C24H20N6O3

 sit down in the office, and feel the blood pressure go down, the eyes close and the mind wanders. This is not fair,it is a horrible feeling. Turn on the computer, check the contents of the camera case. 

And then another attack.

Read the messages 

another of those attacks.

What is the matter? Get up, walk around the building. It is quiet yet, everything is ok.

But this tiredness, there is no way out of it. 

Maybe it is those pills the doctor ordered yesterday, perhaps doubling the dose is causing it. High blood pressure is serious enough, but low blood pressure is hard to bear.

They are preparing for the socially distanced event in the lecture theater, they want to have photographs taken there. What kind of pictures? Well, you know, pictures. Like you always do. Never mind this being a strange event.

But it will only start at ten, that is another hour.

Sit down, concentrate. This is awful. 

Check the cameras again, let us hope that there will be enough concentration to make some usable pictures.

Read about the two americans throwing mud at each other.

tests

Tuesday, 29th of september, 2020

at the entrance to the doctors practice, put on the mask. There are workmen inside

who are not wearing masks, but consider  that it is probably better to wear a mask.

Climb the stairs to the entrance of the practice proper, press the door and enter.

There is a young, self important man behind the counter, he asks what is wrong. Taken aback, answer that a urine test needs to

be done. He barks back, asking the exact nature and reason for the test. Tell him that only a medical doctor can answer that

properly and give him the paper from the other doctor, the urologist. The man calms

down, waves a dismissive hand to the waiting room, and commences to read the papers with the details of the tests that are to be performed next week.

The waiting room is not full, sit down opposite the door. The reading matter on the table is silly, all sorts of house and garden magazines and things about doctors.

Two minutes later, the young man is back. He shows the way to the lavatory, he is very instructive. There is almost a need to advise him that his patient has a lifetimes pissing

behind him.

Finally, close the door , open the hatch, take out the plastic cup, close the hatch

and enjoy the privy privacy.

 and then-, just return to the waiting room.

Try to read a novel on the mobile 'phone.

This could take a long time.

fresh rolls

Monday, 28th of September, 2020

There are people in the shadows around the police station. It is half past six and still dark.

Perhaps the night shift has ended, there are cars coming and going from the parking place to the rear of the station.

Put on the mask, visit the bakery, buy a roll

The car is still there where it had been left on Friday. Nobody has attached a note to it , none of the parking police, the traffic wardens, have paid any attention to it. That is good, despite the fact that it had not been perfectly parked. The rule   - not less than five metres from the junction, and this was only three. But it seems to have been all right.

It will be sad to dump the small black car, even though it runs so well.

There are just too many faults,

and it would not pass any safety

inspection.

The short visit to the bakery on the way is causing the car to

be filled with the smell of fresh rolls.

no breath

Sunday 27th September, 2020

The day starts with a weak feeling, a

feeling of weakness and indolence.

Make coffee, read The news, feed the cat, make more

coffee, read a novel, look at the news again

nothing has changed.

Put on the day clothing after shaving The

stubble from the face. sit on the couch in the

sitting room, turn the back on the untidiness.

The Television is only dusty.

The son comes in, and throws himself

into his father's arms 

. He cuddles, says he is cold

But he seems happy at the closeness.

Later on, take the  biological waste out to the container for biological waste.and the bag full of old clothes into the container for old clothes.

Later again, decide to take a walk in the park, the park on the flank of the valley behind the town. It is steep. After

fifty yards, there is no breath left. Sit on a park bench, take a picture of some tree roots.

Then continue up the steep path, Maybe fifty metres. Then another break. Make

it to the top eventually.

And wonder what is wrong.

blame it on the rain

 The rain came down all night and for the whole morning too. The only variation was more or less rain, heavier or lighter. Take down the banner on the front of the house, the son helps, he holds the ladder. Cut through the strings holding up the banner, the son catches it as it falls down.

Later walk down through the town with the son to the Christopher Street event. It promises to be a washout, but there are people there setting up their tents, and standing around under multicoloured golf umbrellas. Take a picture of a person with a hat and purple tights holding up an umbrella in the middle of a rainy field.. There are two police vans there, in case of difficulties, and all the left wing parties have set up pavillion tents to show their interest.

But the rain is not doing the celebrations any good at all.

