time

 Turn into the parking spot, away from the tree, close to the wooden bar that makes up the boundary of the pebble parking area. It is barely turning light, the fog is thick, and it is Monday. The building workers have not started yet , but the pendulum in the hallway with the stairway around it is swaying steadily, as it has been all weekend. A day with nothing particular planned, apart from an appointment to make for tomorrow. Go to the loo in the corridor, then climb the stairs.

Halfway up, remember that checking in has been forgotten. A memory of forgetfulness. Down the stairs again, and hold the chip under the scanner, a beep sounds. thirty hours. There is almost enough time on the chip now to be able to take the time off between Christmas and Epiphany, that will be almost the last time to take time off.

Climb the stairs again, and cross over to the other building using the bridge between the two.

The office is the same as it had been left last week, the computer failed to update on it's own. So what, there is plenty of time to waste anyway anyhow someway

to Hell with it  work is a drag, the last seven years a purgatory in limbo, the supervisors just waiting until the uncomfortable employee leaves.

Their problem, but it is painful

Make a cup of coffee using the small machine that the son had given his father for christmas.

Start to retouch pictures, that is one way to kill time.

It is already dark outside, the pictures are finished. Conversation today was had with one person, not counting the email busines. One conversation face to face, mask to mask.At least, healthy, non contagious.

white patch

 The son has put on his coat, and his shoes, and now he can go on a morning walk with his father. He is wearing a mask that he can pull up over his nose and mouth, not one of those that has bands running around the ears. There is hoar frost today, and it becomes more noticeable as the path climbs the hill to the top of the park, there where the animal enclosures are.

There is a sign up identifying the flightless birds as south american nandus. Google says that that is the same thing as a rhea. They are in there enclosure, one is being chased by a peacock.

Walk around the complex of enclosure, there are families everywhere here,  much like any other Sunday. Many of the children are wrapped up against the cold, even though it is not as cold as some of the clothing would imply. 

The moisture from his breath has frozen on the son's mask, a white patch has formed. 

Go down by the aviarys, in one there is a very large owl, an uhu, perched there looking at the passer- bys through one eye, and rotating it's head owl -fashion. A young girl watching tries to do the same thing, but has no success.

Walk down the hill again. There is no way to tell the son that his father is depressed, it is not a thing to be done.

arse moonwards

the telephone on the chest of drawers in the hall buzzes, pick it up out of habit. The message says

"ur anus is near the moon tonight". Is this a threat? an insult? no it is the astronomy  app. leave it on the sideboard, still attached to it's red cord.

The warmth in the bedroom is welcome, sort out some fresh underpants and socks, and dress, and turn on the computer. 

No new news, Donald in Denial, Bibi in a panic, Boris hoping for manna, Angela trying to keep the federation in line, and Emanuel with his racist cops to worry about.

Facebbook has all the friends getting worked up about cruelty to canines and felines or showing cute pictures of either or both. Nothing happening there.

The wife is snoring again, a sure sign that she will wake up later complaining of not having slept.

Cat claws clutch the black denim clad knees, testing to see whether it is possible to jump. It is, she does, stroke the tawny fur to elicit a purr. It is Saturday morning, it is late. But why not be relaxed.

There is no need to go to work today.

Clear the table, take the spray can of polish, spray a coating over the table, wipe it dry with the duster.
That is something dealt with that had been long thought about.

relevant announcement

 The news is just finished on the radio, and now the traffic announcements. Traffic jams and blockages everywhere. It would be good to hear music again and not these reports on the 

"Autobahn 92 , an accident Munich bound at Freising, the road is closed"

Now that is relevant, the music starts. Pass the one exit from the motorway, see the tail lights glow red in the distance at the next exit. They have their indicators on, all four, and that traffic in the distance is pulling to the right and to the left to allow emergency vehicles through. There is one more exit, leave the chaos behind, drive up the ramp.

There is a long country road now, drift along behind the car in front which is doing the same to the one ahead of  it.

A roundabout. and then a left turn.

Lost.

It is foggy, and it is still dark.

Stop at the entrance to a field, and ask the mobile 'phone to give directions to work. The device picks the shortest route, a long narrow tree-lined avenue. Five kilometres, then the third exit from the road, and straight on. That is all in order now, now the path is known,

Found, not lost.

