Lockdown Diary - Thursday 18th February 2021

Cometh the man, cometh the hour. Or so I hope.

Another day of full-on working, most of which will involve me either staring at a screen writing a document or staring at a screen researching other documents and tools to fill in gaps in the document.

Not much else going on today, except work. The usual interactions with the carers, but not much else to speak of.

As the working day comes to a close, it is clear that today is a case of 'the best laid plans...'

Tonight it's Idler drinks, as usual for a Thursday, and tonight's guest is Sam Lee who as well as being a folk singer is a conservationist and big proponent of the Nightingale.  The talk focuses on the wonders of the Nightingale, Sam having written a book, soon to be published, on the bird.  Apparently Nightingale numbers have declined from around a hundred thousand pairs in the 1960s, to around five thousand pairs today. This decline is largely due to the destruction of their habitat, which is most significant because Nightingales apparently return to the tree they were born in to mate.  If the tree is gone, they don't breed, hence the decline.  Apart from the discussion, there are recordings of Nightingale song, with human accompanists in the wild.  Despite my misgivings (I always shudder when the 'f*lk' word is mentioned) it was really fascinating and made me interested to learn more about the Nightingale and where they can be heard.

Dinner is running late tonight and my attempts to assist son #2 are thwarted in part because he wants to do the cooking alone but also because I had an unexpected call from my father-in-law.  It was quite an upsetting call and I've made myself available to him, if he needs someone to talk to, during a difficult situation which he's going through.

I serve dinner and we all gather and watch another episode of 'Mr. Robot' and the usual stuff follows.

I don't seem to be finding time (or is it motivation, or maybe both) to listen to much new music, or indeed much music at all.  Nevertheless there is always music in my head, even if I've not listened to anything recently.  A Cypress Hill track was played during 'Mr. Robot' and it reminded me of this album, 'Black Sunday', which is one of the great hip-hop/rap albums. At the time it came out I played it to death, from it this is 'I Ain't Goin' Out Like That'

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