Now there are headaches, and earaches, and the back is getting stiff. It is three in the afternoon, go to a street café and sit inside, watching the people go to the event. 

The rain is really a shame, there is nobody to blame

session

Friday, September 25th 2020

Knock on the door, push it open. There

is the bald superior, with strange headphones

on. His table and his conference table,

are covered in cables, and computer

devices. He is busy, he says. Come back

in ten minutes, he says.

That is okay, that is not a problem.

Return to the office, read about trump,

hanging on to power for himself and his party at all costs. It will only cost him things that are unimportant to him anyhow.

Time has never shown an autocrat in

good light.

The ten minutes are up, return to the

office for the weekly boss meeting. Tell

him about the excursion to the roof to

set the spot for the projected web cam.

Talk about the various discussions, talk

about the refusal of the worker who's

work place would be in the picture to allow

this.. It does not matter, for there is another

camera position where the view would

exclude this workplace.

Show the example pictures.

Everyone is agreed.

know that that is probably the end of it.

And that is the end of the weekly session.

safety lecture

Thursday 24th of September, 2020

There is a link in the mail, some sort of zoom

conference.

It will be at nine.

At five to nine press the link. There is a

message saying

that the software is out of

Date. Press a link for a download.

The software downloads.

Agree that it is to be installed.

after the installation, a succession of

requests, and what have you. Then a

congratulatory message.

This all wastes time.

Now the lecture works, it is five minutes

late, but this does not matter now..

put why on earth all this complex

upgrading?

Let us past hope that not to

many people noticed the delay.

And then write an email to confirm having

taken part in the safety lecture.

Without risk of infection.

glitter and sparkle

Heavy spots of rain start to hit the windscreen at the traffic lights in Grueneck, a village spread on either side of the main road. It is dark, and the spots of water smear on the dry glass.Try to use the water spray to alleviate the problem, but the smearing is finally got rid of as the rain gets heavier.

The reflections of the red and white lights on the cars glitter and sparkle on the black wet asphalt of the road, the traffic lights add a few spots of green, and follow the red lights of the car ahead. The red lights are distorted in the water drops on the screen, making strange squiggly shapes.

It is a dark wet morning, the equinox, day and night were equal, now it is autumn and raining. The radio has a commentary, and they play springtime music for those living in the southern hemisphere. Take the corner from the main road and slow down on the road through the campus.

Finally the pebbled parking place, all wet and mushy, deep puddles in the ruts left behind by the cars. Park under the tree, as usual.

The down pipe from the gutters is spraying white water into the pond beside the physics building, the pond that was dry yesterday. The sound is a steady water rush, it is pleasant to hear it, it is relaxing.

Because of the weather it has been a dry month and the weather is trying to make up for it now. Inside the building the pendulum is still swaying steadily back and forth, unaffected by the weather outside.

N S E W

The,2z September 2020

The stairs around the pendulum are

a

circular stairwell, half of which is encased

in carefully-laid glass bricks. It is very

bright, and in the centre of the stairwell

the pendulum s ways. It is swinging in

a roughly north-south direction now.

It would be an idea to look and see in

which direction it will be swaying in

the evening.

At the top of the stairway there is

a small hallway with three tunnels

heading in roughly southern, eastern and

western directions. Cross the hall and

take the corridor in the southern directer

This corridor is on a bridge between the

two buildings, it has portholes to the left

and to the right n

A glass door at the end, and now

this is the physics budding. All made

of brick and concrete, a style from The

nineteen scscties.

More corridors, and then Take

one heading east r

The third door on the left, the one with

the damaged locks.

the time of year

 it is dark outside, and yet the alarm sounds. This is just on account of the time of year, and despite the miserable illumination, get up and turn off the alarm, get a towel from the case outside the room and let the water run hot in the bathroom. Shake the can of shaving foam, and spread the white stuff all over the stubbles on the chin and between the mouth and the nose. Use the razor to remove the stubbles and most of the foam.

Turn on the shower and step under the warm water

and wash all the sweat of the night away. Wash the hair too. Then leave the shower and towel dry.

The cat is waiting outside the door, there is a potential for feeding, perhaps this human will satisfy the small complaining animals desires.

No way.

Get some clothes on first.

And then proceed to the kitchen.

