Nine Feet Underground

Up early for the cleaner and first carer.  After the first carer had left I got ready for my walk - while I'm out, she'll clean my office.  Chose to do the longer walk again today and on my return had a chat with Q before making breakfast and beginning a long day of work. I'm keeping a secret, that I no longer need to keep secret since by the time I publish this it will have happened. Son #2's gf is flying here from Costa Rica a day early and she intends to surprise him by arriving today, unannounced! It should be interesting to see his reaction. 😀 Various things happen, the vast majority of which are work-related, until around 12:30 p.m. when son #2's gf arrives!  He certainly was surprised! I should also mention that son #2's gf brought me a wonderful present - a fully illustrated photo book on Costa Rica, the land, the people and the wildlife.  Thanks so much 😍 Managed a brief afternoon call with Q (her bedtime) and then returned to work to draw some more p...

What to say in the ever-shrinking world that is my life? Well, it may be Saturday, but it might just as well be Monday for all the difference it makes. There are days when I feel like I am a hamster in a wheel, except my wheel lets in no light, nothing except air and food.  I am struggling with motivation, yet even if I could summon up some motivation, I can't actually do much except read, watch TV, listen to music or just rest and contemplate life. Ho hum. I have directed the boys, well actually almost entirely son #3, to do three wash loads of bed linen they'd generated.  Food shopping has been delivered with only two substitutions and nothing missing. All three sons helped a little with that. I've been reading a fair bit, until I got bored of it. Don't get me wrong, I love reading, but there's only so much of it I can do in a day, especially when it's what I've been doing most days for the past week, and will probably be most of what I'll be doing for...

Started the day chatting to the first carer, in her capacity as surrogate Virginia Ironside, though much younger and also far more likely to take the piss. Which, of course, is good. After shopping, son #1 and I were talking about my wife's decline from when she was diagnosed with MS back in 2009, to where things are now. Sometimes it's good to talk things over even if you cannot change anything, except maybe what you think and feel. Not necessarily the ideal thing for me to talk about right now, but it's important for the boys to talk about things when they need to, and there's only me, so there it is.  All the usual BS follows and once the washing is underway, I contact the funeral directors to discuss flowers for next week's funeral, followed by a call to a local (to the funeral) florists.  Flowers eventually identified and paid for with only the words to finalise.  I've already written the words, at least the first draft, I just need to share with the boys a...

I like Mondays. Primarily because I don't work on a Monday.  It always feels like an 'extra' day, a day I have taken back for myself.  The idea of not working Mondays started life as a germ of an idea in a counselling session back in 2018. The counsellor suggested it and at the time it seemed a radical idea, counter to my thoughts about work and my relationship with it. The idea grew over the course of the latter sessions and at the end of sixteen or seventeen counselling sessions (can't remember how exactly many I had in the end), it was one of several practical actions I agreed with my counsellor that I'd take to positively improve my life. Of course it wasn't quite as simple as that. I'd have to get the agreement of my employer before it became reality, but that's how it started. Yoga was good this morning, as always (that's another thing that came out of counselling), though I was glad I did it in shorts today as the energetic stuff is getting ...

An unusual work day.  Think I'll leave it at that. I've been pretty busy getting some critical admin done - still more to do tomorrow. Owing to the length and complexity of III.3 of the 'Wake, it's going to take me 3 or 4 days to go back over the chapter to get a better understanding.  My initial research this evening has shown me that even the first page is going to take some going through: "...Yawn is titanic, gigantic. As Adam Kadmon, he is the original Adam who, in the Kabbala, is coterminous with the universe ... Evoking awe in contemplating the vast universe ... Joyce shows himself to be a great painter with words. He produces a masterly and vividly coloured portrait of the starry universe, culminating in the Milky Way." Flip! This will take some close re-reading. 😵 Putting that to one side - it's already been a day of brain ache - The Idler are doing another of their 'Drinks with...' evenings over Zoom tonight, and the guest this eveni...