Bah humbug

Munich Botanical Gardens, December 2019

After I'd been to the bank and the supermarket I shut my front door on Wednesday 23rd December confident that I would not be in the physical presence of another human until Tuesday 29th December. On that day I have to go to work, then I'll go shopping again, and then it will be another period of isolation until, wait for it, Monday 11th January. I might need supplies before then, so my isolation may be broken by an encounter with a supermarket checkout person. And there's just a chance of a socially distanced walk on Monday 28th, or an Amazon delivery of a new umbrella and a floor squeegee for the wet room.

It is looking very likely that Flf has walked away from my wet room without so much as an apology, explanation, or invoice. I have been awarded a free wet room! except for the bits that haven't been done. Once I have found someone new to finish the job I will invite him to submit an invoice, but not yet, I'm still cross. As a celebration for my unfinished wet room Lola II and Mr M dropped by, Santa-style, and gave me one of my two Christmas presents - some shower gel! I now smell quite unlike my usual soap. They also brought trifle to share, and they saw my wet room, and we got quite cold, and it was lovely to see them but not like it should be. Damn you, Coronavirus.

In case you were wondering, the other Christmas present was from Mr MXF, and comprised a large number of different flavours of Chai - he deduced rightly that alcohol would not be all that welcome. Unfortunately they all contain caffeine so it may take me a year or two to get through them - the one I have tried was delicious, though. I suppose I should also mention the gifts I've been getting from generous companies who have donated them to the NHS - mostly toiletries, but on 21st December I received a Lindt chocolate advent calendar (along with Nivea and hand cream). I accepted (invented) the challenge of catching up to align the little window-opening and the calendar date, bearing in mind that the chocolates are incredibly small.

Both of my employers staged Christmas get togethers on the same day. At the Diabetes Centre there was to be a buffet lunch where each of us bring a component such as bread, cheese, fizzy pop etc. Historically I have attended in order to promote team spirit, but this year it was on a day when I don't work there and on the same day as Mr MXF's party, which took place in the evening via Zoom. Earlier in the week Lola Towers had taken delivery of a small bottle of Prosecco via Amazon, and a frozen meal from Wiltshire Farm Food, which we Dietitians tend to recommend mainly to older people who have had upper GI surgery or a brain injury and can no longer chew or swallow safely.

I wasn't going to mention this during the Zoom call, but it turns out the Mr MXF was aware of the situation but he had left the order so late that WFF was the only supplier still offering Christmas dinners for delivery (and it turns out that by the time the orders were placed, these were no longer available). Other employees joining the festivities were the entire MXF family plus a girlfriend, and two young people who do web coding and accounts. Mr MXF had also arranged a quiz where I achieved a score no better than chance, but I contributed to the fun by embarrassing him with ancient pictures of him as a twenty-something shared via Zoom.

My plan to join a three-household Christmas get-together in Nottingham was scuppered only days before it was due to happen. One of the party is more of an introvert than I am, and even she was disappointed that we're now meeting on Zoom instead of in person. All my progress towards welcoming human contact has evaporated, so when we start being able to meet people again I'll have to start at square one. This has certainly been a year like no other. 

Socialising

Munich Botanical Gardens, December 2019

What has happened? Have we been left high and dry? Where are the regular outpourings of trivia that we have come to expect about once a week?

Well, the effect of lockdown is to prevent me doing anything except things that I've written about again and again - work at the hospital, work for Mr MXF, Buddhist stuff. And Flf the plumber has now stopped responding to my emails and texts and I suspect that he is cutting his losses and leaving me to it, so nothing on the LTRP front at the moment either. Although I did manage to chop up ten bags of thorny green stuff from the garden and take it to the tip in the pouring rain. That's the trouble with now having to book a fixed time to go to the tip - you can't wimp out just because the weather is inclement. There's probably another ten bags still waiting on the lawn to be chopped up.

We had a games night on Zoom with Lola II, Mr M and old friends from long ago. We had been doing this regularly in the early days of lockdown but it had tailed off a bit, so nice to see people again, catch up, and make plans for a New Year's Eve get together. On that occasion the attendance will be augmented by all the people who were supposed to be together in person for our holiday booked in Devon so long ago, and it now seems very optimistic even to be thinking about it for next year.

I also met some people in real life at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre, where six of the women I've been studying with had their Mitra ceremony. It was a lovely event, and I took away a number of points where I would want to replicate their ideas (e.g. recorded mantras as we're not allowed to sing or chant) and other points that I would want to do differently (e.g. the people on Zoom never saw the people in the room and we in the room were never told who was on Zoom, even though there was a screen, but it was too far away and I couldn't see it well enough to make out faces or read names). We're going to be experimenting soon with tethering tablets and laptops to mobile phones in our own hall, so maybe there will be progress to report at some point.

Until then, there's nothing much to add unless something exciting crops up between this draft and pressing the 'Publish' button.

Tier 3 lockdown shower

Munich, December 2019

The electrician came! And wired up the shower and the extractor fan, but couldn't hook the fan in with the light switch because of the tiling. If Flanders and Swann hadn't written their famous song I would have thought I'm the first to encounter this sort of difficulty. The electrician also told me a very interesting fact that Flf had neglected to mention: the cable to the shower was not incorrect and hadn't been replaced after all, because it was only powering the pump and not heating the water because the hot water comes from the tank upstairs.

There's no shower screen yet, but I had a careful shower and it was wonderful, but while the water is coming through OK, the knob that ought to adjust the power of the stream isn't working. Now all that needs to happen is for Flf to come back, sort out the power setting, the screen, the ceiling, the drains outside, and the tiling (which the electrician could probably have done himself but didn't) so that the electrician can come back and finish that bit of the job. But now that I can have a proper shower standing up he can take his time and finish up whenever he wants to be paid.

Doors & Windows Ulf came! With a sidekick, and we all climbed up to the roof of the kitchen, managed to avoid falling off despite the frost, and discovered that the leak is probably caused by moss prising apart plastic layers that oughtn't to be prised apart. So I'm going to need to get up there once or twice a year to scrape off the moss, which means I'm going to need some better ladders. But with luck, no more indoor rain.

I have done some more work for Mr MXF at last, and it is still as mind-stretching as before. But I can detect some progress in my understanding of how email works, and managed to send and receive email from an address using a domain that belongs to Mr MXF. If this makes no sense to you, and there's no reason why it should, then all I can say is that I have achieved something quite difficult and am rather pleased with myself.

It has definitely been a problem-solving week: the next problem to be solved is in connection with the bank switching service which failed to switch an account that I've been helping mum with. We think we may have tracked down the problem, but that is a long way from solving it. 

And the long confinement of Covid-19 continues, with Leamington in tier 3 lockdown, and nobody knowing exactly what that means, and the weather turning proper chilly. I keep myself pretty busy with the Buddhism (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday in the past week) and watching films and writing blogs and family Zoom meetings and cooking and cleaning and 'gardening'. 'Gardening' means chopping everything down to shoulder or waist level and leaving it all on the lawn until I can be bothered to cut it up small enough to pack into sacks and take to the tip. Running has had to stop for the moment because my knee has started to complain.

Working at the hospital has been a bit hectic as I have been allocated a student for two weeks in succession during all-day busy clinics. I have also been given some 'instant' Covid testing kits that work a bit like pregnancy tests but with nasal swabs, but I haven't had the chance to try one out yet. Apparently a negative test can be accepted at face value, but after a positive outcome you have to go and get a proper test to confirm the result. I'll have a go next week.