The cat's excitement increases, turn on the coffee maker and open the refrigerator. Take out the cold tin of cats food, it still has a fork sticking  in it. Go over and put a dollop of the stuff onto the cat's plate.

She feeds, and has eyes for nothing else now.

Put a slice of toast into the toaster, and see that the son has placed the coffee grinder over by the coffee maker.

Supposedly that is sensible. Get the coffee from the other side of the kitchen and fill the grinder.

The toaster pops. Press the button on the grinder. Butter the toast. Fill the sieve on the coffee maker. Put a cup underneath it, press the button and wait until the cup is filled.

Take the cup of coffee and the slice of toast back into the bedroom to the table with the  computer and read the news.

vehicle maintenance

 Son and father go to look at the small car. The father imagines that perhaps a fuse has blown, there is supposed to be an extra fuse box underneath the seat. 

The tools from the workshop in the basement are in a red tool container, some screwdrivers, a set of torx bis for the ratchet system. The constructors of the little black car hardly used the normal hexagonal bolts at all.

There are hundreds of people walking the Landshut streets, all those  who had not gone on holidays elsewhere in the world because of the fear of viral contagion. They are all enjoying their time off at home.

The car is parked at the side of a square with a church on it .  The church choir and the organ can be heard , and the sermon just faintly. The bolts holding the seats are removed, that was easy. And the following bolts are easy two, but the last two cannot be reached. And the secondary fuse box is supposed to be under the seat. There is a storage box in front of those last two bolts which has been riveted into place.

The son expresses frustration.

Then everything has to be reassembled again.

Check on the other fuse box, the one under the steering column. See that a lead has come adrift.

It is no longer fastened.

Pack up the tools again, and return home. It will be necessary to find out where that lead should be attached to.

pehaps(icles)

walk, walk around the town, down to where the Fridays for Future kids are putting up their stand. The kids seem to have put their parents in place, the people at the stand appear to all be older. Funny business, really. There is almost the impression that the children have lost interest.

The kids are collecting cigarette butts from the street and putting them into dog poo bags. This is worrying, cigarette butts are dirty and do not look nice, but they do not stick to your feet and smell overpoweringly bad. A drive for urban cleanliness seems to be going over the top. It is early, and there are not that many people about yet. It is unclear what the Fridays for Future movement has to do with individuals dropping their cigarette butts on the street. The comparison with dog shit is also unclear.

It is still cold, carry on walking aroung the town, there is the café.

Go in, order a cup of coffee, write name, time, and telepone number on the list, and sit down with a cup of plain coffee and a sweet cake. Read a novel on the smart phone.

There is another depression coming on, perhaps it would be good to run in panic. Perhaps that would be a bad idea. all these perhapsicles

dysfunctional pendulum

 put the little tab underneath the clock, the clock beeps and the display says nineteen hours.

That is two working days of overtime, that will do for Christmas and the new year

Look over to the stair well, see that the pendulum has stopped. It is hanging still over the central point of the dial beneath it, somebody must have turned off the power to the magnetic drive, friction did the rest. It does not mean that the world has stopped turning.

The stuffy mask on the face is unpleasant, it will be time soon for a new one.

The electronic lock on the door to the office is dysfunctional too, the battery will need to be replaced. This never could happen with old fashioned keys. They wore smooth after thirty five years of everyday use. But they hardly ever broke down.

On the last day of the week everyone approaches with their last minute orders.

Settle down to prepare the carpenters snapshots for printing. This is not part of work, but this is something to do anyway. 

Later on the carpenter arrives with a  lath for the frame of the painting on the wall. It is well that his photos are all printed at that stage.

likeness

 the son comes into the bedroom, he is troubled, he needs to make a decision about school. This is to do with his extra courses, ask him which ones he wants to take.
Choir and politics.
Sounds ok.
Tell him that dancing and greek would have been a good choice, and get a dirty look.
That is one way to start the day.

ok

Driving along, a woman speeds and drives alongside. Then she moves into the right. She wished to overtake, and nearly pushed the small black car off the road.

Then she follows, flashing her lights and waving her arms, whilst steering her car.

Now, this will hopefully not result in another claim with the police.

This always takes time and is a nuisance.

She had chosen to ignore the speed limit.

