Lockdown Diary - Thursday 11th February 2021

Another busy day of work ahead, with the usual consequences.  On top of that a man is coming to repair our oven today at some point, so that may cause some disruption to the day, but otherwise just another normal Thursday (sing to the tune of The Bangles 'Manic Monday').

Work dominates until around midday when son #2 and I both take a break from work to prepare the food for tonight's slow cooker chicken casserole. Veg chopped partially cooked, chicken browned, other ingredients weighed out, time for it all to go in the slow cooker for eight hours.  Now we can leave it and forget about it.

Not long after that the oven engineer arrives with the right parts, but ahead of the carers lunchtime call - it's going to busy in the kitchen soon!

As luck would have it the cooker repairs take longer than expected, in fact after he's fitted all the parts and put it back the oven starts making a racket with the fan on, so he swaps the new fan for another new fan. Same problem. In the end he decides that the oven needs replacing, so has to place an order for a replacement.  That'll save me cleaning it!

Another busy afternoon with work before I finish ahead of this evening's Idler drinks call. Tonight's guest is French philosopher and author Ollivier Pourriol.

Great discussion with Ollivier, who was a fun speaker with a fine French accent then the after meeting chat started to talk about Stewart Lee's 'King Rocker' documentary that aired last weekend, which I had to wade in to.

Dinner takes little or no effort since it just needs serving, pretty much. This is our second slow cooker effort and has worked even better than the first - a perfect meal for a winter's evening after a long day of work.

The usual routine, 'Mr. Robot', clearing up, heading upstairs to sleep, perchance to dream.

When originally released this song was titled 'The "Sweetest Girl"', the quotes being significant regarding the meaning of the song, but somehow it appears over time the quotes have been lost from recent reprints of the album from which it comes. No matter. I could write a lot more about this song, but I'll not spoil it. It's a great song by Scritti Politti and features the incomparably wonderful Robert Wyatt on keyboards, which is perhaps why it reminds me a lot of the song 'O Caroline' by Matching Mole.  It's from the album 'Songs to Remember', in case you don't.


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