short

 Mixing mortar and filling holes, trying to spread the things evenly and not really knowing how.

But the wall in the bathroom is repaired between eight in the morning and one in the afternoon.Take a break and go to the coffee machine, the family is up and about. None are leaving the house, in respect of the lockdown restrictions. So many people dying, so many fallen seriously ill. The son is working in his bedroom, trying to tidy up his mess.

It is the last day of the year, there is plastering to be done, and rooms to be tidied.

This is all so that next year may be even better than this year.

1x 40 K grammes

 Sweep. Sweep away the dust and dirt left over after the plastering of the entrance to the bathroom of the top flat two days ago . Gather all the stuff that had fallen upon the floor, bits of mortar, bits of wall. Use a shovel to put them all into a bucket.

Examine the work done, and then unscrew the piece of wood that had been fixed to the wall as a guide. When the plank has been removed, the new plaster has a neat edge, just there where the doorframe will be. The main thing is that the work is straight and plumb.

Take the piece of wood, and with a level fix it to the opposite door jamb. To act as a guide for further plastering. Shorten it first with a saw, five millimetres, it is a couple of millimetres too long. Cut further bits of wood, jam the vertical guide in place so that it will hold.

Six litres of water and forty kilogram of mortar, all mixed up with the electric mixer for mortar bought from a foodstuffs chain. Mix it up, realise that the result is too dry. Add two hundred millilitres more water, and that is better. The new mortar smells different from the older stuff, probably a difference in the manufacture. It also takes more water.

Make up a small bucket of extra sloppy morter, and spray it onto the naked wall behind the new guide using a mortar trowel. The sloppy stuff sticks to the wall, the dirty white surface turns gray, almost lunar. Keep it up until the whole surface is covered.

And then, to the other side of the wall, use the normal mortar to plaster over the rough layer left from yesterday. Cut another guide and put it on the floor, and repair the that area, covering a wooden beam. Using the power screwdriver fix many screws with to act as anchors for the mortar. Fill a few holes, and that is the outside done. Then the inside again, throw mortar at the wall filling the gaps behind the guides.

When all the mortar is finished, wash the tools and sweep the floor.

What a waste of time, it would be better to take pictures on the street. Leave plastering to plasterers. But there are simply no builders available, and the plumbers will be there to look at the heating in two weeks. 

3x 40 K gramme

 all attempts to reach the building suppliers by telephone have failed, they have taken their device off the hook. They are open for business customers only, and that is that. No time for questions.

The wife has a business permit. And to finish the work on the  upstairs bathroom mortar is needed.

Drive through the deserted town, there is hardly any traffic and practically nobody on the sidewalks. At the big store, join the queue. Name and address are taken. The wife has turned into the boss, the one running everything. She seems to enjoy the deception, coming here with her husband in her employment to collect some urgently needed supplies.

Go out to the back of the store, three bags full of mortar, a mortarboard, and an electric light switch

That is all, and for the trouble it all took to get those few things, not a lot of money.

Later on carry the three forty-kilo sacks up to the bathroom in the second floor. One at a time.

The back pain has gone, and that is something to celebrate.

pain

 there will be no going to the builders suppliers today. That is a message from the back, from the vertebra or the vertebrae which is or are causing the problem. The pain that will not allow a proper errect gait, not even to the bathroom. 

It is too early, anyhow. Still dark outside, but there is no sleep now. Go to the kitchen and make a cup, and return to the bedside table with it. Read the news, read the stories about lost and found dogs on facebook, why has everybody suddenly become interested in canine welfare? This is a reminder to see to the cat, get up and go to the living room to see how she is. She is lying on a seat in the corner of the room, looking. She is not entirely her usual self, perhaps she is ill. She was quieter and more reclusive yesterday. Therefore she is a bit improved today.

The back is blue murder. Take the pills, and a pain killer. Keep on reading all the politics, the British losers trying to make their silk purse out of some poor sow's ear, and Don, the silly bully with his futile power plays.

Sudden tiredness strikes, and return to bed after having dealt with the mail. 

Must be the painkillers, they are not killing pain much yet.

Wake up later, have a shower, the hot water on the back does good. Take another painkiller.

