Lockdown Diary - Saturday 15th May 2021

Up early for the first carer call of the day as well as food shopping with son #1.  I have a tedious DIY job to do later: remove the grout in part of the shower, then clean up and re-grout. It's the sort of job that gives gardening a run for its money on being the most soul-destroying way to spend a day. That's assuming I don't fuck it up.

Before that excitement, breakfast then chores.

Son #3 is off to Banbury for an illicit meeting with his gf.  I note that he is growing up fast, which is a good thing. I'm sure my wife would see it differently as she probably still thinks of him as the baby, but they are all going to have a lot more growing up to do over the next year or so, one way or another. 

There's no point me starting on the job until the afternoon carer call or else I will be interrupted.  Hopefully I'll have lunch first too.

Well, that was fun. Using a manual grout rake is hard work as grout generally (and I'll come on to that next) sets like concrete.  My efforts, however came to a rather abrupt and unexpected end. There was a very soft strip of grout in the area we suspected was leaking, which when removed revealed a hole / void behind it.  At this point I realised that just re-grouting would not be adequate.  I emailed the plumber and he confirmed that I should not just 'paper over the crack' with grout.  So, it's looking like plan D after all. He's coming back on Monday to look into the hole and I'm fully expecting that the shower will need ripping out. Again.

On the plus side (ouch!) I did gain some of my afternoon back as I reckon it would have taken me another couple of hours to rip out the grout I needed to.

Had lunch (late) and returned my mother-in-law's call (she'd phoned mid-grout rake).  After a long chat the carers arrived for the final call of the day which was the cue to go for a walk with son #1.

We've exceeded the 30 minute brisk walking target and managed to stay dry, though it was unusually quiet - we hardly saw anyone on foot, not even the usual parade of dog-walkers.

Film night tonight and son #1's choice: he originally chose the David Cronenburg film 'Scanners', but Amazon was playing silly buggers and so he switched to '21 Grams', one of my favourite films.

Everyone enjoyed the film which has a confusing opening 30 minutes or so as we switch from character to character and move back and forth in time.  I think it's one of the things I love about it, the way you gradually piece it together and start to move towards the forward narrative thrust. It does have a slightly clunky voice over from Sean Penn at the end which effectively explains the title.  I always wonder if that could have been omitted and the question left unexplained.  Naomi Watts is rather beautiful and alluring and the film also features Charlotte Gainsbourg as one of lesser main characters.

After that the usual.

Róisín Murphy / 'We Are The Law' / 'Crooked Machine'

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