Lockdown Diary - Wednesday 9th September 2020

Work again dominates the day, though now it's causing a few problems. I need to call Abbot to order more PEG feeding stuff for my wife and I also need to contact Boots regarding her monthly medication delivery - it must be due or overdue.  

On top of that it turns out there's a whole bunch of other things needed to be done for son #3 before he can go to University, including buying more socks and organising a Meningitis vaccination, which I'm going to have to delegate back to him, maybe enlisting the help of his brothers.  Though I am multi-threaded, too many of my processes are blocking.

Despite starting the training course at 8 a.m. today I did manage to squeeze in 30 minutes of yoga at 7 a.m. - pranayama and some asanas including surya namaskar - before showering, cleaning my teeth, getting dressed etc and making breakfast in about 25 minutes. It did involve a fair bit of running up and down stairs and running from the kitchen to my office, but I did get it done in time.

During my 'lunch' break (no lunch was consumed then) I managed to fit in a call to Abbot and tried to contact Boots, but the line was engaged. Turned out that didn't matter as at some point during lunch time the early afternoon the man from Boots arrived bearing two large bags of meds.

The long day of training which was brightened up by the best software error message I've heard of in a long while, namely: 'bad magic number'. Any piece of software that relies on magic has my wholehearted support. If anyone asks how it works, I can just say 'no one knows, it's just magic', though that means that debugging may be problematic. (For the record I don't actually spend any time compiling lists of software error messages! That would be very sad 😉)

Sons 1 and 2 are off out for a meal with friends tonight, hopefully no more than six of them, so it's just me and number 3 for dinner.

Usual Wednesday evening, with less people: dinner, bins, clearing up, then bed. Ho hum, T D um.

Something very old, though I must admit describing this as very old seems odd, given I remember it being released in 1974, some 46 years ago. It's an oddity in that, though the band released several albums, this is the only song of theirs I like, and it's dissimilar to many of their other songs. I think it may even be their only hit - either way I'm pretty sure it's their only UK hit. The band are Ozark Mountain Daredevils and the song is 'Jackie Blue' from the album 'It'll Shine When It Shines'.


[[Trivia: The band released a remixed version of this in the 1980s or 1990s - not sure which, but I don't actually care because, having listened to it in error, I have to say it is a heap of dog poo.]]

[[]] 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Lockdown Diary - Tuesday 8th June 2021

Image
Back to work and the first day of a course spread over the next six weeks. Other than that, the same old same old. At some point in the day I published my review of 'The Alchemist' on my good reads page, further stoking the fires of controversy. Apart from the training course I also attended an hour long session titled 'The Art of Being Brilliant', the first in a series of talks about making the most of yourself / your life.  The speaker was Jonathan Peach who had some very interesting and enjoyable things to say, though most notably for me right now and as he pointed out, you do need to be starting from a good state of mental health.  It was thought-provoking and fun, but I think I need to get the Talking Therapies stuff under way / over, before I can really take advantage of it. During the evening I got a message from a friend I've not spoken to for a few months.  Last time I heard from her she was in the Maldives with her new  fiancé. She is planning a visit over
Read more

Lockdown Diary - Sunday 29th March 2020

Image
For the first time in I don't know how long, I've not read The Observer today. In the old world I used to go and pick up the paper, along with coffee and fresh food items on a Sunday morning, and maybe say Aloha to a few of those I'm on 'How the devil are you?' terms with.  In the new world, apart from the coffee shop being shut, I can't really justify going out to buy a newspaper.  Even if one of us weren't highly vulnerable to Covid-19, the risk of going out where there are other people, is too great for them and for us. I had attempted to rectify the newspaper catastrophe (yeah, I know it's not even on the scale, but everything is so over the top now, everything's a fucking catastrophe), however I left it too late: we do get some papers delivered but when I called to amend my order they told me they'd been overwhelmed with requests - 150 new accounts opened in the last week (I'm guessing a lot of people are ordering The Sun, Mail and
Read more

Lockdown Diary - Saturday 26th June 2021

Image
Saturday at last. Seemed a long time coming this week, dunno why. Shopping with son #2, followed by breakfast at home.  I'm off to a picnic in a park in town with some friends from book club: it's the last chance to see the couple getting married next weekend so it's an opportunity to give them a card and catch up before they depart to work and live in Denmark.   The weather is good-ish which means I've managed to get three wash loads done and hung out before I'm off out. Just returned from a very enjoyable picnic in King's Road Gardens.  In all the years I've lived here I've never been in these gardens, though I've driven past them countless times.  In the end there were seven of us in attendance, which wasn't bad for an event arranged at short notice on a Saturday afternoon.  I got home around half-four and, despite having indulged in some wine, decided I needed to go for a walk. Hit my walking target for the day and the week, ready for whateve
Read more

Lockdown Diary - Tuesday 29th September 2020

Image
Although I have today off, it pales into insignificance compared to the action of yesterday. This is often my challenge. I decided last night that I'd get up later, but I have to admit, though technically I had more sleep, I don't feel any better for it. I still struggled to get up and I know that there is an undercurrent of tiredness which cannot be cured by sleep alone. Less or more, makes no difference. Ennui. I've only got one specific thing in the diary today, which is a call with an ex work colleague who I've not spoken to in a while.  Not sure how long. At the appointed hour WA kicked into life and I began a longish video call with an old friend. He has retired (who hasn't?) - in fact he's been retired for two years and seems to be enjoying life, subject to the same restrictions we are all living under.  It turns out he didn't even know my wife was ill, never mind bedbound, which means we may not have spoken for 11 or more years.  Despite the interven
Read more

Lockdown Diary - Sunday 16th May 2021

Image
Well, that's a surprise! I've woken up to rain, so I'm gonna delay my walk until later, assuming the rain stops. Usual rubbish chores to do, not made any easier by the rain: when will it ever cease? I had a long chat with my younger sister which was a good reminder of what I should be doing, but I am failing to do.  Originally I had planned to drop by to see her and sit in her garden, but the rain has put paid to that. Over lunch I started watching a documentary about Betty Davis - the American singer who was married to Miles Davis and influenced his musical direction by introducing him to Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone - which was a reminder to check out her raunchy funk albums of the early 1970s.  So far, it's been well worth watching. Some time during the Betty Davis documentary my other sister rang and we had a good catch-up.  The carers arrived during the call, though the call came to a natural end before they left. I've got a lot of albums from 2021 I've not r
Read more