At the silly junction, turn left, this is the usual road to work again. 

Think of the long straight road, the Geräumt through the woods along by the river. It was eerie in the fog, there were no other cars there.

The road works in Dietersheim have been completed, the traffic lights dismantled.

And the building site is busy, the loader is loading the gravel from the ground onto a truck, they all have their headlights on, making white cones in the fog.

4,5,6, 7

 The day begins in silence, then the ears pick up the snores from the other side of the bed, there, it is much to early now.

Go to the bathroom,  and whilst there look at the watch, four.

Four.

go back to bed. The tune from the tablet an hour later. 

Bathroom again, watch, but why? it is five

Five

Shower and dress, make coffee and a slice of toast. The coffee machine needed filling with water first, it all takes time when half asleep. The cat is attentive, but the animal can go elsewhere for it's food.

Start the computer read the news. Like every day now. Flint has lost the fifth amendment.  

Then the sons alarms, hissing and popping why does he have so many? Don't worry, there are worse problems, there will be worse problems in the future.

Pick up the bag, head out of the house to go to work

Six

and work at ten to seven.

boiler

 Under the shower, realise that the water is getting colder, perhaps the heating has failed, rinse away the soap as quickly as possible- there is no point in being covered in soap and only cold water to rinse it away with. After putting on the day's clothing go up to the attic to check the heating. It appears to be working.

Go back down to the bathroom. Now, being more awake, see that the bathroom is in an utter state of disorder, more than the usual mess. There are clothes over the heater, and also draped over the air dryer, which is going at full speed now. Take the clothes off the airdryer, the compressor stops almost  at once.

Somebody must have had a shower during the night, either the wife or the son. They used up the hot water in the boiler, that would explain the water being cold. The water heater only starts to heat at six in the morning.

Make a cup of coffee.

And when the son's alarm clock sounds, leave the house with the mask and a black coat.
And a bad humour

The car is nowhere to be found, not opposite the police station.

Then remember, there were no  parking spaces available yesterday, it is opposite the museum today.

cold

unlock the office door with the electronic key, hang the coat on the hook, It is chilly today.

Pick up the bag and go again, lock the door. Climb the steel stairway beside the library building, look down into the reactor area, over the fence. There are trees in the way here, this will not work. Reenter the physics building and go upstairs. There is a hidden passage up onto the roof there, a ladder behind a door. Climb the ladder, at the top open the small door. Step out onto the flat toof, sealed with tar and covered in coarse gravel. Walk over the roof over to where the passage to the library is. There is another ladder here, going down to the roof over the passage.

And here there is another ladder, that goes all the way to the roof of the library. Climb up, walk across the roof avoiding the newly-made lightning conductors, they are just the right height to function as trip-wires.

Look down over the area in front of the reactor. There is a big truck there, with a large grey box shaped thing on the low loader trailer. This is supposed contain a Castor, a safety container for the transport of nuclear waste. Take picture, but the instructions were not entirely clear. So take a few more, from different angles.

Then go back down again, resolve to take pictures from inside the restricted area. Use the pass, go in via the small gate.

Take a few pictures, a man from the transport firm arrives and asks for information on whom the pictures are for. After a short conversation he goes his way.

A safety engineer approaches, he says to put on safety shoes. Return to the office, go one better and put on safety boots. 

 

Return to the reactor, there are many people there now, people from firms and the like, now there are people from the press department there. A press officer approaches, and informs that really, only pictures from outside the area are required, they will do the other pictures themselves.

Well, so much for that.

The one hand is in ignorance of the others actions.

The cover is removed from the castor container with a giant crane, the crane is driven by a young woman. The heavy cover is lifted and then placed in a especially prepared area. Now the ridiculously small container is visible. Take a few more pictures, why it is all digital, and they are free, aren't they? The publicity manager continues to look annoyed, she will just have to wait until the person who requested that the pictures be taken.

Later on take more pictures from the roof. The transport company is working very slowly, but after a while the trailer is dismantled, and the many tons heavy container stands there alone. It will be wheeled into the reactor building later for charging with nuclear waste.

And it is cold on the roof. Standing there waiting, frozen to the bone. The day is even a bit foggy.

This is a lousy Tuesday. Why can they not transport their things in the summer?

