Nine Feet Underground

The cleaner's not coming today, which allowed me to have a brief lie-in, but I'm still up with the larks, as usual. Until this evening, I'm not expecting any major excitement and I will be focused on work. Early evening I had a chat with my big sister, an overdue catch-up mainly due to how busy I've been. Before the Idler drinks started, which returned this week after a half-term break, I had a chat with Q and logged in to the Zoom call just after six, as the call was opening. Tonight's guest speaker is Anil Seth , a Neuroscientist, talking about understanding consciousness, a subject I find fascinating, so I'm looking forward to it. That was quite a talk, one of the ways he described consciousness was as, 'the thing that goes away under general anaesthetic' and talked of the self as, 'a bundle of perceptions' and 'there's no such thing as the self, just the experience of the self'.  I will have to investigate his recent  book (time!...

Final day of working on the design document - by the end of today it will be finished, one way or the other.  Nevertheless I have got up early in order to do my weekly pranayama/breathing yoga session.  When I started, at 7 a.m. the air outside seemed rather cool and pleasant. By the time I'd finished and showered, it was already getting noticeably warmer. I don't think I'll have time to write much today as I'll be flat out completing the document for work. Phew! It's finally over.  I have completed the document and issued it back to my team (or ex. team, I guess).  Not the most fun thing to do in this heat, though nothing like as bad as physical work.  I really don't envy the carers their job in this heat, trying to wear their uniforms in such a way as they can keep cool.  Physically moving people is quite an effort in this heat. As the afternoon has headed towards evening, there's been a hint of distant thunder, but, so far, no real rain to speak of. The ...