he plays all the instruments and sings all the vocals (1972's "Something/Anything?" fails to qualify as his first 100% solo effort because one of the 4 sides is a live-studio effort featuring assorted musicians and backing singers.) The album was released in 1978 and is named after a valley near Woodstock, New York, where Todd set up a recording studio and recorded this album. Like all of Todd’s solo albums post-1973’s“Todd” double album, there are a couple of seriously duff tracks but in spite of that it’s probably the most consistently good album he’s recorded after the creative peak of the early 1970’s.    The album – at least in its vinyl form – was split into “The Easy Side” and the “The Difficult Side” – though I can’t decide if that’s a joke: tracks on
Read more