At work, there are one hundred and fifty pictures of a professor to sort. He is a nervous man, stiff, not relaxed, and it is difficult to take a photo of him looking relaxed. It is no great use telling him to relax. Realise that he himself never operates the machinery, the crystal culturing ovens, and realise that this is troubling him. Later on, he takes up a small spanner and starts to adjust a support for some thing on the machine. These are the better pictures, he relaxes when tightening nuts and bolts.

Delete fifty pictures, edit the rest of them, and send the whole lot on to him.

Let him and his wife and his secretary make the final choice.

The pictures all look like him.

logo

wednesday! M

Afdb#ofsaplerher, 2020.

Leave the little black car under the Tree, as on every

 as on every

work day. Look over towards the building site, they are working away with their enormous drills. The one machine has three drills side by side, and is twenty seven metres tall. Up, on the very top, the workers have

flown two flags, one bavarian flag and one with their company logo.

Stop watching and go on into the building and check in. The clock display says 4:19.That means about one and half days of overtime. Oh well.

A short while later wash the in the bathroom. Be thorough, becaus of the virus. Climb the stairwell, in the middle there is a Foucault's pendulum steadily swinging back and forth. The direction of the swing remains constant whilst the earth turns beneath it.

In the  office, attempt to reach the professor who had been impossible to reach. An agency was hunting him, they could not find him. So they wrote to the photographer, even though it is not his job to find lost professors.

And later on in the corridor speak to him. He has been avoiding the agency on purpose.

yellow bag emergency

 it is horrible to wake up today, and dizzy and hard to breath. The cat is kicking up, it is just before six in the morning. Open the door for the incapable feline, and the stupid selfish animal goes out and then just wanders back in again. Indecisive feline, does not know what she wants.

Silence the alarm that has started in the meantime.
Go back to bed at once, without delay, to a strange kind of instantaneous sleep, like an aneasthetic.

The son brings a cup of hot coffee, the smell finding it's way to the brain, 

awaken

sit up

and say thank you. That was very kind of him.

Later, when the recovery is complete, and all the news has been read, read a novel.

There is time to be spent today, just to be enjoyed. These are the last holidays from work, a remainder from last year that have to be taken before they expire. The remainder of this years holidays will simply flow into next years retirement.

Go out into the sunny weather, go to the little black car. It still works, it is just that it is not good enough to make the safety checks any more. Because of the virus, and other difficulties, the municipal service people have been unable to deliver the yellow plastic bags that are required for the disposal of packaging waste. Drive the little car to the depot outside the town, that is where the waste depot is. And that is also where the rolls of plastic bags are kept ready for distrbution, and in case of emergency, they may be collected there as well. 

After half an hours drive, arrive at the big steel gate. There is a notice there with the opening times.

On Tuesdays, afternoons only.

That would be an hours wait. 

Drive to a nearby washing service, and put two Euros into the machine and wash the car down with a hand spray. That is the cheapest method possible. 

The car should look clean for sale, it is better to sell the car for a little than have to pay a scrap merchant to take it.

Returning to the steel gate find it open. Go in, ask for yellow bags.

Get two rolls, one for the next emergency.

65

 wake up, later this afternoon will be the exact time of birth,

But who gives a shit. 

The son makes a cup of coffee.

One for the father and one for the mother

his mother is asleep, his father is reading.

and has to go to school.

Later on open the post box, there is no real mail there yet, but a handelivered letter from the Bürgermeister, the Mayor of the town.

A long winded happy birthday,  a carefully written prose, a reference to the classics, sailing a ship through the seas of time or something.

Well it is a nice thought.

A letter  for all that are sixty five. The next one will  be at seventy.

 To make them feel welcome in Landshut. To try and keep them there during their retirement. It is so much about money.

Have a cup of coffee and a cake in the café. That is all fine,

Imagon lens

 Today is the day to check an old camera, with an even older lens.

Ask the son if he wants to play model.

Ok, so he agrees.

Go out into the sunlight, the Imagon lens needs a lot of light

Take a few portrait type pictures with that old portrait lens attached to a modern camera, It works, and then again it is so difficult to operate. Things have changed so much since the middle of the last century.

Well, what do you expect? Accelerating progress wherever you look.

But the son is patient, even if he suffers in the sunlight. But his patience is tried by the failure of the camera to work.