Fall asleep again. What is going on? Awake much later, the pain has gone.

pain killer

upon trying to get out of bed in the morning realise that yesterdays activities have resulted in a vicious sore back, standing up is sore, and walking to the bathroom is sore too. It is not a walk, it is more of a stagger. There is no way that it is possible to bend over the washbasin to wash the face in the usual way. There would be water splashed all over the night clothes and the floor.
Therefore, do not bother. Leave the layer of sleep on the skin as it had accrued during the night, spare the skin the refreshing cold water in the morning. It is a small discomfort compared to the pain of bending over the basin to wash.
Return to the bedroom, struggle to put on the clothing. Trousers and shirt, hoodie and warm socks. Lie down on the bed again. To be recumbent flat on the back was not a good idea. It is agony, Pull up the knees, the pain is less. Sit up, the pain recedes to a throb, a steady warning not to bend over or to straighten or to even think of doing anything with the back. Straighten it anyway, walking about like Quasimodo is not on. The pain increases, then it fades back to the old throb. Take the pills, the one for the blood pressure, the one for the pissing system, and a robust painkiller, an ibuprofen six hundred, to be taken no more than thrice daily. Sit and read, read the news, read about King Don in the final throes of his madness, and the Anglic delusions regarding sovereignty. Voted to power by the people for whatever reason that those voters may have had.
The pain will not go away, every movement a punishment. There will be no walk today, that is clear in the morning, there is a desperate fear that these back pains are permanent. Remember the last time, and the fears then, and hope that the same will happen.
That the pains will end and all will be well again.

The painkiller does not do the killing it was supposed to do.

Not even slightly.

winded

 Climb the  stairs up to the entrance to the park with the son. The stairs are of red brick, the gate is a handsome wrought-iron affair. There is a crack running up the centre of the stairway, this may have been flood damage, washing the soil supporting the steps away.

The path up through the park is steep, feel the breath coming in gasps, there is just not enough air getting into these now more than sixty five year old lungs. Rejoice at having given up smoking a quarter of a century ago. The steep climbing footpath now has steps, made of wooden beams backed with gravel. Now the lack of wind is getting worse. panting for air. The son suggests sitting down, refuse. Another fifty metres, then stop, breathing like a steam locomotive at speed. The son is concerned, and hugs his father. He is very kind. Another fifty metres, another short stop. Talk to the son about the light falling on the trees, he is taking pictures. Ask him to look carefully at the contrast, and to find the best angle to show what he wants people to see in his photograph.

And then the air flows into the lungs without effort, is this what they call the second wind? The need to pant has gone, it is possible to climb the rest of the pathway up to the top of the park, there were the animal compounds are.

The son goes over to watch the ducks swim about in their smelly pool, go around the corner to watch the crows.

See the camera collector walking in the distance with his wife. Greet them, the camera collector starts and comes over, he has many thanks for the picture put into his letterbox on the day before Christmas eve.

It is good that he found it there, and it is good that it gave him pleasure. The son, who had seen the picture, recognises the man.

Continue on our way,  talk about trees and later about the war monument. The son is astonished by the amount of names on the monument, the youth of two generations wiped out in two world wars.

Later on, leaving the park, see the camera collector and his wife in the distance. Wave.

They wave back.

Christmas, and the cat

 Awake, the cat is outside the door, doing her best to make a pitiful mewing sound. It works, it sounds pitiful. So get up and open the door, let her out. Hear the cat door clatter, and see the dark shadow hurry across the covered balcony to the cat door to that part of the balcony where her cat tray is. Open the door and go to the bathroom, the cat has started the systems working.

Return to bed.

It is seven in the morning on Christmas Day

Get up again, make a cup of coffee take the pills, a bit of bread and salami.

Read the news.

There is nothing profound happening today, it is just another Christmas, the family asleep, the cat back at the door.

Let her in.

She jumps onto the welcome lap and lets her head be stroked. She does not care that it is Christmas either.

last minute

 over Christmas there will be need of a metal bottle of carbon dioxide to make the tap water fizzy. The water from the taps is supposed to be some of the best in Europe, so it seems silly to buy water in bottles. But to make it fizz it is necessary to inject a squirt of carbon dioxide. And the metal bottle is empty. Now, before Christmas.

Leave the house, walk masked down the street. It is quiet, there are few people about, there are only a very few shops open, those with essential services. Just like the drug store, were things like soap and perfume and so forth are sold. The toy department has to be closed, the music department too.

The bottle sold by the drug store is in the camera bag

Go downstairs, that is where the household stuff is.

Search.

Search more, polishes, mops toiletpaper.

Teapots.

A person dressed in the uniform of  the house, ask.

The woman points, says "over there" in German, and then interrupts herself to say that they seem to have been all sold.

Return home.

Put the empty bottle from the drugstore into the shelf. Take out the similar empty bottle from the supermarket. Take the longer route down to the supermarket, downstairs, underneath the deserted shopping mall. A covidular silence everywhere. 

Neologisms rule !