And those safety boots are uncomfortable.

lost tag

 sit at the screen all day

all day filling in black spots and grey spots and long streaks but mainly white spots.

the negatives where old and it is difficult to clean them up. The automatic systems have failed miserably.

a small caps day.

late in the afternoon the woman from the reactor telephones

they need pictures of a truck

tomorrow.

Put the gear together, it is all there.

Check for the identity tag. 

It is not in it's place.

It is nowhere.

Gone.

Panic.

Search frantic, turn things over, pull the desk away from the wall.

look into all of the drawers, the storage cupboard.

Then see it!

usually it is hanging on the one side of the inbox.

Now for some reason, on the other.
invisible
in
plain 
sight

harp

 lazy, lazy lazy

lazy day it is terrible it should have been a day for a long walk but  it is all just cold and uncomfortable so lazy

Self criticism like this is probably a psychologically questionable activity

lazy psychologically questionable but still lazy. Edit yesterdays picture for facebook, at least it is nice to edit personal things.

Think of the woman playing her harp on the bridge in Regensburg yesterday.

she played so nicely it was good to hear.

Put some money in the hat before her, she had a rope spread on the ground so that people could keep their distance. Ask her if it was all right to take a picture.

But she had no card, to send the result.

Too bad.

There are other pictures too, put them all on social media. Who cares?

The day flys past

and now it is evening 

some of the things planned 

have now worked out.

But the headache and tinnitus will not go away.

help from a stranger

 The mobile phone pings, a messaging system notification.

Get up, put on the clothes. There is no wish at all to have a shower today. Read the message, it is an adress in Regensburg, and instructions to telephone once there, so that the doors may be opened from the inside.

Potter about at home, read the news, feed the cat. 

make a cup of coffee.

The son gets up, he makes a cup of coffee too.

Then decide that this will not do. Say goodbye to the son, tell him that his father will now take a trip to Regensburg. To visit old friends. The car is still parked where it should be, opposite the police station.  Take it to the shopping centre, drive down into the basement parking spaces, and leave the car there. Go to the cleaners to collect the shirts left there last week, and then go to the supermarket and buy pretzels.

The road to Regensburg is short and easy now, they have turned it into a dual carriageway, wide and straight. It is foggy today, and the other road users are confused.

Arrive in the town at eleven, and with the guidance of the 'phone, arrive at the destination. Dial the number - and the phone goes dead. There is no chance of making a successful contact now. Walk about, wondering what to do next. Go into a tobacconist's shop, and ask him if he could help with loading the 'phone. He was a kind young man, and he helped out. In two minutes the phone was loaded enough to make the call, and the meeting was saved.

all knowing

 Nothing there to write about, a blank in the mind.

Again. The weekly talk with the boss at work, passed. Provided the man with something to talk about and answered his questions.

Continue prettying the pictures taken years ago.

Untill midday.

A professor turns up with some fifty year old pictures which he wants scanned. Sit there and listen to him talk about composition. The man knows it all, and that is important to him too. The scanner is a slow machine by Nikon, but it produces better and cleaner scans than whatever the professor used.

After a while he gets bored watching.

He excuses himself, and goes away for an hour.

He comes back, gets bored again,  and goes away.

Telephone with a friend whilst the scanner is working, watching masterpieces of the Athens fisch market get their due process..

And when that is over, plan to go home

stop and go

 Leave the small town of Grüneck behind, take care to maintain the speedlimit on the long straight wide  road untill the yellow sign marking the end of the built up area is left behind. A short distance on, see the tail lights of cars in the distance, they are standing still, there is a traffic stoppage ahead. Approach the lights, let the car just roll out. There is no hurry, there will be no passing them and they do not appear to be going anywhere.

The last car is a small modern Fiat 500, a luxurious make over of what used to be a workers car, Then small and cheap,  now it has put on weight and is expensive. Move up close to the rear bumper. The driver drives forward a few metres and then stops. Wait untill the queue begins to move again, and roll on slowly in first gear, there is no hurry.
The little Fiat is now a good fifty metres away, driving along slowly. Then it stops with the traffic ahead of it. Just keep on rolling, there is no hurry, nobody going anywhere up front. Let the car roll up close to the Fiat's bumper, and stop. The Fiats driver drives forward a few metres and then stops. Wait untill the queue begins to move again, and roll on slowly in first gear, there is no hurry.
The little Fiat is now a good fifty metres away, driving along slowly. Then it stops with the traffic ahead of it. Just keep on rolling, there is no hurry, nobody going anywhere up front. Let the car roll up close to the Fiat's bumper, and stop. The Fiats driver drives forward a few metres and then stops.Wait untill the queue begins to move again, and roll on slowly in first gear, there is no hurry.

