Nine Feet Underground

Having got the worst part of Saturday morning out of the way, son #1 and I sat together in the living room and ate our breakfast and drank coffee, before he returned to bed and I got on with more boring chores. I have a few extra chores to do this weekend, but I'll probably leave those until tomorrow in order to spread the excitement!  On top of reading the papers I need to find time to finish 'All The Pretty Horses' this weekend and really do need to get out and go for a walk. The morning is eaten up by chores and the odd exchange with friends over their messaging platform of choice.  Son #1 and I make lunch then part company to eat - he returns to his PC and I go to the living room and eat whilst looking at the world passing by outside the window. After lunch I decide it's time to attack 'All The Pretty Horses'. I've just read 60 pages or so, which leaves about 40 to finish tomorrow assuming I don't read any more today. Change of reading matter - read ...

Up a bit earlier so I'm showered before the first carer call, which is always bang on 7 a.m. on a Friday, after that the day will follow its usual predictable course. Work is the theme again today, with some variation. At around 10:30 I start on a marathon three hour session installing software on my client virtual machine, under the direction of a couple of guys in India.  Too much screen time, so I try and break it up by getting up and wandering about whilst the VM takes for ever to install various bits of software that I require. When the carers arrive we take a break from the call and leave the installs running.   On returning it's back for more until 1:45 pm, when we agree to take a break, which I use for a call with a mate I've not spoken to for several months. It's good to catch up and swap notes on life, music and films, not to mention work - he's also in IT, so we have work in common (many years ago he worked for me as a trainee mainframe database administr...

Work will dominate today, as yesterday and as it will tomorrow, too. Amongst the things I have to do today are some courses on competition law and anti-bribery rules, which will keep me busy for part of the day, at least. Usual start to my day with the added variety of one of the community / district nurses visiting to change the water in my wife's PEG balloon - a new monthly activity. All completed without a hitch, which is always good.  He also came bearing a 'Hello' from a colleague my wife and I know personally, which was nice. Back to work. Tuesdays and Thursdays the carers use the ceiling hoist to lift my wife out of bed and into her special 'tilt-in-space' chair.  She generally doesn't stay out for long, typically no more than fifteen minutes, before returning to bed, but it's a chance to sit differently and help avoid bed sores. Not only that, today - something which always delights the carers - they have changed all the bedding, which I must now was...

What is there to say that hasn't already been said a thousand times or more before?  Work will be my focus for most of the day, as yesterday. Work this morning was a back to back series of calls from 8:30 until 11:00, by which time I need a break from both the screen and the headset. Most of the calls required me to be looking at the screen, so it was hard to get up and move about, until the final hour, which did permit a bit of movement, at least. An interruption in the form of a delivery: some new soft towels bought in the sales for my wife. Back to work. Lunch was a brief interlude - I helped sons 2 and 3 put together some lunch, though my contribution was brief as the calls continue to pile up. Once made, I ate my lunch at my desk - probably a mistake - and I vow to do better tomorrow.  The afternoon is similar to the morning - another delivery, this time sleepwear for son #3, punctuates the work. The calls don't line up well today and so getting out for exercise ends up b...

Back to work again! This seems to happen with alarming regularity, feels like every week to me.  It would be churlish to say every day is like every other, give or take the intrusion of work, but I'm starting to believe that is the reality. So, to work.  I am ridiculously busy at the moment, so I'm probably going to write very little after this. A brief break from work during the lunch time carer call as I don my apron and gloves and am transformed into a nurse with extremely limited capabilities, in fact only one skill, the ability to flush my wife's catheter. The whole process takes around 15 minutes from start to finish, after which I return to being just plain old me. Back to work. I end up eating my lunch while working, which is not a good plan - I must stop doing this - and also, in doing so I realise that I am not following doctor's orders and am still spending far too much time sat down.  I must do better. I had hoped to go out for a brief walk with son #2 today...

There are still the remnants of yesterday's snow on the ground, though it is looking a bit sparse.  It was good to see snow and, anecdotally based on the few people I've spoken to who don't live here, it lifted many people's spirits, especially children's. I have nothing planned for today (given yoga is off for me), so I'm intending to find time to read a chunk of 'All The Pretty Horses'  (I need to read roughly 30 pages a day if I'm to finish it in time for book club on Monday (1st February FFS!) and just generally imagine I no longer work for a living (even if only briefly). One thing I have been putting off is sorting the paperwork in my office and filing it.  So what, you might reply. Unfortunately it is a big deal for me - it wouldn't be if it was just the usual bill stuff we all get (more and more of that entirely digital) - but it's all the documents I get regarding my wife's medical supplies, feed supplies, equipment servicing log...