There are the bottles of  See oh two. Pick up a bar of chocolate and a baguette and a small salami too, check out and return the empty metal carbon dioxide gas flask. Get a credit and wish the woman working at the checkout a happy Christmas.

On the way back, remember that there is no shaving foam at home. The scratchy pain shaving yesterday overrides the dislike of the drugstore. Return, there is a different woman counting the customers now, putting a coloured plastic cube from left to right as each customer enters and from right to left as each customer leaves. When there are no more cubes on the left, no customers may enter.

Until somebody leaves.

Go to the back of the store, hair care. Then painkillers, then dental care. Pedicure.

Ask.

Shaving cream is at the front of the store. Ask again.

A blonde woman shows the way to the shelf.  Reach down, take the cheapest

Then, one set of shelves farther over, a bottle of perfume.

For the wife. It is Christmas, after all

diy

 Press the button on the mortar mixer, hold it with both hands as the of cheap mortar powder and water mix to become a grey damp mass, keep on working the mass with the mixer until it is mostly homogenous. It seems a little bit on the dry side, the mortar.

But never mind, the instructions on the package had been six litres and that is how it had turned out. Go downstaire to find the small stepladder, to be able to comfortably reach the top corner of the room.

Now , because of the corona virus closing down the place of work, there is finally time to do the construction work in the little bathroom to-be on the top floor. The slits cut into the walls for the electric wiring have to be filled, and a few holes too. Also the area around the door has to be fixed. It is all a string of silly small jobs, some areas can only be half done in order to let the mortar set. It is a job in preparation for plastering. And it needs to be done before the firm comes to fit the heating.

It is all so that the son will have a space all of his own, for some years.

Throw the mortar into the slits, scrape the surplus off with a trowel.

This is no work for a photographer, it would be better to have someone skilled at the job. But these people are all employed elsewhere.

Three hours, then clean up the mess. And there we are, it is wintery dark again. This work should have been started earlier.

Not a professional builder at all.

finch

 The flap of the mailbox is a metal casting, counterbalanced and heavy. It is at the entrance of the small restored farmhouse up at the top end of the park. Put the envelope in, it contains the snapshot of the camera collector. He had asked for the picture, now he has it . If that is the correct mailbox, the name is slightly different from the one understood,  A CH instead of double T. The difference between a judge and a knight in German.

Take the back way down through the park, that is the area that goes down behind sons school. The school and it's playing fields are deserted today, and will be for weeks to come, until the problem with the virus is solved.

Along the steep path there are enormous tall sycamores, just before the steep part two especially straight and tall ones stand on either side of the path. They are like sentinels standing guard. It is a valley down to the town, the stream that used to flow here has been put into a pipe for whatever reason.

There is a rustling sound, it is the wings of hundreds of tiny birds, maybe finches, who have all taken to the air at the same time and are flying between the treetops. They are like winged leaves, but flying upwards. Their activities dislodge some sycamore seeds, which fly slowly down to the ground, their wings rotating at high speed. If the wind were stronger the seeds would fly further. This would probably be the more efffective thing for them. But these were just dislodged by small birds, fluttering wildly between the trees, alighting on twigs, only to start fluttering around again.

psychologic

 wake in the morning, achieving a sitting position on the edge of the bed is so much more difficult than usual.

The back pains have grown, standing up is difficult, bending down to pick up something from the ground is just a horrible thought. A thought that causes pain.

Carefully proceed to the bathroom, every step is sore, is a pain. But at least it all still works. Brush the teeth, and bending down to the tap to rinse is hard. Should use a glass anyway, the pain is deserved- a reminder.

Back to the bedroom, it is nine, sit down, read the news. Britain has  seventy percent more infectious virus, and all the ports are closed. No one comes and no one goes.

Start to put on the clothing, every stretch and turn, normally unnoticed, now an effort. This is awful.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling on socks, the feet seem a long painful distance away.

Later on, ring the doctor. Because of the pandemic, there are as few personal visits as possible, to stop contagion. An appointment is made for a telephone conversation.

Sit down again, carefully.

but the pain has gone, there are still aches to remind of it, but the actual pain has gone. It is as if the action of calling for help had brought alleviation.

Remain seated, this will not do. This is too close to delusions.

But now, movements are possible that were not possible before.

late light

 The son is finally ready for his morning walk, it is three in the afternoon. The son is a teenager, one that works best at night. This is not unusual.

Walk through the deserted town, take a short cut down by the river, look at the oddities that the town has to offer. There are not many, but he says interesting things about the war monument, errected just before the second world war. He has learned about it in school.

