vandalism

 The son and his father take a walk, after what is almost a three-quarter of an hour's wait until the son has decided as to what colour socks he will wear. Before he leaves, he makes himself a cup of coffee. His caffeine habit has developed much as his father's had. Bad habits can be inherited. The family neither drinks nor smokes, not yet, so the coffee is relatively harmless.

A walk in the park, up the path past the devil's causeway,  on up  the steep part. The shortness of breath from last spring has not gone away completely yet, but it is mostly improved. Think of the doctors concern over the high level of the blood's pressure, and wonder if the difficulties are there to stay. The son patiently agrees to sit down on a park bench, and together both admire the Nandu birds in their enclosure. The son explains that the birds have become endemic in parts of northern Germany, they are not that exotic any more.

Walk on over the park, and down behind the son's school. There is a new building, it was erected during the pandemic, it was easier to build then with the building being shut down and no scholars there at all.

The son picks up a plastic fast food container that somebody has just dropped on the pavement. He carries it, searching for a litter bin. There is one on the other side of the street, so we cross over. Suggest that he could have tossed it into the open window of one of the cars parked at the side of the road.

That makes him laugh, the enormity and pointlessness of such vandalism is funny.

The plastic container with the remains of a shrimp in it land in the litter bin.

the tooth of the matter

 The tooth number 2 on the upper left is sore, even though it is made of filling. It is not a tooth at all really anymore. The result is getting up with a filthy temper and no patience. Get up and fight through the sordid disorder of the kitchen to find the coffee maker and the filter and what have you. Having found all this, start the machine, fill the sieve install it into the meanwhile functioning machine and make a cup of coffee straight into the cup taken from the cupboard in the hall. Then back into the little bureau, in to the personal corner by the bed. Hear the snoring of the wife, and now the blasted cat wants attention. Use a patent toothpick like a tiny bottle brush to make sure that there are no interstitial do - dahs  and food remainder between the teeth causing pressure and then pain. There was something there, but the pain does not go away much. Put on the clothes, take the cup back out, and then start tidy up the kitchen. The son comes out and says that he will do that later. 

Point out to him that he always says that and never does these things. The mess is a disaster, the son had baked a cake at midnight, and everything is just lying around the place. 

Later on the son turns comes in again, he is in tears. He has promised the cake to his group of friends and he does not know how he is going to be able to clear up the mess in his room, which he has promised, and finish his cake which he has promised, and to tidy up the kitchen which he has also promised.

Console him a bit, and then say that he should go ahead and do his room, and then finish his cake in the meanwhile tidied kitchen. 

At his expression of concern, point out that the toothache will not be mitigated by inactivity, it is better to continue working until the painkillers start to work.

And later, the cake is made and the son is happy again.

chill

 how does one write about a day of nothing? a nothing day, a day of a sort of guilty relaxation. There was a sore tooth in the morning, but friend Ibu took care of that. At least the pain, if not the tooth got taken care of using a pill-comprido- of ibuprofen. Perhaps it would be an idea to go back to learning Portuguese and improving the French, who knows, it may be possible to visit those countries again, once people have learned to live with Covid. Maybe even during this lifetime.

Then a dizzy feeling, a feeling of  chill and incoordination. Lie down in bed then, until the tremor is past. This happens nearly daily now.

And then upstairs to resume the building work.

Maybe not a day of nothing, but a day spent all day indoors, and the strange feeling of having done nothing at all.

sapling

 There is a man looking intently at a slope at the side of the path. The slope is covered in brown fallen leaves, it is just a pattern of brown leaves with a few saplings sticking out. Say hello to the man, ask why he is so intent on the leaves. He replies that he is looking for a chestnut tree that he had planted a year ago. The man is wearing a black wide brimmed felt hat.

And he explains that he had found a sapling chestnut tree and had planted it there a year ago.

No sign of it now.

apathetic

 take a walk around the town up by the river, over the bridge and past the sports centre with it's football fields and light athletics areas and a gymnastics hall. There are people riding bicycles, the people dressed in skin tight brightly coloured clothes, the bicycles all the latest carbon fibre lightweight vehicles.

Take a small street, called Armin Strasse, back down toward the river, take a shortcut through the wooded area, the area that is flooded during higher water. There are many young couples out walking, and people with their dogs.

