Lockdown Diary - Sunday 28th February 2021

There was a possibility I'd've got up earlier today to chat with the first carer, but this proved unnecessary and instead I stayed in bed, trying to sleep.

I don't seem to have had any real side-effects from the Pfizer Covid vaccination other than a slight tenderness in my arm around the injection site. Felt a bit like a bruise, but no sign of bruising to the skin around the site. Next one please! (At the GP surgery they told me the next one should be in about 11 weeks. Let's hope so.)

As noted previously I am finding life a bit of a slog at the moment, and this is not just down to Covid and being stuck at home.  The need to change my life has never been more apparent. It's making my non-working days a real slog: I just feel like I am wading through a bog, submerged up to my waist.

Stuff to do, somehow it gets done.

Early afternoon I get a call from my father-in-law with some very sad news. He's asked me not to tell my wife, which I agree to.  Thinking on after the call, I am not so sure it's a good idea.  I am torn: it's so difficult to know what to do for the best.  If I tell her will it upset her and make her symptoms worse, though I don't really know how much she's taking in or understands. If I don't tell her, well, I guess it can't cause a problem because she doesn't know, but I feel she has a right to know. I've told the boys, but otherwise for now I'll keep it to myself.

I probably ought to stop and think about things and write more here, but I'm not feeling it. Lost the will to listen to music or to read.

Late afternoon, son #2 and I go for a walk. The sun is still up but the temperature seems to be dropping. He wants to try out his new camera under different lighting conditions and I just want to get the fuck out of the house, out of my head not being possible.

In the early evening I get a call from my wife's brother, who I've not spoken to for more than five years (I have no idea how long) and he updates me a little further on the situation and actually asks about his sister, who he's not spoken to in as long. I tell him how she is as directly and briefly as I can, without sugar-coating any of it.  Whatever has happened in the past is in the past. It cannot be changed. Here and now and what happens in the future is all that matters. The slate can always be wiped clean if you have the strength and positivity to let it be wiped clean, and I do. Change.

Usual shit in the evening. Dinner.  TV, briefly. Sleep to escape the quagmire.

Later period John Martyn is very hit and miss.  The 'glossy sounding' eighties albums after 'Grace and Danger' are variable, to say the least, but amongst them there are a few career highs. The album 'The Church With One Bell' is a blues-oriented set of cover versions, and is thus not his greatest work for the simple reason he didn't write the songs. Overall the feel is good, with some successes, but it falls down because it's all covers.  For example he covers Portishead's 'Glory Box', a great song admittedly, but his version pales next to Beth Gibbon's original. Now, having damned it with feint praise, I'm gonna choose 'The Sky Is Crying' just because.  

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