It depicts an oak tree, a so called "Deutsche Eiche", which has had all of it's branches sawn off. Out of the stump various Germanic human figures grow. The symbolism was that, though defeated in the first war, Germany will recover.

Pathetic.

The text around the monument has been changed, a more modern and historically correct text replaces some pre-war sentimentalism. 

A relief on the base shows a man, naked but for a coal scuttle helmet, loins covered by a cloth, lying on the ground, probably dying.

The son agrees that the street would be nicer without it.

Walk down by the river, for a couple of hours.

Until the light fails.

red nose

 There are two children running down the long path from the wooden bridge in the park. It is a steep gravel path. They reach the bottom and look up whence they had come. There is a smaller child running down the hill, shouting for them to wait.t

Walk on past the first two, they both say hello, say hello back, ask them how they are. This confuses them, and they come out with a shy german "Good". Or "Gut", they are going well. Pass them, and the third one, the small one stops and asks "why do you have a red nose". Try to explain that this is a bacterial infection, but watch the little guy's face go blank with incomprehension. I suppose it would have been better to lie and say that it was from the cold, or invent a fairy story.

Further up the hill their parents. A family walk. Say hello, a smiled hello. Wonder what they are going to tell the little one when he asks about what a bacterial infection is. 

Walk all the way to the top of the hill, try to avoid the shortness of breath by going slowly. It is getting better, but it appears to take a long time to heal.

On a park bench, watch the crows. One of them has a strange round head, as if he is wearing a fur hat. Perhaps it is not a crow at all, but why is it hanging out with the flock?

Then the man who collects cameras walks around the bend  on his walk. He is with his wife today. He says to her that this is the person with the nice camera, by way of introduction. She says hello.

And then she walks on to their home, which is up on the hill somewhere. She does not seem to share her husbands enthusiasm for cameras.

the goats

 The trees in the park are all bare now, but for the few that are never bare. The park is full of mainly deciduos trees, there are very few of the other ones. Climb all the way to the top of the hill, out of the valley containing Landshut town. There is pleasure that the shortness of breath experienced a year ago has become bearable.

The rheas are picking away in the distance, they do not seem to like the food provided by the visitors. There are no visitors anyway. There are no children hanging about this cold Friday.

At the duck pond see a man at standing at a hedge, putting things into the hedge. Wonder at this unusual behaviour, then look away for it is rude to stare. The man approaches and explains that he had hidden provisions to feed the animals with in the hedge, and that he planned to return later to feed the goats with salad. The sense behind this activity was mutually agreed.

The man appeared familiar, but he was difficult to place exactly.

Walk on through the park, there is a photographer and a bridal pair, taking pictures of the pair posing.

For the album.

Wish them well in passing.

Farther on, there is the man again, he walked down the hill and is coming up the hill now. Recognise him as the collector of German rangefinder cameras met on a walk in the Spring. Converse with him again, show him the camera at his request. His collection is of non digital cameras, but he immediately likes the sensation of holding the modern camera. He says he might buy one.

For a spontaneous decision, that is a lot of money. 

Then he goes on his way. Presumably to feed the goats.

end of an era

 

luminous hands on that watch say that is five twenty five, so get up and go to the small bureau and turn off the alarm clock, probably seconds before it started to play it's music. It is an alarm clock on an apple tablet, a tablet that only functions more or less. But it keeps time and sounds alarm.

Stand in the kitchen, fill up the coffee machine. There is no sleep, so it is as well to get up. The cat comes in and rubs her head on the human legs, she could be hungry, or at least perhaps she could eat. The animal is quite plump, not in any way undernourished. The coffee maker spits and hisses, the grinder grumbles.

Make a cup of coffee and a slice of bread and butter, and go and look at what the mail has brought today.

The mail on the computer screen.

Nothing but silly news.

A picture of a fat man on a golfing cart.

h.office

 the dizziness in the darkness of the bedroom clears to the sound of the early alarm. It is five twenty six in the morning, that is the usual time to get up at. If there is a need to go to work.

But there is no need to go to work.

Thanks to the virus, all is being kept at home. If possible, remain clear of work. Do not join crowds.

There is no difference between staying at home and going to work. Except for the travel. There are hardly any social work contacts at work any more, there are none at home. There are no requests for private prints at home, as there are at work, supposedly that is a difference. 

The cat seems disturbed that there are so many in the house, perhaps this is exciting for her. Does the cat know the difference between a regular weekday and a normal weekend? Probably not, probably does not care so long as she gets her food and amusements. 

felix domestica, panem et circenses.

and set up the computer from work in the bedroom. It will be possible to deal with all the problems from there. And in case of urgent need, it will always be possible to drive to the institutes.