The little Fiat is now a good fifty metres away, driving along slowly. Then it stops with the traffic ahead of it. Just keep on rolling, there is no hurry, nobody going anywhere up front. Let the car roll up close to the Fiat's bumper, and stop. The Fiats driver drives forward a few metres and then stops. Wait untill the queue begins to move again, and roll on slowly in first gear, there is no hurry.

The little Fiat is now a good fifty metres away, driving along slowly. Then it stops with the traffic ahead of it. Just keep on rolling, there is no hurry, nobody going anywhere up front. Let the car roll up close to the Fiat's bumper, and stop. The Fiats driver drives forward a few metres and then stops.  

This game continues for some time,  traffic joins from the right, the Fiat waits to let it join the queue. There is no more traffic coming from the side road, so stay behind the Fiat. 

Untill the red traffic light ahead turns green. The Fiat demonstrates a great ability to accelerate, and just  follow through the road repairs that have reduced the traffic to a traffic light regulated single lane thing here. Let the little white car speed ahead up to the junction for the university campus. Take a left here and drive all the way down to the end  of the road.

Slowly, avoid all the people walking not to mention those on bicycles.

Half an hour late today.

ask the son.

 A day that was not constructive, just a few telephone calls, the answer to some ridiculous mails and an attempt to get hold of a big scanner. The loan service has been discontinued, the scanner is unavailable.

Write a mail telling the professor that things will take a bit longer.

He writes back to thank for the trouble, anyway.

The pictures taken last night are in order. Thank all the holies for that.

The cameras can be collected from the reactor.

Help a colleague install new software on his mac computer. That does not work right either, it turns out that he is one of those people who constantly interrupts with better ideas for doing things that he has no idea about.

And then the woman with her Christmas Card thing, the snow has to fall slower and the resolution has to be greater. Phoey, this is real kitch. Perhaps a  version should be made with virus' dropping out of the sky and not snowflakes. Or maybe those ubiquitous radiation trefoils. Now : stop being nasty.

The safety people from the reactor ring: the camera has been ready for some time now, cleared for use. Go on over, collect the camera and start thinking about Javascript.

Javascript snow, that would be easy and not a lot of bother.

But the woman wants a gif type file and this is getting silly.

Just go home early, ask the son.

another small job

 the phone call came in the early afternoon, after a frustrating morning making the snow fall in an online Christmas card. It is good that google exists.

The pictures taken yesterday afternoon in the reactor are not what is required. In what is now seen as wise foresight the camera equipment had been left in the restricted area, no complicated time wasting checking it all out and then in again.

Go in through all the security doors after making sure that the two dosimetric badges are in place. Walk all the way around the reactor core using the metal walkway attached half way up the wall, having collected the camera case and tripod from the place where they had been stored yesterday.

Use the wide angle, try to get everything onto the picture. The area of interest is an empty space between a pile of lead blocks painted salmon pink and a neutron spectrometer in natural silver aluminum. The floor there has been tiled in black granite, and is absolutely even. Big machines can be moved without wheels using air cushion feet. The weight is carried by a quarter of a millimeter of air.

Like a hovercraft.

When the pictures are done, return the borrowed ladder, and take the camera gear to the exit. Fill out the form on green paper so the nuclear safety people know what is to be done. Monitor the hands and the feet for any contamination.

There is none.

Operate the heavy lead doors to leave. Outside, return all the dosimeters, go to the changing room, toss the shoes in the white washable shoe bin and the lab coat into the lab coat bin. Both will be washed, even though they have only been worn once.

Leave the building, and take off the mask in the fresh air.

That is such a relief.

Notice that the keys for the office are not in the pocket where they should be. Turn back. Identification tag into the slit on the door. 

The keys where in the pocket of the lab coat.

It will be time to go home soon.

small job

today is a soft day, a day for the Dublin Mountains a thousand miles from here.