There is a woman with a huge white Labrador on a leash. The dog is standing in the calm water of a tributary to the river with his reflection underneath him. It looks strange.

But no pictures today.

Later, try to take a picture of the moon through a cut out in a decoration on a building. the picture will probably just be unintelligible.

thick talk

Such a silly busy day and all there was was talk talk talk.
First a long talk two hours with the boss and his assistant.
"how to operate a fine art printer"

Finish knowing that they do not know how.

Then an hour on the phone, a man asking how to  print fine art prints.

He is an artist, no sense for commerce.

Then two hours listening to a professor's praise, but it is not of himself, for a change.
It would be fine, but he wants a print of one of his photographs.

And then he wants another scan.

Then the fine art artist arrives in person.

And he never stops talking for three solid hours.

Now it is evening, a last cup of coffee, then home.

And hope that the son does not talk too much.

work

 put on the heavy boots and fix the hard hat to the camera bag. The hard hat is silly looking, therefore wear it as little as possible. Go down the long first floor corridor, to the last door on the left. It looks like the door to a storage cabinet, but there is a ladder inside which goes up to the roof. The roof is covered in pebbles.

Crunching sounds from unerfoot, walk across the huge roof to the place where there is a view over the building site. Take a picture, there are cranes there now, and the hole that they had dug is having a concrete base put in. There a blue styrofoam blocks on the first layer of concrete, these are being covered with deep black tarred matting. There will probably be a layer of steel reinforced concrete on the top of that at some stage.

Take pictures from the roof, using a wide angle lens, and then a fisheye. Keep the cranes to the middle of the picture when using the fisheye, they will look bent on the pictures otherwise.

The light is much to contrasty, the sky is blue and the shadows are deep.

resolve

Today, starts miserable as is usual now. Horrible chilliness in the legs and cold tiles underfoot on the way to the bathroom,.The bathroom is a mess of dirty clothes which have not found their way into the washing machine yet. Brush the teeth with the painkilling toothpaste, an analgesic cleanser. It is the only way, the tooth pain will only be believed by the dentist in September, unless there is an emergency. And who wants such a painful emergency with their teeth?

Today, start to tidy up the documents on the table, on the bureau. Then take the cordless vacuum cleaner and clean up the dust that had fallen from the ceiling the day before, after the work in the second floor. All the preparation for the plumbers, the removal of the ancient dust between the floors in the old house. Some had fallen through a crack in the ancient wooden panelling.

And then find the trousers, the shirt and the padded waistcoat, and the walking shoes.

Get out, it is a warm clear day, an hours walk in the park is due.

And it will be done today.

es ork

Theearlymorningrisingwillnotwork

tryagainwithspaces

try again with spac

es

The early morning rising will not w

ork

the alarm sounds turn it off before the wife complains, put on clothes think befuddlement is here to stay today. It seems to cold to get up but it is not really cold at all. The back is sore, and now the cat is here again, wanting attention.

es ork there is a fork left in the tin by some dork.

Gork.

The dork was the son, he is just untidy and left the open tin of cat food on the shelf with the fork hanging out of it and the plastic lid just lying beside it. It is strange but the cat prefers her food from freshly opened tins and has a distaste for the stuff when it has had the air at it for a while. What do they put into cat food?

Coffee and a sliver of bread with a slice of  cheese from a plastic packet.

Not beautiful but breakfast

The intention to go for an early morning walk remains an intention.

Must do something, and if it is only to get a dog.

And the son is beloved, he is not a dork. He is just an untidy human.

tinny bell at ten

 The tinny sounding bell on the big church rings for ten o'clock, and that means that the hurry through the rain is working just in time. Cross over the main road, now a pedestrian zone. It is paved with grey cobbles, wet today. Here is the entrance to the fine cafe, takeaway only, from people wearing medical masks to a public wearing medical masks. But take the side entrance, and the staircase that used to lead up to the balcony of the mid-town cinema. The building has been repurposed, and now three flights of stairs up there is the entrance to the dentist's practice.

Walk in, and be greeted by name. They are friendly, and the coronavirus keeps the backlog of patients waiting down. First, there are questions, as to whether or not there are cold symptoms or anything similar. Say that there are none. Pass over the plastic health card, and wait.

The little bit of plastic is returned, and the young woman says  "please go to the waiting room." 

Go, as requested. There is one other person there, take a seat and look out of the window.