What the Germans like to call home office

letter from the präsident

 lying awake in bed, listening to the wife's sleep noises, and the alarm sounds over on the small bureau in the corner of the room. Put both legs out from under the duvet and hook the let ankle under the  wooden bed frame. Lever the body into a vertical position, then get up on the feet and walk over to the glowing device. Silence it before the fourth bar of the melody is reached.

Turn about and get dressed. The old body had been showered yesterday and feels awake enough to go ahead today. Fresh underpants and socks, a fresh shirt. That will do.

Open the computer, give the little machine time to start. Spend this time in the kitchen, check the water content of the coffee machine, refill it, and press the button on the coffee grinder. Then clean out the sieve, flushing yesterdays coffee grounds down the sink. Put fresh coffee into the silver sieve, tamp it down and use the bayonet mount on the sieve to fix it into its proper place in the machine.  Wait for the machine to heat up completely, put two slices of toast into the toaster whilst waiting. Start the pump on the coffee machine, with a pop the water overcomes the resistance in the brewing unit and coffee flows into the cup.

After the coffee is made, the toaster pops. Butter the toast and cut two slices of salami and place them on the hot toast. A strange breakfast.

Carry the coffee and the toast to the computer, type in the password and read the mail. There is news of the president (US) and a message from the president (university).  The president appears to want to reduce the university down to essential services only. An endless string of conditions, even what may be understood as threats, and the ironic message that those who had wanted holidays can take them. Seems most confusing, but all the trouble only starts tomorrow. So that means that there will be work today.

Ruminate the contents of the letter, there are references to laws that could be looked up later.

Make another cup of coffee.

Meet the son, he gives a hug. He is barely awake, but wanted to say goodbye and wish a safe journey to work.

And three quarters of an hour later, park the car at the tree. The Autobahn had more drivers driven to road rage than usual, speeding, flashing lights, a sense of emergency everywhere.

The university is quiet, and at this hour, deserted.

waste

 find things to do for there is practically nothing to do at work apart from clocking in. Finish the prints for the professor, do the prints that the colleague wanted, and print out the fake postage stamps for the man playing in the punk rock band. At fifty five his deafness probably an advantage.

And that is it.

Upstairs again edit photographs for that blog thing that they think they can tell me that they need. But all they want to do is to keep the man occupied so that stupid things don't happen because of boredom.

All done, all finished

What a sad way to kill four hours, four hours that will not come again.

Leave the building, go down the stairs by the swinging pendulum, clock out.

And in the car, realise that the glasses are in the office on the table.

Driving without glasses is a bad idea, so go back in.

More time wasting.

so full of electronics

 The wet road ahead seems to unspool into the space below the windscreen, a few cars come the other way  and slip past on the left. The lights of the filling station ahead glow red in the blue grey of the sky and the tarmac, the dull wintery green of the fields is hardly of any account with regard to the total impression.

Hum along, now the traffic roundabout is ahead, slow a bit, there is no car on the roundabout, pick up speed again and this functional construction is left behind. The traffic lights ahead are red, slow down and let them turn green and the standing traffic pull away. Never stop, just go slower and faster. The slip road for the motorway, and then the motorway itself.

There is hardly any traffic at this time of day on this Sunday. A clothes drying machine bought online has to be collected. It is a distance of some fifty five kilometres, and somebody has to do it. The son and the wife are still asleep at home, and the cat is most likely still snoozing on the window ledge exactly as before. The messages from the navigation device on the mobile 'phone tell the way to the small village where the item is waiting to be collected. Take all the lefts and the rights as recommended and then arrive at the way of Cloves, as the street appears to be called, and the correct house number. 

Put on the mask, and press the doorbell.

Press the doorbell again. This time a voice answers, explain the business.

Wait a moment, then a man comes down without a mask. After greetings are exchanged, he opens the door to the garage and shows the machine. Count out the bank notes, and he helps load the surprisingly light machine into the back of the car.

On the way back home the brother calls on the telephone, stop the car at the side of the road and have a lengthy conversation. It is raining, a police car passes with all it's horns and lights blaring. Police errands on a Sunday morning.

And then back to letting the road spool by underneath the car, driving slowly so as not to use too much petrol. 

On the way out there had been an orange light on warning that the anti-skid system was not working properly. It is off now, there is no reason apparent as to why.

Modern cars are so full of electronics.

cat tin

 it is in the morning still, before midday. Suggest to the son that a walk would be nice, he agrees, point out that it would be necessary for him to put on day clothes first on account of the cold. He, agrees, and says he will. Shortly.