Take the camera out of the case, that wondrous do it all Nikon wide angle zoom, the normal lens so oversized, and the tiny fisheye.

More is not needed.

Pack it all into the shoulder bag.

Leave the office, lock the door, use the stairs to the first floor, which is also the top floor. The corridor is very long, it goes the whole width of the building, maybe one hundred metres. 

In the last wall cupboard on the left, a metal ladder has been fixed. This is the ladder that leads to the roof.

Climb the ladder up into the attic, there is a low door there that leads out onto the flat part of the roof. The roof is surfaced with tar and small pebbles, in places the rain has made puddles. The wooden construction below the tar is probably starting to give away, this is a flat roof construction from the fifties of the last century. At some stage it will need replacing, but not this year nor the next.

The objective of the exercise is now clearly visible, a clear view over the building site for the new Institute for Physics. They are digging a huge hole for the basement. There is one loader there, and after a short while a huge truck arrives and is loaded up with earth from the hole.

Take wide angle pictures of the whole scene, it is still quite early, the sun has not risen too far.

Take a picture of the new parking garage, a building that took almost four years to build because the specifications were changed many times.

Take a few more pictures, enjoy the fresh air. The level indicator in the camera is not as accurate as would be ideal, but small failings can be corrected later.

Walk back to the access point, that is that small job done.

grob groß gross

 Why clean up other people's mess?

Because they are the wife and the son.

The cat's mess was cleaned up too, this morning, she had vomited on the floor. Cats do that now and again.

But now it is afternoon, a few uninteresting photos made, all good for practice with the small camera. A crow on a path, and a gull on a railing. 

And a sudden bout of icy weakness, lie down on the bed, untill it passes. A voice, off stage in the next room, starts yelling that the surfaces should be cleaned. The son is probably the target of all the shouting, but he will never do it, he does not know how.

Go into the kitchen, and get to work. Clear the crud off the worktop, some has been there for the past week, there is a jar with a cultural event taking place inside. All of the things onto a tray.

Scrub the worktop, watch the water in the bucket go dark twice. It really is awful. Groß gross. And grob as well. a mixture of German and American usage here.

Replace the items on the top, throwing away the waste and the empties, and start on the small table with the coffee machine. That had been done last week, it is not too difficult. Then the worktop beside the sink, that is GGG again.

Then empty the first shelf of spices and mustard pots and tubes of ketchup and everything that is used for adding to the flavour of cooked food. Put all of this onto a tray, then take down the glass shelf and wash the dirt and the dust off it. Then replace those things which were worth keeping.

Then the other glass shelf

and then tiredness sets in, but enough has been done.

for the day, the lousy Sunday.

whirly

 Hello! to the neighbour and her young daughter. They are out on the street, both wearing masks, loading bags of leaves into their car. The mother gives a bright greeting, and the daughter mumbles something into her mask.

Turn left at the junction, and then after a few metres cross the road. The shop there is having it's front redecorated, there are spots on the wall where the fixtures for the previous owner had been. These will probably be painted over by next week.

There is a tiny alley to the right, hear the sound of voices, people approaching.

A loud exclamamation

"Ow whirly" 

Uncomprehending, glance into the alley.  A couple approaching, a woman to the left of the man looking at him in contemptously. Sinister. He puts on his mask, they are just entering the area of town where masks are mandatory.

They converse further, as the woman dons a mask too. Realise that they are Americans, with a particularly strong accent.

The man had probably informed the woman that she would need to wear a mask after the signpost with the signpost showing the picture of a person wearing a mask.

really

Carry on, bring the washing to the company in the basement of the shopping centre.

code forty one

 There are so many pictures left to work on, they are all just snapshots of the situation on the building site three years ago. But the tools for editing them have improved, and the original data was stored. So pride makes the photographer work over all of them again.

An email from a friend from long ago, almost twenty five years ago. Her young daughter then looks just like she did then. That is the way of it. She is shy, perhaps she is worried. There is no saying why she makes contact now, but it is good to hear from her. 

Walk through the building on a short break from the constant staring at the screen. Visit the bathroom, it is stinking of well used drains and non-functional flushing systems. Be thankful for the corona mask, it keeps the stench down a tiny bit. 