Two minutes later another young woman comes in, highly made up eyes over a white medical mask, and asks to be followed to the treatment room. There it is, the completely clean dentists room, there is new equipment there. Sit down on the black chair, and at the direction of the young woman remove the mask.

Then a small plastic mug filled with blue fluid and a request to swill it about in the mouth for twenty minutes. Think that this is a long time, and will there be any of the fluid left in the mouth by the time the time is up? Twenty seconds later, the young woman says that the liquid may be spat out now, into the small basin to the left of the chair. Say that the seconds had been misheard and that minutes had been understood. The young woman says that she had mis-spoken. Then the dentist comes in, explain the problem with the top left tooth to her, she looks and does not really see anything. Then all the other teeth are dealt with at a much greater speed than usual, then the doctor goes away and the assistant works at descaling.

And after five minutes collect the coat from the hook in the waiting room. The woman that had been there earlier is still there.

And leave the practice, cross back over the street and go home.

the cat leaving the room

 It is a double door between the bedroom and the hall way, an old fashioned attempt to keep the noise and the cold out. The outer door is padded, and is only held to with a magnet. 

Open the inside door for the cat so that she may leave. With loud complaining cat noises she stands before the door held by the magnet. She does not now how to open it, she feels that it should open towards her. She is trying to hook her paws around the bottom part of the door to pull it. She does not realise that all she would have to do is to lean on the door and it would open. Why does she think this way? It is another thing that does not really make sense.

Reach down and take one of her paws and push it against the door, which opens. The vat runs out into the hallway making a thank you noise, a sort of grunting me-ow. She always does that, entering or leaving a room.

Now wonder if the cat has learned that this door will open with a push. The whole thing is strange, because from the other side, she opens the door by pulling, that is not a problem.

Intelligence in animals probably caters for different needs than intelligence in humans, and cats may be faster than people, but their intelligence seems to mainly be concerned with comfort sleep eating and defecating.

ten years later.

 The small man is in the big entrance hall of the old house has not been here since ten years ago when he installed the heating when the old house was repaired and made to function again.

He is surprised that the place has not changed much, he had expected more Germanic tidiness. None of that is in evidence. Discussion of what needs to be done, his years of practice in the field show. Things that had been complicated and had needed endless thought are now simple, and are simply doable.

The son is up there too, he recognises the man, but now the son is taller than he is. It is, after all, ten years later.

unreal

Work in the pandemic is no work at all. The employer, the university pays badly, and uses not firing people as an excuse for not paying better. It pays dividends now, for no work can be done. Still, no one is there to say what work could be done or should be done.  Arrive at work as always, the pendulum swaying, the builders building, and there is nothing great to be done in the office. It is just difficult.

The joke is that there is a sense of guilt there. But the real thing is that it is just the incompetence of the persons in charge who would rather be at home than organising their subordinates work. They have the intention to do it, but they are just too incompetent. Because they have no ideas. No interest in the things that have to do with the organisation of work. They talk about believing in freedom when all they really do is to shirk responsibility.

This is all just an excuse to justify the time of ease and leisure during this pandemic. The criticism is true, and the sense of unreality too.

wait

 back to first rites

it is dark, the cat is complaining that the door is closed. The poor cat had never learnt to open doors, which is probably a good thing. A good thing, because she would never ever have learnt to close doors behind her. Human children learn this eventually, cats will not. 

Let the cat out. The flagstones in the passageway hurt the feet, they are so cold. The tiles in the bathroom are worse. The cat is unsure over whether or not it likes this. Havig left it in the passageway behind the glass door, hear that it has decided because of the sound that the cat flap makes. Use the toilet, then wash the hands and brush the teeth. This is due to be a strange day, and 

Oh well, may just get up seriously, put on day clothes and read the news. There is not much news on this Monday, the government will not loosen the restrictions on the population until it is safe to do so. This is quite fair, considering the difficulties that the country would be in if they decided otherwise. 

Maybe the man who will extend the heating system will turn up today. It is difficult to make a date, these people are in high demand now that so many office workers are at home and have time to concern themselves with their domestic affairs.

Read the news some more, read the mail. There is nothing to do but wait.

At ten o'clock he has not yet arrived. He will not arrive today.

