12 November 2021
It’s the 12th of November and I am having a weird and poorly-planned day. Bits of it are excellent! There are clashes and odd changes of pace! At least it’s a bit less samey than the last few monthly diary days.
But first, my alarm goes at 7.15. I snooze. I snooze. I snooze. At 7.50 I groan deeply and admit it’s time to get up. Which is a good thing as when I check my phone I have a DPD delivery coming at 7.55-8.55, and I do have time to get reasonably fully dressed by the time the doorbell actually goes. Which is good, as downstairs’s builders are already on site… this is a long-running issue. They are cheerful, trying hard not to be a pain, and mercifully today they are not drilling things. But I’ve not yet had to answer the door in front of them in my pjs and I’m glad today wasn’t the start.
Breakfast is less pleasing - toast as per usual, and tea, which looked fine but tasted as if the milk was off. Botheration, it didn’t expire till tomorrow. I’m too busy to run out immediately, as some urgent work stuff came in last night which I don’t want to leave for the afternoon slump, so I have about a third of a mugful of tea and crack on.
It’s a busy time at work, partly as I’m on leave after today, and partly as I’m mopping up the direct comms after our awards panel last week. Everyone who applied has their outcomes, but I’m sending copy letters on request to Very Senior Folk to hope they congratulate their staff on their national awards. So I’m getting those out, and getting the occasional gratified email back, in between other tidying up work. About 11am I set my out of office. For 5pm, but it makes me feel better…
I do a supermarket run about then, because I really do need a proper cup of tea. I often do half my weekly shop around this time, but as I’m away next week it isn’t a big shop this time. Still good to walk, and I listen to this week’s episode of Oh God What Now as I walk. Bracing politicking, and a bit of Cop26 insight too. It is far too warm for November.
…and back to the emails. Lots more copy requests, a bit of indexing (a task I used to do a lot and now only get to in this kind of bitty week, so the people doing that as their main role don’t feel so alone). I have a slight emergency about a workshop I’m running when I get back, which is de-emergencied by a helpful colleague who can remember the names of some of the online collab tools I’ve not used much before. I just need something super basic.
The downstairs builders knock off for the day about half one, which is a good moment to have lunch. It is a hell of a building site there, six weeks into the build… which is still basically demolition. So bad.
Lunch is dull, leftover rice with courgettes and not quite enough chana masala to make it interesting. I check my socials and personal email (woop, I thought I’d used up all my theatre credits from pandemic cancellations, but I can book two shows at Jermyn St Theatre for their 2022 season! For free!)
…and then back to the emails. Sigh. I do get through most of it, have yet another tea as a chat with a colleague and eat my last bit of parkin, do a bit of a grant review which isn’t due for ages after I get back (it’s interesting, good, but I’m not going to finish it this afternoon). I share one of our covid risk assessment templates for site visits with Scottish colleagues; we aren’t really bothering with them any more but in Scotland things are much less open. It’s not that I think we shouldn’t think about risk, but the risk is pretty bloody identical wherever we go from our pov (travel, meeting people, travel back => wear a mask, wash your hands, ventilate, don’t overdo the numbers); it’s been more helpful lately to ask for the risk mitigations at the place we’re visiting in case there’s anything we’re not happy about. But anyway, isn’t pandemic life fun?
Covid numbers are rising again, almost as if schools are back… and I get a message from a friend who has just tested positive. She has two teenagers, so it’s no bloody surprise, but it’s not good at all. I do wonder what normality will look like when we get there, and I’ve a horrible feeling this is pretty much it for the foreseeable future. The Netherlands is going back to a bit of a lockdown. Oh, it’s not good.
It’s been a grey day and there’s no residual light in the sky, so I close the curtains about 4.15. By 4.30 I’m treading water.
I don’t log out as I don’t want to leave any last emails hanging for a whole week, but I do a bit of Duolingo German, read our CEO’s weekly update (which is broadly the same every week now, except one of *his* kids has covid now and so he missed our ministerial visit this week, which he’s trying to pretend not to be annoyed about…), and keep an eye on anything coming in. A couple of things do, but nothing major.
I do log out smartly at 5pm as I’m doing a Zoom thing - it’s the Being Human festival, which can be great, as humanities academics try to share their work. This one is… not great. How are people still running Zoom events like they’re total novices, when it’s their actual job? I was hoping an archive component of it would be interesting, which it kind of is, but it’s hard to get through the general disorganisation.
