Lockdown Diary - Sunday 4th October 2020

Can nobody find the tap to switch the water off?  I like rain, but I've seen enough for now, please can it stop.

Disturbed sleep.  Main sockets circuit tripped out in the night so I was awoken by the alarm company ringing my work mobile with an automated message.  Unfortunately I haven't programmed the number into my work mobile so when it rang my soporific brain thought 'don't recognise the number, cancel it'.  As I attempted to return to sleep my personal mobile rang, this time saying 'Alarm Company', so I realised the power was out. Annoyingly I didn't answer the call as I'd clumsily cancelled it when I reached for the phone. Got out of bed trudged downstairs, half-asleep, flipped the circuit breaker back on and returned to bed to the accompaniment of various devices bleeping, lighting up and worst of all, just as I got back to bed, Alexa saying, 'Your wi-fi is not connected to the internet blah blah blah...' I attempted to return to sleep only to be woken by the alarm company ringing the landline: this time I picked up, pressed '1' to say I was resolving the fault (had already) and tried to sleep.  Didn't really happen.  Heard the carer let herself in at around 7 a.m. and thought 'so much for a bloody lie in'.

The usual mix of chores to be done though the weather will make some of them more difficult. 

Read the rest of yesterday's papers and also today's Observer. Not much that captured my imagination this week.

Sons 1 and 2 are off out tonight - Purple Turtle I believe - so we're having dinner in the early evening as they're off out at 7 p.m.  Before they went I managed to get my hair cut - mostly my effort with a final search and destroy mission by son #2 to get the hairs that hide from me or lie down to avoid detection.  Doesn't take long, there ain't that much of it!

Being left entirely alone is a challenge. Technically I am not alone, of course, because my wife is here, however she is sleeping. Even if she wasn't, she wouldn't be company in that most of what I say doesn't seem to register (that may be because I'm usually talking bollocks): For her to respond there needs to be a rare set of conditions - she needs to be awake, obviously (but that's rarely more than an hour or two in a day, and never for more than 15 minutes or so at a time), receptive to information and I need to have something to say that strikes a chord. 

Increasingly I find I'm not good on my own. I used to be fine, but then I suspect that was because I knew it was temporary - those breaks were few and far between and were islands of opportunity - often to listen to music without interruption. Now I find that when I am alone my mind is determined to highlight what is missing or how I'd like things to be. When my sons are around those thoughts can still occur - it's that whole thing about being lonely whilst amongst people - but there are more distractions.

Initially I cleared up all the dinner things and tidied the kitchen to a musical accompaniment, naturally, with a glass or so of wine.  Once that was done I watched something I'd recorded for me, then decided that sleep was the next best form of escape, and lo! the darkness descended and around was peace and calm, at least in the external world.

From the album 'Songs For The Deaf', this is Queens Of The Stone Age with 'You Think I Ain't Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire'. I love the riff from this, especially the moment where the band kicks in at about 1 minute in... 

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