A visit to the café and the chance to relax. He drinks a bottle of lemonade, and that picture is better than all the attempts earlier on.

The cafe in the main street is suffering from a lack of customers, a lack caused by the fear of the virus. That is all easily understood, but the whole business has a positive side. There is no jostling on the sidewalk as there used to be, there is no fighting for position in the line at the counter.

Coffee and a pretzel, he has a bit of cake.

It is good to be out and about.

Trying out the ancient Rodenstock lens, the one that has a deliberately soft focus.

Peter Engblom Zululand

 last night on facebook, a late check to see what the facebook friends are busy entertaining each other with.

At the top, a post saying RIP followed by the name. This is a strange feeling, this is unreal, the man had been posting and commenting on posts two days ago. The last post, unusual music, an unusual post for the man. Usually, it was only his pictures and items found, maybe a video.

Read, look for further posts. All his friends in South Africa expressing their dismay. Much effusive praise,

Read on.

More posts, all from different people, visions of moving on and paradise and all those after death fantasies.

This morning, after having gone to the shops to collect shirts and to buy milk bread cheese apples and gas for water; Gas to make the tap water fizzy, read the news again. It must be true now, there are just too many.

*****************************************************************

Peter Engblom visited the photographic school in the Clemensstraße in Munich during the years 1975 to 1977. His brilliance put every other student in the shade, including the one responsible for this blog. He always had the most daring ideas, the most creative ways of dealing with photography,  all of his pictures were a testimony to his technical skill and artistic ability.

The class separated in 1977, and due to the difficulties of life and varying interests, there was no further contact.

Some years ago Facebook provided an insight into his activities, his pictures all wild, dramatic, partly salacious. Being "FB -friends", liked the things to be liked, ignore those that displeased.

Or that were not to be understood.

His comments on photos belong to the most valued criticism ever received on this side of the friendship.

It was a pleasant dream to go to South Africa to visit him and see his work and maybe to have a glass of lemonade with him. Or even to drink beer.

That dream is now without substance, there is no current reason to go there. 

There is nothing left but to offer condolences to his family and friends everywhere at their enormous and untimely loss.

https://www.facebook.com/pengblom

perfuso a menos

 It is an awkward turn from the residential street into the old farmyard, the place where one can repair ones car for a fee. It is a slightly messy place, with parking spaces for mobile homes that are hibernating not currently in use.

Stop the car in front of a sign that says " hier anhalten", all in block capitals.

They are still emptying the workshop, they have been using it as a store overnight. A surly man is pulling pallets loaded with tyres and welded metal items out of the  big workshop,  He instructs that masks are to be worn at all times. He takes this seriously. He is a serious man.

Then his wife comes over,  she gives instructions as to which tools may be used and which may not. She demonstrates the car lift.

And then they go away. Push the arms of the lift under the car and raise it up to a comfortable height.

Go underneath and start to remove the plastic covers. They are tightened down with nasty screws. Realise that some of the screws are not fitted properly, somebody else has been working on this car, many of the screws are not fitted properly.

Oh well, it is an old car.

Gradually, the extent of the disaster becomes clear. The catches are all broken. There is oil and diesel everywhere, there are things leaking. This car will cost a fortune to repair.

More than it is worth.

Time flies by.

Then the time is up.

Screw back all the covers as well as is possible, and go to the little office and pay the money for the rent of the workshop to the surly mans wife.

And now all is done. Another car will be needed soon.

hard hat and boots

 Thursday, 10th of September, 2020,

In the office, under the table, there is a pair of workmans boots, with reinforced soles and steel caps. There is also a hard hat, hard and red in colour.

Put on the boots, take the carry bag for the camera equipment, an put the case with the camera and all it's bits and pieces onto the table. Select the wide zoom, the normal zoom and the fish eye lens. The zoom lenses art the best that nikon has to offer, but they are crap compared to a lens by Zeiss or Leica. But the boss looked at the data as far as hiunderstanding was able to deal with the matter, and then he saw the price difference and made his decision.

So Nikon it was and Nikon it has remained.

Put on a high visibility vest, and the outfit for the building site is complete.