In the big concourse of the physics department there are people sitting down who have collected their takeaway food from the big  dining hall. The hall itself is closed because of the fear of contagion, so they take their food away and sit down together in the physics hall. It is hard to tell what the difference is, whether they sit together here or there. The analysis of these questions can be best answered by virologists and epidemiologists.

Buy a bar of chocolate at the vending machine. There is a strong smell of sauerkraut here, it is all the people eating at the nearby tables that cause this smell. The display says that there are only ten cents credit left on the card, so put a ten euro note into the slit of the machine, which sucks the money in and starts to flash blue lights. Wait until the note has been checked, more blue flashes. Press the code forty one for Snickers, and a "please wait" text appears in the display. The spring supporting the selected bars of chocolate starts to rotate until the chocolate drops down behind the glass front into the padded collection bin. 

Check the credit on the card, it is now nine Euro and ten cents. Bend down and open the metal flap on the vending machine and remove the paper wrapped bar.

Go back to the office, back to the many pictures.

marks in black rubber on dark asphalt.

 The key is different, the key with the buttons to unlock the car from a distance. In the dark of the alley the symbols on the buttons are invisible, and as a result there is only a single flash from the lights and the doors remain locked. 
Try the other button, there are two flashes and a loud clicking from the lock. Now the doors are unlocked.
Do a three-point U-turn in the narrow alley, pass the police station and then later pass the monument to the fallen of two world wars. Take care to avoid pedestrians, they all seem to be wearing black on this dark morning.

The glare of the lights in the tunnel, the care upon reaching it's end. The traffic lights there are green, no stopping and waiting, just roll into the left hand bend. But then, see the lights in the distance turn yellow and then red, so drift along slowly and slower still up to the white line and halt.

With the town now left behind and the day lightening pass the turn off for yesterdays diversion. Farther on there is a pattern on the road done in firm strokes of black rubber on the dark asphalt, and the remains of oily patches covered in oil absorbent the colour of sand.

A sombre pattern marking the scene of what was a serious accident yesterday, to be passed today, hardly seen.

divert

 Another accident on the road, a fireman diverts the traffic. It is pitch dark, and a quarter to seven in the morning. In the distance there is a whole collection of blue flashing lights.

Follow the small road, following all the other cars.

All diverted.

Two accidents in two days, and all because people have to hurry. All the way to work, think of the unfortunate fireman waving his lollipop at cars so that they will use the diversion.

Arrive at work, park the car under the tree. It is not a huge car, but it is harder to park than the tiny car.

From the window in the office, admire the work on the building site. The workers have dug a deep hole, the borders of which are all neat and vertical, much in the shape that the building will have. They are now five metres down, wonder how far down they will go.

Read the news before starting to work.

There are hundreds of pictures to be edited.

And nowhere to go to for lunch

grau

It is dreary today, the weather outside is grey clouded misery. If it were brighter or raining or snowing or something it would be nicer. But this day has sunk into a grey cloud. The foggy time of the year is here.

It is impossible at work, there are pictures needing processing or editing or whatever people call it now. They are all grey too, low contrast linear curve pictures of building sites with lots of concrete.

Grey is the colour of the day.

Fill out a form, and take it through the building to where it needs to go to. Knock on the door and open it.

Good morning.

Would it be possible to speak to the person in charge of inventories?

She's working from home

Oh

We are not open today.

Sorry.

What should be done with this list?

Leave it on her table

ok

Now you are to go

Oh?

It would be better for you if you left!

What?

This could have serious consequences.

duh.

Ok. bye bye.

Leave. There is a suspicion forming that people have gone completely Covid mad. The interpersonal distance was in order. A mask was worn.

Why all this unfriendliness?

It does not help at all.

Return to the cheerful grey of the day.

three failures

 Leave work at eleven thirty in the morning today, a short day. Later on. a person is due to show up at home and to take a blood sample and a mouth swab, to help a study of the corona virus. There will be no news returned, that seems important for the study. They say that they will inform if any of the tests are positive. 

Drive the big car steadily and slowly all the way down the Autobahn, there are not so many cars there at this time and it is important to be careful of those passing at higher speeds.

It is pleasant to arrive back home during the daylight, and it is easy to find a parking spot. 