I admit I check my personal emails - the latest edition of the weekly cocktail newsletter The Spirits, for starters. It’s a Breakfast Martini this week, which looks lovely. I will make it tomorrow night for my twitter cocktail hour, woop. It has marmalade in and I love that idea. And twitter, where The Rest is History (a podcast I enjoy) is hosting the World Cup of Kings and Queens of England this coming weekend, and oops have very much used a picture of Richard III when they meant Henry VII in this gif …
Annnnyway, I didn’t quite stay to the end of the workshop, as I also have actual theatre tickets for tonight. I have known both of these things were happening tonight for some time, but they are written onto different calendars and I literally only realised today that it was nearly a clash. Oops. Hooray for online as well as in-person stuff. Boo to running two different calendars (I put personal stuff on a nice actual calendar, but anything I need to remember when I might carry on working goes on my work Outlook… and apparently I forgot it was a personal thing too this time).
I walk to the Tube in the drizzly dark.
I go via Elephant and Castle and emerge suddenly at Piccadilly Circus. Which is looking very shiny in its Christmas lights. It was a smooth journey so I waste 10 minutes in the big Piccadilly Waterstones before heading to the theatre.
By coincidence, it’s Jermyn Street Theatre - I really like going there, as it’s tiny and intimate, and their stage managers/designers are amazing. So much more interesting than a trad stage or a massive budget. And about £25 a ticket instead of £75 starting price in the West End. The seats are iffy, but you can all see the goddamn stage… This is late Beckett, a tad on the challenging side, but more like poetry than drama in many ways. It’s very short, which isn’t ever a bad thing, and I’ve never before been in the same space as Sian Phillips, so I shall chalk that one up.
I head straight home after - by 9pm I’m back at my mainline station, a slightly longer walk home than the Tube one but that is down a bunch of alleys I’m not wild about after dark. Home before 9.30, and it’s time for dinner, which is all ready for me. Tomato curry, strained yoghurt and naan bread to warm in the toaster. I’m eating about 4.5 minutes after getting in. I wanted to catch up with Masterchef but iPlayer is being annoying, so I watch HIGNFY live instead, and then turn over for the Last Leg.
I should really go to bed after that, but it takes me a while to unpeel myself from the sofa, and then I want to finish a legal crime book I’m reading (going steadily through the Ben Schroeder legal books by Peter Murphy, which are guaranteed not to be too creepy for pre-sleep reading, and don’t generally grip me this much. But I’ve nothing much planned for Saturday, so one night of putting the light out at 1am is just about acceptable. This once.
But first, my alarm goes at 7.15. I snooze. I snooze. I snooze. At 7.50 I groan deeply and admit it’s time to get up. Which is a good thing as when I check my phone I have a DPD delivery coming at 7.55-8.55, and I do have time to get reasonably fully dressed by the time the doorbell actually goes. Which is good, as downstairs’s builders are already on site… this is a long-running issue. They are cheerful, trying hard not to be a pain, and mercifully today they are not drilling things. But I’ve not yet had to answer the door in front of them in my pjs and I’m glad today wasn’t the start.
Breakfast is less pleasing - toast as per usual, and tea, which looked fine but tasted as if the milk was off. Botheration, it didn’t expire till tomorrow. I’m too busy to run out immediately, as some urgent work stuff came in last night which I don’t want to leave for the afternoon slump, so I have about a third of a mugful of tea and crack on.
It’s a busy time at work, partly as I’m on leave after today, and partly as I’m mopping up the direct comms after our awards panel last week. Everyone who applied has their outcomes, but I’m sending copy letters on request to Very Senior Folk to hope they congratulate their staff on their national awards. So I’m getting those out, and getting the occasional gratified email back, in between other tidying up work. About 11am I set my out of office. For 5pm, but it makes me feel better…
I do a supermarket run about then, because I really do need a proper cup of tea. I often do half my weekly shop around this time, but as I’m away next week it isn’t a big shop this time. Still good to walk, and I listen to this week’s episode of Oh God What Now as I walk. Bracing politicking, and a bit of Cop26 insight too. It is far too warm for November.
…and back to the emails. Lots more copy requests, a bit of indexing (a task I used to do a lot and now only get to in this kind of bitty week, so the people doing that as their main role don’t feel so alone). I have a slight emergency about a workshop I’m running when I get back, which is de-emergencied by a helpful colleague who can remember the names of some of the online collab tools I’ve not used much before. I just need something super basic.
The downstairs builders knock off for the day about half one, which is a good moment to have lunch. It is a hell of a building site there, six weeks into the build… which is still basically demolition. So bad.