An hour later the enterprise is near complete, he has become distracted by something on the computer, He is near dressed up, only the shoes are missing. He points out that it is raining outside.

Attempt to understand the connection, the correlation. Suggest that shoes might be a good idea anyway. He can barely hide his irritation. Just suggest that it should be done in time before the shops close for the weekend.

Leave the house, he is wearing his face scarf mask ersatz. A normal blue paper mask will do for his father. The first stop is at the oriental foodstuff shop, there are sacks of rice and bags of seaweed, and gilt pottery cats waving their right arms mechanically bag and forth. The son is looking for coconut cream, find it for him hidden on a top shelf. It is cheap stuff, and seems not to require refrigeration. Buy three packages of instant soup, it is silly stuff with little nourishment value, but it is spicy and good against the cold. Pay, leave the shop to cross the small park in front of Saint Jodok's church. Go down a narrow lane and to the supermarket in the basement of the shopping centre, the son searches for tofu. Buy bread and apples, they seem fresh out of tofu.

Cross the river, admire the flight of the gulls, all come inland fleeing - heavy weather elsewhere. They often seem to stand still in the air.

At the next supermarket, find tofu and the son is satisfied. It is stuck in the delikatessen corner, surprising for something so bland.

Later on , pass the drogerie, the shop that sells everything from perfume to sound recordings. Cat food is sold there too, but both father and son forget that there is only one tin left at home.

Leave the son with the shopping, go up the narrow street to the photographic store, and ask them to compare the small part that had been bought online with an original part. They do, and then out of kindness check an original part from the shelf on the camera. The original part is loose, just as loose as the bought part, so that it is not difficult to deduce that the fault is with the camera.

Go home, to find that the son is just about to go out again and to go to the drogerie.

To get food for the cat.

no events

A day at work with the hydraulic sounds of the digging machines outside, rumbling away at the walls of the huge pit that they have dug, their compacting machines making all the surrounding buildings shake.

A day at work, starting in the morning looking up that problematic illustration that needs fixing and tweaking, then tweaking a bit to try and fix it up in such a way as make the man who ordered it shut up finally, leave the choices to him.

Otherwise, there is nothing happening here at all. Nothing.

Sit in the office. Go out to keep an appointment, realise that the man who made the appointment has forgotten about it again.

Who gives a shit? It is Friday, and there is nothing anybody wants to do.

One of the secretaries tells me that Saturn and Jupiter will be close to each other on the twenty first of December.

That is really most interesting. Apparently the last time that that happened was in the middle ages sometime.,

inmate

It is all dark outside , turn off the lights, the radio, stop the engine, pull the brake. Another day has started, press the button on the key and hear the locks on the car make their closing noises. There is still snow on the ground, snow from yesterday. Take a shortcut over the slippery grass covered slope. The building workers are hard at it, digging in the dark by the light of their machine's headlamps. Apart from the pools of light it is pitch black dark night. The feet are wet and cold, and the entrance halls dim  fluorescent lights give off a depressing yellow light.

Clock in, hold the chip under the timing device.

A voice wishes a good morning. There had been a colleague in the corner, all wrapped up against the cold with a mask against the virus. Quite unrecognisable.

Chat. She needs a print made. Ok, so that is not a problem.

The office is tidier than usual, the big printer is away, it is being repaired. It is turning into a place of boredom, now that the last five months of the inmates working life have started.

Two thousand and seven hundred days elapsed, two thousand and seven hundred postings, and all with seventy thousand visitors over the last seven years.

Thank you all, thank you for the round numbers and your perseverance.

sludge

 The car's windows are covered in salt spray form the road, as the water evaporates a white saline crust remains. A short spray with the windscreen washing system causes near blindness as the wipers spread the sludge stuff on the glass. Another spray, and the alcoholic solution wins, wiping the grey dirt away.

This all at the beginning of the tunnel, a truck approaches spreading more salt from the device fixed to it's rear. The truck is orange, and is equipped with flashing orange lights.

All of this in the tunnel, all this activity. The car heater's ventilator motor is making a rushing noise, the inside of the windows are being held clear of condensation, the car ahead is braking at irregular intervals in a seemingly unnecessary manner.

All stressful.

Turn on the radio, classical music, relax. At the end of the tunnel follow the traffic onto the main road, a sharp left, and pass the traffic lights.

A few kilometres outside town, it starts to snow, the snow is much heavier by the time the fifty kilometres to work have elapsed.