The sun has just risen over the trees, and for the next hour it will be on the front of the old building. That means that all the pictures need to be taken early in the morning.

snore

Wednesday, 9th of september

There is a cacophony of alarms now, now

That the son is back at school. He is going

back to a changed situation, two years of continuous assessment now.

Hear the first alarm go off again, to be silenced by the son. Then go into the bathroom. 

Return to the bedroom, dress in day clothing.

Read the news, then the son's second alarm sounds. After a while, it wakes the wife, and she calls out to him to silence the noise. He compöoes, and is to be heard getting up, putting on his clothes. The wife has tolled over and has gone back to sleep.

The son come into his parents bedroom, he ask whether anybody wants coffee.

Assent, that is a nice idea.

The wife starts to snore.

The son returns with a cup of coffee, then he goes back out to the kitchen.

 He returns with another cup and leaves it on the small table by the bed.

He rolls his eyes and grinss at hte snores emanating from the pile of blankets on the bed.

Drink up, go to work.

help

Tuesday, 8th of september

A friendly greeting from the man who runs the

cafe in the department of the university building.

He is distracted, hunting for a sign. One that-

he has left somewhere.

He takes a break from his search to make

a medium coffee, a coffee that is simply better

than the one made at home, and much better than the one that the office machine makes.

Then he resumes his search. He finds

a clear acrylic holder. Then he rushes toput two tables together. The tables are long and awkward, despite their not being heavy. The table that he is trying to move has a bench on either side of it, pushed underneath. He tries to move the table. 

The bench is in the way. He moves the bench. Then he moves the table. The other bench is now in the way.

So he moves the other bench. He tips the table, and the acrylic sign falls onthe floor. Then he moves the table to one side.

Now the benches are in the way again.

get up and help.

It is impossible to watch the awkwardness.

The work is done in seconds

with the extra two hands.

the end of the sentence

 at eleven there is a phone call in the office, an end to the solitary nature of the confinement there. The woman who is going to pick up the prints of her photographs is on the line, saying that she will be delayed.

This means that the lunch break is to be delayed too.

The morning had been editing the pictures taken at the building site last Friday, there is no interest in these pictures by any person, least of all by the official who had ordered them. They were just ordered as an idea, the idea has been forgotten. But the pictures will be made anyway, until the order is rescinded, or the photographer pensioned, whichever is the sooner.

It will most likely be the pension, the pictures are just an idea.

The woman arrives, and picks up her two packages of prints. She does not bother to check them. Then walk over to the café with her, her being late has left it too late to eat so that is that, let her pay for the two cups of coffee.

It is all her fault.

Return to the office, talk to two mechanics on the way. They are spending their break playing pool, at a small table set up for the students. They usually play well, but with the new spectator, they play badly.

Talk to the two masters about a celebration.

Next year, a celebration to end the thirty years of working in the university.

Working hard when required, and wasting time for clueless superiors, people so sure of their merits.

Outside the office, the building site. Much of the area has been cleared now, and enormous machines, huge tracked vehicles transport their thirty metre tall drills. They will make holes in the ground, all the way to the bedrock, to support the building that will take place there.

Next year.

leaky old car.

 this morning there is nothing but a tinkling from those bells outside, the reason being that the windows are cllosed and the sound does not transmit well through the two sheets of glass.

Think about the entitlement to Sunday rest, that seems fair enough. At least, a bearable idea.

Get up then, and turn on the coffee machine, clear yesterdays coffee grounds from the silver sieve, and let some water through the machine to warm it up. The clocks are ticking, the sound of snoring comes from the other members of the family.

Reading things on the Ipad, touch an advertisment by mistake. The thing becomes instantly noisy, asinine background music, some message informing the world of things that they probably do not need to know at all.

Find the silencing button, hidden discretely on the side of the flat device.

The wife groans,

The cat starts to fuss outside the door.

Social Media has woken everybody up, but for the son, he is a teenager and he is fast asleep.

Resolve to do something today, anything, not to be carried by a sorrowful wave like yesterday.

Later on, the son agrees to look at the car, and maybe to discover where the water leaks in. The floor mats come up with some difficulty, and the whole space underneath is awash with water, the foam of the mat has soaked it up.

There is no obvious place to be found for the water to enter the car. 

