Lockdown Diary - Thursday 28th January 2021

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 wash.  You can never have too much washing to do, after all.

Back to competition law!

During the evening carer visit, one of the carers complained her legs were aching and I enquired why that was. She replied 'it's because I spend so much time on all fours', naturally I couldn't leave that unremarked, and amongst other things I'll not repeat here, I did ask why I wasn't getting the 'gold' service? Luckily I can get away with such comments without violence and only a wry smile and appropriate response.

No sooner had the carers left, laughter fading into the distance, than it was time to join the Idler drinks call, tonight with Laurie Santos Professor of Psychology from Yale University, talking on the subject of happiness.  She is the author of the massively popular free online course 'The Science of Well-Being', which provides practical approaches to supporting your mental health.  One of the things that was mentioned as contributing to good mental health (based on controlled research in labs) are magic mushrooms (i.e. psilocybin), though of course, as she also mentioned, this is currently not legal.

It was another hour well-spent and reminded me that I did sign up  for this course about a year ago and haven't started it, until now!! I will report on the contents as I progress.

I'm also helping son #1 write his personal statement to go with his UCAS application, which he must complete by tomorrow evening.  We need to trim it down to 4000 characters from about 8000, so I set to work in Word and start simplifying and excising.  New draft complete I return it to him for his further comment and removal.

Dinner tonight is pies and veg, which I help prepare with son #2 before we all sit down to watch 'Mr. Robot' together. Tonight's episode included another revelation to completely pull the rug from underneath us.

And so to bed.

The Young Gods. 'Rue des tempêtes' from the album 'L'eau rouge'


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