But there is never a blizzard, that would have been the final straw with the day just begun .

unreal

 the slow drift down the Autobahn, let the others drive on the left, they will be ten minutes later and so what, the same old truck from Romania driving steadily at ninety kilometres in the hour. Then the fog on the country roads. trafic lights with a red fog halo about them. Turn on the fog lamps in the car, the traffic ahead is visible much later than would be expected, suddenly a twin red glow in the fog and then they are bright lights. It is tiring,  the lights of the oncoming traffic are a diffuse glare in the fog. Turn off into the university campus, now there are people in dark clothing everywhere.

Park beside the fence near the tree.

Go upstairs past the pendulum, which has stuck.

Read the mail, the repair person for the printer is already in the building. 

reply

two minutes later a knock on the door.

Try to help put lift  the printer down onto  the trolley.

And the IT person takes the printer away, leaving all the cables there.

Roll the cables up, and as an afterthought move the furniture,

Then read the news, suddenly things go dark, the eyesight goes, what is happening? There is no concentration, it is like a sudden collapse of blood pressure.

Everything went dark for a while, there is no idea as to what that was.

Make a cup of coffee, maybe the hot drink will help. Back to reality and the present now.

favour

 sit in the lab, do a favour for a colleague. Copy some stuff onto his computer, a small program. He interrupts all the time, he knows it better, he has demands and wants safeguards. Remind him that this is a favour, a recommendation, and if he is going to talk about liability then it would definitely be an idea to do it himself.

Rather than complain any more, he lowers his tone. Then he starts to talk about immigrant low lifes. A short sharp word informs him that he will gain no friends here with that kind of talk, prepare to leave. He changes the subject to his feelings of being discriminated by the computer firm using the symbol of Adam's and Eve's downfall, point out that his machine is nearly twelve years old, it cost a lot of money then and todays computers are cheaper. 

Why do conversations have to be made up of complaints? Resolve a path forward, suggest a method for a backup. Leave it until tomorrow.

In the big hall go to the dispensing machines. The cleaner is going over the office, there is time for a cup of coffee and half an hour to kill. Sit down at a table, take off the mask, and sip the coffee from the paper cup. Hear a voice from off right. Look over, that is the man from the lab. He followed. Oh no.

Listen to a rant in repeat over the evils of dispensers and the sugary things held therein. The unhealthiness of it, the poor quality of the nourishment. Explain that this is all courtesy of the students catering services, this is the way that they earn money.

That makes the rant worse.

Who needs enmity in the face of such friendship?

l&f

 The gate with the fancy wrought iron is the gate at the top of the brick stairs. It is the entrance to the park. The park is bare and cold, the ground covered in fallen brown and yellow leaves. The paths are partly iced over, the cold of the last few days is taking its toll.

on the shallow gradient up the hill a small dog approaches, a black and white king Charles cavalier type spaniel. The dog is carrying a branch that is twice as long as he is. He is walking ahead of his mistress, a woman puffing and blowing a polite  greeting as she reaches the top of the low hill, with the flat road ahead and the steep path staying to her left. She is not a very fit person, she is overweight as well. Say something to the effect of

"the dog is working hard with that big stick" She laughs between gasps, she says he always does that.

Holding his head high to stop the stick dragging on the ground, the dog looks very proud.

Go on up the hill, all the way to the top. The wooden bridge half way up is the worse for wear, the wood has rotted badly over the last summer. Be careful not to break any struts, all brown and greasy with green moss upon them.

Sit on the bench at the top, and take out the camera. This is an opportunity to see if the addition to the focusing system works.

It works, a one point two X enlargement helps the rangefinder with longer lenses.

Wander on around the park. There are the usual families taking their children out for a Sunday walk.

It is still miserable. Changing the lens on the camera drop a lens cap. A short while later, notice that it is missing. Return, there it is on the ground, nobody stepped on, it is still in one piece.

That was lucky, those lens caps are costly.

apples

 An early awakening, the cat wishes to leave the room. She makes noises, and experience has shown that it is better to let her out than to ignore her. She pauses outside the door, then uses her cat door to leave for the balcony. Go to the bathroom, it is half past five in the morning, no time to be up on a weekend. Leave the bedroom door resting ajar, thereby permitting feline reentry. Return to bed, return to sleep.

It is light, and the cat has returned. She is lying on a cloth supermarket bag left on the window ledge, is fast asleep. Get up, the cat opens an eye, only to reseal it forthwith. It is warm on the window ledge, the heater is directly underneath it. It is cold, so take fresh underwear and get dressed at once. The wife is fast asleep, and supposedly the son too. It is nine in the morning. Read the mail on the computer, nothing awful has happened, other than the usual dire things.

