Lockdown Diary - Friday 22nd January 2021

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 man arrives: he has parts for the top oven, which is a shame, because it's the bottom oven that's at fault and he doesn't carry the spares he needs - he's going to replace the fan, the heating element and the door seal. Interestingly he doesn't plan to test the parts, he'll just replace them all, which is odd given the call comes with a warning that if there's no fault or it's a user error (user error with an oven???) they'll charge £55 for the pleasure of you meeting the engineer.  He orders the parts but ominously says it's possible they wont be able to get the parts as they come from Germany and since Brexit the UK is having problems getting spare parts for the ovens etc they sell. In that event they'll have to give a us a new oven. Another Brexit 'benefit'.

Back to work

We're making a slow cooker beef stew today and this needs prepping at lunchtime, ready to start slow cooking mid-afternoon. Unfortunately I have calls at lunchtime so I only manage to help a little, which was not the plan, but work is crazy busy at the moment so there's no choice.

More work

I start the slow cooker and then return to work, not as many calls this afternoon, but still a few.  By 5:30 p.m. I'm flagging and start to wind up what I've been doing.  I'm not going to work beyond six today.

Dinner is very easy this evening: slow cooker has done its bit and the stew is ready to serve.  It's a one pot meal so we're able to sit down and watch another disturbing episode of 'Mr. Robot', season 2.

I'm always happiest looking forward rather than back and don't subscribe to the view that the past was always better in some way (though my wife's deteriorating health, Brexit, Trump, Farage and almost every Conservative MP, with very few exceptions, have sorely tested that belief), so I'm choosing something yet to be released in 2021 as today's tune.  This is 'Dual Myths', the title track from Mainliner's upcoming album - their first since 2013's 'Revelation Space'. 

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