Lunch is dull, leftover rice with courgettes and not quite enough chana masala to make it interesting. I check my socials and personal email (woop, I thought I’d used up all my theatre credits from pandemic cancellations, but I can book two shows at Jermyn St Theatre for their 2022 season! For free!)
…and then back to the emails. Sigh. I do get through most of it, have yet another tea as a chat with a colleague and eat my last bit of parkin, do a bit of a grant review which isn’t due for ages after I get back (it’s interesting, good, but I’m not going to finish it this afternoon). I share one of our covid risk assessment templates for site visits with Scottish colleagues; we aren’t really bothering with them any more but in Scotland things are much less open. It’s not that I think we shouldn’t think about risk, but the risk is pretty bloody identical wherever we go from our pov (travel, meeting people, travel back => wear a mask, wash your hands, ventilate, don’t overdo the numbers); it’s been more helpful lately to ask for the risk mitigations at the place we’re visiting in case there’s anything we’re not happy about. But anyway, isn’t pandemic life fun?
Covid numbers are rising again, almost as if schools are back… and I get a message from a friend who has just tested positive. She has two teenagers, so it’s no bloody surprise, but it’s not good at all. I do wonder what normality will look like when we get there, and I’ve a horrible feeling this is pretty much it for the foreseeable future. The Netherlands is going back to a bit of a lockdown. Oh, it’s not good.
It’s been a grey day and there’s no residual light in the sky, so I close the curtains about 4.15. By 4.30 I’m treading water.
I don’t log out as I don’t want to leave any last emails hanging for a whole week, but I do a bit of Duolingo German, read our CEO’s weekly update (which is broadly the same every week now, except one of *his* kids has covid now and so he missed our ministerial visit this week, which he’s trying to pretend not to be annoyed about…), and keep an eye on anything coming in. A couple of things do, but nothing major.
I do log out smartly at 5pm as I’m doing a Zoom thing - it’s the Being Human festival, which can be great, as humanities academics try to share their work. This one is… not great. How are people still running Zoom events like they’re total novices, when it’s their actual job? I was hoping an archive component of it would be interesting, which it kind of is, but it’s hard to get through the general disorganisation.
I admit I check my personal emails - the latest edition of the weekly cocktail newsletter The Spirits, for starters. It’s a Breakfast Martini this week, which looks lovely. I will make it tomorrow night for my twitter cocktail hour, woop. It has marmalade in and I love that idea. And twitter, where The Rest is History (a podcast I enjoy) is hosting the World Cup of Kings and Queens of England this coming weekend, and oops have very much used a picture of Richard III when they meant Henry VII in this gif …
Annnnyway, I didn’t quite stay to the end of the workshop, as I also have actual theatre tickets for tonight. I have known both of these things were happening tonight for some time, but they are written onto different calendars and I literally only realised today that it was nearly a clash. Oops. Hooray for online as well as in-person stuff. Boo to running two different calendars (I put personal stuff on a nice actual calendar, but anything I need to remember when I might carry on working goes on my work Outlook… and apparently I forgot it was a personal thing too this time).
I walk to the Tube in the drizzly dark.
I go via Elephant and Castle and emerge suddenly at Piccadilly Circus. Which is looking very shiny in its Christmas lights. It was a smooth journey so I waste 10 minutes in the big Piccadilly Waterstones before heading to the theatre.
By coincidence, it’s Jermyn Street Theatre - I really like going there, as it’s tiny and intimate, and their stage managers/designers are amazing. So much more interesting than a trad stage or a massive budget. And about £25 a ticket instead of £75 starting price in the West End. The seats are iffy, but you can all see the goddamn stage… This is late Beckett, a tad on the challenging side, but more like poetry than drama in many ways. It’s very short, which isn’t ever a bad thing, and I’ve never before been in the same space as Sian Phillips, so I shall chalk that one up.
I head straight home after - by 9pm I’m back at my mainline station, a slightly longer walk home than the Tube one but that is down a bunch of alleys I’m not wild about after dark. Home before 9.30, and it’s time for dinner, which is all ready for me. Tomato curry, strained yoghurt and naan bread to warm in the toaster. I’m eating about 4.5 minutes after getting in. I wanted to catch up with Masterchef but iPlayer is being annoying, so I watch HIGNFY live instead, and then turn over for the Last Leg.
I should really go to bed after that, but it takes me a while to unpeel myself from the sofa, and then I want to finish a legal crime book I’m reading (going steadily through the Ben Schroeder legal books by Peter Murphy, which are guaranteed not to be too creepy for pre-sleep reading, and don’t generally grip me this much. But I’ve nothing much planned for Saturday, so one night of putting the light out at 1am is just about acceptable. This once.