When I pulled back the curtains I was greeted with a snow-covered landscape - it had been predicted but when I went to bed last night the sky was clear, so a lot changed in the early hours of the morning. There is always a beauty to a blanket of snow, but I'm always conscious of the negative side of it, especially the impact on the ability of the carers to get about and do their jobs.   Not long after the carers arrive for the second call of the day snow begins to fall more heavily - there are very large flakes, maybe one to two inches along their longest axis.  Luckily for the carers on this call it's their last visit of the day, those who come later may not be so lucky. Naturally I take photos of the snow - it's enough of a rarity to be worth capturing and it does look so wonderful, especially where it lies untouched. Though the carers drove up to the house and walked to and from the front door, the snow fall has obliterated their tracks.  I plan to go out walking ...

Shopping's done for another week, so I can return to our 'fortress' (or should that be prison?) until I have to go out again, walking aside. I was chatting with one of our carers yesterday, as the weekend was looming, and we agreed that though we'd both spent the week looking forward to Friday (her especially as it's her weekend off), when Friday arrived we both were thinking that actually weekends don't offer that much at the moment, other than a break from work. Every Friday I think, 'Hooray! the weekend' and then I'm overtaken by sense of anti-climax as I realise it primarily means shopping, washing, and other chores with the high spot being film night today and any other fleeting pleasures I may manage to pluck from the ether. Washing under way, it's time to read some of today's papers before hanging that 'out' to dry and starting the next load. Lunch time arrives and son #3 and I make it after I've washed up a few left over i...

On the positive side it's Friday, but before Friday can properly kick in (kick in? Fridays haven't 'properly kicked in' for so long I'm not sure what it is that makes weekends better than weekdays) I have a whole bunch of work things to do, staring with a call at 8:30 a.m. ...and so to work... As the first call is in progress I get a call from a mobile and it's NRS Healthcare telling me they are 30 minutes away from arriving to do a maintenance check on my wife's hoist and associated sling.  I do warn the man that his arrival will probably coincide with the arrival of the carers, so he may have to wait. NRS arrive mid-carer call, so the guy has to wait outside in his van... On to my next call - they come thick and fast today - and it to is interrupted by another call from a mobile, this time from the man who's coming to service our oven - he's five minutes away, so I'm going to have to hope the call finishes in time, else I'll be gone. Oven m...

More of the same today: very busy at work, so will not have much time to write until later. Lots and lots of lovely work, until the early evening when it's time for the idler drinks Zoom session.  Tonight's guest speaker is Jaron Lanier, who is described on Wikipedia as 'an American computer philosophy writer, computer scientist, visual artist, and composer of contemporary classical music. Considered a founder of the field of virtual reality...', and also a critic of social media, especially of Facebook and YouTube. Another incredibly thought-provoking session, which was attended by around 500 people at the peak, with Jaron talking widely on a variety of topics including, social media, ownership of personal data, access to creative works (music, art, literature etc), bitcoin, blockchain and GDPR, to name but a few.  I'm sure I've said it before, but these weekly discussions have been one of the highlights of lockdown and a major contributor to my sanity. Dinner ...

Working Wednesday so the usual applies! Work has been starting earlier this week with an hour long knowledge transfer session beginning at 8:30 each day, which means I need to start earlier than that to make sure there's nothing more urgent that needs doing before then. As it turns out, apart from a 30 minute gap at around 10 a.m., I'm back to back with meetings until 1 p.m. Hey ho! The most exciting thing that happened during the morning was the arrival of a cast-iron skillet I ordered for use as a frying pan, 'Tom & Jerry' style. I finally get to find out if that works, IRL. More work.  The afternoon was broken up by the arrival of our shopping delivery, a brief flurry of activity as sons 2, 3 and I take the shopping in from the crates and put it away. Back to work. The most important event of the day is the inauguration of Joe Biden as POTUS.  At last some good news - great speech (now he needs to make it happen!) and powerful poem from Amanda Gorman.  Had BBC...

Well, would you believe it?  A Tuesday primarily given over to work.  I gratefully note that I am lucky that my job allows me to work from home and I've been fortunate enough to work throughout the pandemic.  The primary consequence is I'll not have that much to say here, work not being something I can discuss other than in the most general of terms. So, work then. Unusually the postman brought me two useful/interesting items today, a book of poetry and also a letter from the hospital inviting me to attend an ultrasound scan in early February.  The ultrasound scan isn't exciting in itself, but it does represent the first step towards getting things fixed, hopefully. Work again This evening I'll be attending a Zoom call with some school friends, which will be a change from the rather more predictable course of each day. Work continues into the early evening and I notice that my attention is flagging: I guess I did start at around 8 and have been at it for ov...

