Lockdown Diary - Friday 2nd October 2020

A work-free Friday, for a change.  I have quite a few things to organise, but I'm also planning to finish 'The Hunting Party' and start organising things for upcoming birthdays.

Talking of which, it's my stepmother-in-law's birthday today and with any luck she'll have received the flowers I sent her from us all. I hope I get a thank you letter 😉

One tedious task for the day: I have to search for a document that's been returned to me by the Government Legal Department. Allegedly they returned it to me on my birthday in 2018, which is not a good sign, given that I would have been in the middle of my 'lost' period of that year. Before I can face searching for that, I think I'll steel myself by finishing 'The Hunting Party': one final push and I'll have read it. 

'The Hunting Party' is over. Background chatter from the book club suggests many have found the characters distinctly unlikeable.  (I would argue one of the characters is likeable, maybe two, but that's by the bye) I must admit it doesn't bother me whether I 'like' the characters in a novel or not: there are plenty of people I don't like 'in real life' (!), so I don't mind novels not being peopled with likeable participants. Should make for an interesting discussion on Monday night.

There's no avoiding it: now I have to go through the draws of my filing cabinet in search of documents. I feel like Harrison Ford in 'Raiders of Lost Ark' 😂😂😂

I finished going through the filing cabinet and found nothing, then I had a moment of inspiration: I have a plastic box of papers that I started using to store documents sometime in the dark days of 2018 (I wasn't in a filing frame of mind then), so if I have the documents, they must be there. Eureka! Praise the Lord - if they hadn't been in the box, I'd have to have gone through the filing cabinet again.

During the carers lunch visit one of them noticed that my wife's PEG tube seems to be expanding at the stomach end.  Close observation suggests that the tube walls are thinning at that end, so I had to contact the Abbot nurse to see what they thought.  When they rang me back they scheduled a visit on Monday to check it over: potentially it needs replacing.  If it does need replacing my wife will have to go into hospital for the operation. That's a worrying prospect at the moment. I shall wait until Monday to see what's next.

Over lunch we all gathered together and watched another episode of 'The Bridge', the first of two today.

Great news! Son #2 received his offer of employment letter / contract which he asked me to go through with him.  I am impressed by the offer which is very generous for an apprenticeship. Congratulation! I said we should celebrate and asked what he'd like to do: we're going to have a takeaway at the weekend and will celebrate fully when son #3 is with us.

During the day I have listened to the latest Quietus podcast and bits of last weekend's 'Freak Zone'

In the early evening I took son #1 and his gf to the station so she could return home in time for work the next day.  Son #1 and I had a long chat about families and family life that continued after we got home. Based on his observations he said that I'd done 'a good job' (I think it was unqualified) which was both nice to hear and prompted a discussion about my upbringing.

Time to make dinner now: son #2 and I did this together and chatted about finances, houses and how his mum and I got together.

To the batmobile!

From one of my favourite albums of last year, this is Africa Express and 'City In Lights' which features Georgia, The Mahotella Queens, Otim Alpha, and Nick Zinner.  It's from the album 'EGOLI' High-NRG!!


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