Arrive home and the wife looks as if she has seen a ghost. It is far too early to be home on a Monday. Explain the business with the testing people. She looks vaguely surprised now. Shortly afterwards, the son comes home from school, and he looks surprised too. Really, a day of surprises.

The woman from the testing company arrives, all dressed up in plastic protection gear.

A swab in the mouth, then packed into a test tube.

Three attempts to draw blood, three failures. The veins have retracted, or have started to roll around the plase. After the third attempt she gives up. She says that there are thousands of others taking part in the study, so that one less will not matter.

Now there is one less, and that is that.

Go back upstairs and make a telephone call to the man who took the small black car, to ask him for the number plates. They might be important.

drone

 A walk in the park, shaved washed, a few chores done, proceed up the path, loose wind and breath on the first steep bit.
it is embarassing, the feeling of incapability to make the steep bit without having to stop and to catch the lost wind in the lungs. Never having had great stamina, no good years ago at long distance running, absolutely out of the question now.
Take the path with the shallow incline as far as possible, then sit down on a handy park bench and look down over the fog-bound town.  Slowly, the pace of the heart becomes less, the breathing rate returns to a decent normal.
What is to be expected, a sit down job eight hours a day does not help.A younger couple passes, both look at the old git on the park bench in passing. Let us hope that they never feel as weak as this, and remember never to be so arrogant to those suffering this same misfortune.

The leaves are mostly all yellow, and brown, or ochre, with just a few  deciduous trees still holding on to their chlorphyll based solar energy plants. Still green, but not for long. There is a minority of evergreen trees in the park too.

Up at the top of the rise, the fenced in space for the birds, all foggy. Families walking with their well-wrapped children, standing at the wire fencing, looking at the rheas in the distance. The big flightless birds  seem intent upon minding their own business today. Farther on, a family is feeding salad leaves to the ducks. The ducks are not interested at all, but after a while a cock comes by and starts to pick at the salad, and then to eat it with some enthusiasm. He is joined by the hens, who do likewise.

There is a crow high up on one of the nearly-bare trees, and it seems to be trying to eat something from a thin twig too thin to bear its weight. Watch as the bird looses it's grip, then it is just hanging there from the twig, an alarming sight.
Another crow flies past, the one hanging from the twig realises same and flys away after the other.
More crows arrive, and all start to worry the branch, but none daring to hang from it like the first.

On the way back down the hill hear a buzzing sound. There is a small drone in the middle of the path, flying about six feet above the ground. There is a man standing beside the path with a control unit.

Start talking to the man who is taking his drone for a walk.

This will be the first conversation of the day.

FOXP2

 there is a sound from the door.
A cat calling, something like me ow p

Then silence.
Mee orp.
The cat makes strange noises, but that gene that governs language and speech is not developed in cats.

but it tries. Mee ow, and then a scratch at the door.

Get up and let her in. Business like, she runs across the room, through the open door to the kitchen.

There is food there, left over from the night before.

Now that the door is open, the one to the corridor, use it to go on to the bathroom, to use the toilet, first rites that never change. And then come back and get dressed. Look at the news on the computer, there is a falling star, a lump of dirt burning as it falls.

And read some more, Biden is doing better than yesterday.

The cat returns, makes a sound again, then she reaches up and digs her claws into the cloth of the black jeans, just behind the kneecap. Then she jumps up onto the knees and settles down.

Pet her on the bony head between her ears.

Purr

End of an era

 leave the house and go down the alley, away from the church and towards the police station, the night has just turned grey for the day. Today, turn right at the end of the church lane, that is where the parking spaces that are reserved for residents are.

The small black car had to go to the car repair place, to see if there was any hope at all of it's passing the road safety tests.

That is the reason for turning right, and  that is the reason for using the family car today. The family car is a small five door four seater Opel General motors machine. And it is hardly ever used now. since the time that the son has grown and the wife has started to use a bicycle to go for the shopping. The battery has lost some charge, the starter motor is slow.

Spend time getting used to manual transmission again, and leave the town driving less steadily than usual, there is no cruise control and the radio is still.

Slow down to find out how to adjust the radio.

The radio has a better sound in this car than in the small black one.

But it is a small consolation later on, upon hearing the news on the telephone that the little car will never pass the test. 

So that is the end  of that little era.

short life product

 Open the paper bag from the bakery shop and feed.