After agreeing that this is strange, the mat is returned to it's place. The son is in a hurry, he has to meet his friends to discuss the next protest march for the improvement of the future.

bleak

 Bells ring all night here, in different sequences. They seem more clamorous this morning, this morning a t  three and every quarter of an hour untill four and then the same again until five.

sleep a bit, 

and at seven the bells start a clamour for some religious reason.

Sleeplessness is replaced by a mental void today.

Remain still and read books, read the news.

Do not move, and only leave the house

after midday.

This is a strange time, and the bleak depression will not go away.

Sorry, but these are silly postings, but it is true. There was nothing today but the reading of books, and maybe a short tour of the shops all within walking distance.

coward

Friday Sept 42020

Awakening today after a dream that accounted

for the sound of the alarm. Only as the sound

grew louder did it become clear that this was

not part of a dream, No, it was the mind

trying to sleep on, to sleep longer.

get up, turn the sound off.

After washing, and dressing, go into the

kitchen to make a cup of coffee. Whilst filling

the sieve, hear a scratching sound from the

door.

Open the door to the sitting room.

The cat enters, then see that there are

the son's friends on the floor. They had come

to visit, they had been playing all night. The

dining table is covered in computers.

And they are fast asleep now.

It is strange to see all the people on the

floor, in sleeping bags.

The coffee is good, at least there is a

slight awakening.

Look at the computer, there is no news

worth speaking of.

Except for Putin's poisonous ways and

Trumps cowardly corruption, nothing, nada.

moon

 Be fully dressed by the time the alarm sounds, be making coffee, the second cup today. Turn the noisy tablet off, and sit down to drink.

Forget to take the two pills that the doctors recommend. But that will only be noticed later, when it is too late.

Walk down the alley, cross the main road and round the bend by the museum into the Freyung. The car is parked there, the windows all fogged with condensation. Use the windscreen wipers to clear this away, then start the engine, and, after reversing a little bit, switch on the driving lights and drive to the space in front of the museum. It is easy to do a U-turn here, between the police and the museum buildings.

Leaving the tunnel under the Landshut castle turn left  and fail to make those traffic lights at the end of town.

Wait until green.

and then out onto the country road.

Above the road, the full moon.

The full moon that almost vanishes behind the morning fog banks, and reappears again. It is a very clear moon, against the pale morning sky.

There is a red traffic light after the roundabout before the Autobahn. Wait there, it is a long light. First the traffic from the right, then the traffic from the left. 

On the Autobahn see the sunrise in the mirror.

Go to work with the red ball of the sun to the rear and the yellow full moon ahead

hot panino

TuesdayWednesday, September 2nd

The coffee in the cafeteria is hotter today than on other days. The cup is hot,  and of course the coffee is too. Maybe it is because of the new man working in the I.A.S café. He is Italian, perhaps he has a better way of pressing buttons. After filling all the tracking details into the COVID form, take the cup to the single table in the corner.

Take off the mask, take a sip of the coffee. That is pleasantly hot.

Put out the notebook, and the pen.

The Italian arrives with the heated panino.

Taking care not to allow the contents of the panino to fall on the shirt- take a bite.

It is good.

But the day at work is boring and uneventful.

And this ball point pen does not work any more.

 

state

 it is a late awakening, the sound of the alarm on the tablet does it's job. 

Stagger a bit, the body has become used to being horizontal, make way to the bathroom. It has become colder in the night, the weather has changed now from to hot to too cold. Too bad.

Shower, the water goes is too hot and then cold as long as the toillet's cistern is filling. The air is cold , it is all not as comfortable as it should be. Soap and shampoo, after a short while things are in order again.

Return to the bedroom, throw the night clothes onto the bed, onto the pillow ready for the evening.Find fresh underwear in the wardrobe's drawers, and a pair of fresh black socks.

The cat jumps onto the knees, the knees dressed in black jeans. She lets her chin be stroked, starts to purr, and then looses interest. The coffee maker has made a noise, perhaps she thinks that there might be somebody in the kitchen who might  open the fridge and help her to some cat food.

Make the coffee for the morning, the cat is attentive. the kitchen is turning into a mess again  after it's having been tidied the day before yesterday. The son has left the containers for the making of his midnight munchie things every where, and there are bits and pieces on the ground.

No time to clean the kitchen now, and why? It will be in a state again by this evening.