Read for an hour, make coffee, be silent in this land of nod, Now it is just ten, the used shirts have been sorted out from the other washing, and the cat has been removed from the cloth bag.

With the shirts in the cloth bag and the camera bag on the shoulder head off for the shops. First, the shirts to the cleaners in the basement of the shopping centre, all seven, fifteen euros. The man with the short hair and the friendly expression is working there today. the organisation seems to have changed.

Go to the supermarket, two baguettes, a salami and a loaf of bread. And a plastic bag full of apples.

and then broken

 not that the misery of winter will go away on it's own, but yesterday the soles of the black shoes broke. Cheap plastic, expensive leather would have just soaked.

and then broken.

The other shoes, a piece of trim is coming adrift. But these are the only winter shoes left. And a piece of fake seam missing is better than an ice cold leak in the centre of the foot when stepping into the slush left by the salted snow.

The morning, early awakening, and dark and cold, Winter is moving in,

The car starts, and then the steering falls asleep. The trick is to turn off the engine, reboot the system, and then it works again. The days of intelligent cars are not far away.

Misery, repairing old pictures which nobody really wants to see.

The man turns up, looks and goes away again.

What is there to be happy about now. 

There is sorrow that this is another bad day.

snaps

It is good that that those scanned negatives may be digitally freed of their dust marks, fixing every spot with a brush and ink would be a curse. That took place forty five years ago during training, hours on every print, every tiniest scrap of dust. Now, it is easier, and faster. Also, in case of a reprint, you only need to do the work once.

Pay the man in the electronics department a visit, he is desoldering thick boards. That is what he is says- "dicke Platinen". And it is hard work, for the little electronic widgets will not let themselves be released from the solder, it dissipates it's heat too fast, Leave him to his work, and return to the spots on the photos. They are the memories of some professors youth, the man is sure that they are works of genius. Well, he is smart enough, but he cannot be a genius at everything,

Remember the near accident on the way to work this morning, some kid in a delivery truck being aggressive, blocking, doing things on the road that should not be done.

Finish the picture, a boring view of ships in a grecian harbour. It might be Athens, It is a filthy old negative, and if the professor would have to pay a lab for the work, he would break his bank. But it passes the time, the time created by the virus.

It is growing dark, work started as it was growing lighter this morning. That is the way of things, do not think about it too much.

buzz in the brain

frosty, the instrument in the car shows a temperature two and a half degrees Centigrade below that point at which water freezes. Still, the windows on the car are clear of ice, clear of frozen condensation.

A snow plough approaches, it is spreading salt on the road, an exercise for which the temperatures would really need to be colder still, but they do it because they get paid to do it.

There is barely room to pass the wide vehicle, it is wider than half the street.

Cars are driven slowly today, out of fear of ice on the roads.

It is still dark after having parked the car, there is a bare patch in the snow where the car had been yesterday. Leave the car,

At work, an incredible sense of drowsiness. There is little ability to concentrate, there is a hiss and drone noise in the head. A particularly ugly little headache starts, close the eyes and concentrate, it now seems to go away.

Will this carry on all day?

Caption a set of pictures, taken yesterday, two men on a roof with a document, two scientists. Send the pictures to the editor  with their metadata in place, ready for use.

and today is  a lousy grey day.

beg to be excused

cannot be bothered to do more for you all

psycho

 push the card through the slot, a slow swipe, the gate beeps, and the turnstile is released. The ground is covered in soggy snow, it is half past one in the afternoon, and the first thing is to try and take a seasonal picture of one of the glass balls attached to the Christmas tree that is perched on a stone pedestal. It is a large tree, but it is dwarfed by the reactor,  and the flagpoles, and the streetlights. It is silly and tricky to take a pretty postcard picture.

It is grey, the sky is loaded with snow.

At two o'clock two scientists arrive, punctual. This is an appointment, the two of them have won a prize for their work, and the press people want a picture of the two of them on the top of a building with a good view of the reactor in the background. It is snowing, too.

At least the light is soft, no hard horrible sun shadows.

The arrangements with the owners of the building have been made. So walk on up to the towering building, all five stories of it. It is the highest building in the area, apart from the weather measuring tower.

The lift does now work. Of course, a tight space for the virus!

The roof is open, it provides a clear wintry view of the reactor. What more could they want?

Everything.

So neither of them will laugh or smile,

It is icy and cold, and wet too.

Tell them to imagine-

They do, tell them to forget the old photographer behind the camera and think of the Bahamas.

Supposedly that must have been funny

it worked