I now have spare time on a Monday, no yoga class (or any other exercise, bar walking, for that matter), which means I can use the time for other purposes... After breakfast I begin my day by starting to read the remainder of yesterday's paper and contact a mate in Berlin to see if he's up for a chat this morning or afternoon. By the time I've finished the paper the word from Berlin is that we're on for a call this afternoon.   As I have spare time I decide to start the Idler course 'The History of London', which presented by Dr. Matthew Green, historian and  broadcaster, who has written a book called 'London: A Travel Guide Through Time'.  The first lecture is about Medieval London, centred around the year 1390. One of the most interesting things I learnt (that is fit to print here!) is that back in Medieval London everyone would have been in varying states of drunkenness: because the water wasn't fit/safe to drink, poor people drank ale all day - ty...

As I sit typing this, whilst drinking coffee and eating and eating an almond croissant, I'm finding the croissant especially enjoyable today. I don't know if that's because it does taste better (unlikely since it's from the same place I always get them from) or if I'm just noticing, being in the moment and savouring the taste.  I'm going for the latter and it feels good. The day ahead is likely to be a mix of chores and time to focus on myself (God! I hate that phrase, it sounds so selfish and self-indulgent), which will most likely mean some reading, some music and maybe a few other things.  I do need to make some progress on the book club novel, 'All The Pretty Horses', though I am struggling with it a bit.  The writing is interesting but the subject, which concerns cowboys at the time when that lifestyle was disappearing, really doesn't interest me at all.  Apart from a few Clint Eastwood spaghetti-westerns, there is no room in my life for western...

Back from another SAS-style shopping trip, almost under the cover of darkness. It was snowing earlier this morning and the remnants were still on my car when we left for the shops. The snow has turned to rain now though, so no chance of it settling. Son #2 joined me on the shopping trip and I found it especially frustrating having to let him do all the heavy lifting: I hate not being allowed to do things for myself.  Mind you by the time the shopping trip was over, I guess I'd been standing for a little over an hour, my abdomen was getting quite painful, and I was glad to sit in the car and drive home. Getting the shopping out of the way early does open up the rest of the day to get stuff done, though mainly chores to start with.  I keep having to ask my sons to help with this and that, just to get things done, which means I can't do things at the pace I want to, damn it. I'm not good at being dependent on other people, but I guess I'd better get used to it for the mome...

Despite being very busy at work this week, it seems to be going very slowly, though perhaps that's also because I am finding it so tedious being reliant on everyone else for so much and not being able to much exercise for fear of exploding abdominally. (Aside: Which reminds me,  the doctor said my belly button arrangement was also a hernia, so my longstanding fear that belly buttons can un-knot themselves and leak out your innards is in fact reality - and I'd let people convince me this was ridiculous! Who's having the last laugh now? Not me, I guess) My working morning is back to back calls starting at 8:30, which is always a challenge to getting things done, further exacerbated by the ops team nagging me to book all my leave for 2021 which is allied to a whole bunch of rules about how much leave has to be taken by certain dates. Work Lunch today was Thai pork sausages, courtesy of our twin Thai carers, and a very good lunch it was.  Two types of sausage: normally spiced a...

Where are now? Where are we now? It's going to be a busy day work-wise, so I'll probably not have time to write much, but let's see how it goes. It's approaching 6 p.m. and time for the first 'Idler drinks' of 2021, with tonight's guest being Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods. Great chat tonight - Jason Williamson has some interesting things to say and is a very engaging speaker: lots of good conversation, some new tunes, videos and photographs and then conversation after it closed!  Next week's promises to be excellent too, with Jaron Lanier who is considered to be the founder of Virtual Reality, not to mention being a proponent of people getting off social media (see his book ' Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now ').  Usual evening: after making beef meatball and black bean chilli with son #2, we watched another episode of 'Mr. Robot', which was suitably disturbing. Work. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. Sleaford Mods...

Feeling a bit 'meh' today. Cheesed off that I can't do exercise, seemingly can't do yoga and I have to think before doing most things in case they put undue pressure on my abdomen. Even sitting for too long is bad (which I already knew, for different reasons).  The only risk free thing to do is lie down. Great. Not practical for work and seemingly one step away from permanently lying down. 2021 off to a great start and January isn't even over yet! Enough of that! I have work to do, so onwards and upwards, carefully! After work I phoned my 'big' sister for a chat and catch up on life, followed by a video call with a good friend.  It is good to talk to people! Earlier start to evening, as we try to eat earlier, otherwise pretty much as usual.  One change to tonight, for the first time since my operation I don't take part in putting the bins out. Now that's what I call excitement. This week's poem is an old favourite of mine from the 16th century, b...