Feed on the two filled bread rolls. or buns, or just call them belegte brötchen in German or semmeln in Bavarian. One is filled with cheese and the other has salami in it. They are moderately satisfying, both. And a cup of coffee from the private office dispenser.

A corona breakfast, after having spent the early part of the morning fixing a computer for a colleague.

There is so little work to be done, that is the drawback of incompetent superiors. Why, there would be work in plenty, but they make the regulations, and would be insulted should one go to look for work elsewhere.

So be bored, redo the pictures from the last years, this is one way to enhance your skills. If you do not talk to yourself, at least you can write to yourself and let the rest of the world read it.

Much later, just after the usual lunch break, watch a few students and post grads outside pass the recycling bins with the takeaway food containers provided by the canteen. Due to the virus, nobody may sit in the enclosed space of the canteen any more.

They all gather in a group around the yellow lidded bin, and throw in their plastic cutlery.

That is good, it is the bin for waste plastic products and pacckaging.

Then they move over to the household waste bin, as a group, all discussing, and dump the uneaten remainders in there. 

The food had already been eaten

That is good to, just small amounts of damp waste.

The last station for the group, on the other side of the pavement, is the bin for cardboard waste. The used cardboard containers are thrown in there, one by one.

That is good too, they will be recycled, and turned back into some kind of packaging cardboard.

The canteen is one hundred and fifty yards away, all those products did not last long.

mishap

 Save away the last picture of the set, pictures taken three years ago. The colours need to be edited again, and they need to be presented again now that the new building is being completed. It took long enough to build, and now it is nearly finished.

Look at the available results of the American election, and see what happens to a nation that lives from soap operas and television drama. The lies and the fiction cannot be separated from reality any more. It will do, get the coat and the mask and lock up the office after leaving it.

Time for lunch.

The paths are being paved anew, there is a fence around the building in which the café is. Take the long way round and realise that the café is closed. The new restrictions must have made business so poor that the owner closed his business. It is not worth opening, he says. Walk around the building, realise that they have now put up fences everywhere, the old food hall has been fenced in in preparation for demolition.

It is like being a sheep, kept in by fences. Find a gap, step through the pile of dirt there, and enjoy the new-found shortcut to the building with the office. There will be no food today. One mishap after the next.

accident.

The car runs smoothly, the cruise control works again. It seems to sometimes not work when there is less than five litres of diesel in the tank. This is not really understandable.

There is a delivery van ahead, it is hard to see past it. 

Then it takes a left turn, into the village of Schlossberg, and then see that there is a blue flashing light in the distance. 

Keep well to the right of the road, maybe the police need a free path.

Some way further on there is a police car blocking the road at a junction. Take the exit, and follow the other vehicles through a village, and then take a bridge over the road. The side road does not have much traffic, and it runs parallel to the road usually taken. See that the main road  over the fields, and see that there are many vehicles together, all with blue and orange flashing lights. There are ambulances, fire brigade, and police vehicles and  tow trucks. Going by the commotion alone, it must be a serious matter, probably a road accident.

The small road  continues parallel to the main road for some distance more, then take a right turn, and arrive at a roundabout. Take the small black car around towards the third  exit.

At the second exit a sudden crash, a car in a hurry has entered the roundabout and has nudged the small black car.

This is not meant to happen.

safe distance

2nd of November 2020

The small signal in the small black car

is blinking. It is showing that there are only

five litres left in the tank.

And also, the cruise control has ceased function.

But there is no bad traffic, it is all really

quiet.

Later on, in the cafe at work.

There are no seats left indoors, they are

not allowed anymore.

The proprietor makes a cup of coffee,

and for the regular customer he makes it in

a cup. Not a paper mug.

That is kind of the man.

It is a sunny day, the cyclone over Ireland lets the weather warm up just north of

the alps. sit outside the cafe, safe distance from all others.

Listen to people talking about the American

election, listen to them discussing the strange

habits of those people who live there.

other than

 it is Sunday and nothing is to be done today

other than ironing the washing

other than helping the son with his projects

other than telaxing and cleaning out the dishwasher

other than sorting out the summer and the winter shirts

other than rearranging the potted plants in the yard 

other than 

sitting down and doing nothing

It is Sunday