Tales From The Crypt - Tuesday 13th July 2021

Back-to-work Tuesday again, this time with a very early start to do some reading and preparation for my part in our team presentation as part of my 6-week training course.  I'm going to try and walk later but I also make and eat breakfast earlier so that I can devote as much uninterrupted time as I can to building and learning my script.

Work from the off, which continues until about 12:15 p.m. when the penultimate lesson in the course ends and I stop to take a breather.  It's going to be a busy day, so I decide now is the time to meditate.

Work again

The afternoon has three interludes of a slightly different nature, with the first being a call with E's dietitian to discuss her continuing weight gain (apparent) and the damage part of the PEG tube is doing to her skin near the entry site.

Back to work

Next interlude being hour long session titled 'Talk Yourself Up - How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome'. A really interesting session with some good ideas to try out, though perhaps set against the backdrop of the next 'interlude', maybe now's not the time.

Hot on the heals of that call I switch to the telephone for a call from a Talking Therapies counsellor.  By a strange twist of fate the counsellor is someone I saw back in 2016 (I think, may have been 2015), though then she was working for a charity providing counselling services.  She remembered me and when she told me of our previous connection I remembered who she was.  Today's call was an assessment (yet another, though this time by the person I'll be talking to) ahead of 7 weeks (maximum) of counselling. Ahead of the call, I had been beginning to doubt this was necessary, until she started digging into things and it rapidly become evident that I'm just keeping the lid nailed down, more or less.  The call closed with an agreed schedule for seven weeks starting on the final day of my upcoming leave. One stroke of luck: like me she doesn't work Mondays.

Assessment complete, I need some fresh air and escape, so off I trundle on a cutdown (it's getting late and the carers will soon be here) version of my regular brisk walking route. Listening to music as I walk helps clear my head of the storm clouds.

Son #3 returns from his break with his gf and I'm still working when he arrives home.  Final email of the day to tell my manager of my upcoming counselling sessions, primarily as they are during the working day but also because there's a slim chance there might be outcomes that affect my work. Who knows?

I start dinner blasting out Sonic Youth as I prep the chicken and the potatoes.   We seem to have a massive surfeit of vegetables so we'll be making a huge pan of ratatouille to accompany the chicken and potatoes.  Son #3 joins me to prepare the vegetable mountain as Daniel Avery hammers out some stripped-down techno.

We all sit and eat whilst watching the most ludicrous episode of 'Spooks' so far.  It's about hacking and son #2 with his security architect hat on and me with my donkeys years in IT can't believe the bollocks we're watching. Never mind the other plot holes.

Time for a different form of darkness

Super Furry Animals / 'Fragile Happiness' / 'Rings Around The World'

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