This is too bad.

majestic swans

Walk past the entrance to the park, take the road down by the church instead. The entrance to the church is decorated with balloons in heart shapes, all red. It is February the fourteenth, Saint Valentines day. The day on which everybody goes silly sentimental with all those various symbols and things. A day for the very young, a day to express mutual attraction.

Down by the river, overlook the notice informing that masks are to worn. Angry eyes of other pedestrians flash out above their masks, it is all almost oriental. There is  wide variety in masks, the serious black ones, the minimal blue, and the various colourful ones, and those motorbike scarves which you pull up over your mouth and nose. The ones that you should not wear entering a bank.

Cross the river, the power station on the right. And then left, up along the bank. 

There is a creaking noise to the left. Two swans have risen out of the water, and are slowly climbing into the sky, gaining height steadily.

They are majestic birds.

And they are the highlight of this walk

sad

 today is a strange day, a day where it is hard to differentiate between self pity and depression Self pity is depressing but this is silly. All this health and so forth fussiness, the doctors pills, measuring of blood pressure every day and expecting it all to be a fault of the measuring device, it is not. It may all be inaccurate but the blood pressure is too high.

Get up, do a few things, and then collapse into bed again. That was after taking the doctors pills.

Upon waking, two hours later, the blood pressure is way down, it is normal.

This shows that the pills work. Or that the cheap measuring device delivers results with a stochastic factor calculated in with the result.

But all that is happening is that it is hard to move, it is hard to do anything. And it is bitterly cold outside.

Self pity, would be great, but there is nothing to be sorry for. Things are actually fine. Still, there is no escaping this feeling of continuous  sadness.

planless

 listen to the snores from the other side of the bed, then there is the cat , it wants to be let out, and the light outside the window is changing slowly to a daybreak grey, away from the dark orange of night. The light has been turned on in the kitchen by the son. He did not bother to close the door. 

In the deserted kitchen, look at the mess. Start the coffee grinder, fill the coffee machine. It is all too much and it could be imagined that all would be well.  It is not, though. Make a cup of coffee, a slice of bread. Return to the bedroom, the wife is up having let the cat in.  The wife goes to bed and the cat falls asleep on the windowsill, it's favourite spot.

Read the news, get dressed. The man who will install the heating in hitherto unheated parts of the house had announced his arrival today.

Wait. He does not turn up. 

Dizzyness now, there is no reason. Lie down on the couch for a moment. The moment turns into an hour.

surreptitious entry

 Snow on the window ledge, flaky and white two centimetres deep. On the left hand side, as seen from the warm inside, there are imprints of cat's paws, quite clearly. A line of prints along the narrow window ledge to the balcony and back. The cat had been on the window ledge and had returned to the balcony again when the window had not been opened. That must have been early today.

Now the cat is curled up on the inside of the window, on the window ledge on some washing deposited there. She is sleeping. She sleeps for a considerable part of the day. Stroke her head. She opens her eyes, stretches her forepaws and yawns, showing a complete set of carnivores teeth. Then she closes her eyes, and settles.

Back to sleep.

But how did she get in?

nao interacion

This day is yet another non event, a sequence of actions that are nothing new and are not satisfying. There is no interaction with other people other than a perfunctory interaction with the wife, and a short greeting from the son. The day is off to a miserable start.

Take those medications, for the heart, for the prostate, little fix-its. Check the blood pressure, that is too high. Then the legs start to freeze and the arms go cold.

What the hell!

Go back to bed

And wake at eleven in the morning, the arms and the legs are recovered.

Put on the dirty clothes for working and go upstairs to look at the walls The ones that need a second coat of plaster.

bs

 not no! time to let the cat, in or out? it is not clear. Out of bed, bad back and now it is five in the morning, the cat is in the bedroom and wants to leave urgently. Satisfy the urgency and go to the bathroom for the usual personal reasons. Dark out, might as well stay up- Work today. Kitchen, fill the empty coffee maker with water and switch it on. Back into the bedroom and put on all fresh clothes, even despite the pandemic still feel the necessity to look respectable.

that is it , creative use of punctuation marks. The cat is back in and makes puncture marks on the knee and then jumps up and starts to purr. Cat grammar.

Read some news drink some coffee take the pills and measure the blood pressure. Hypertense today, perhaps that is the reason for all this bullshit.

Get out to be in work early.

lime

 Pour lime wall dressing from it's thirty kilo bag into a mixing bucket with seven litres of water in it. Pick up the red electric mixer and push it into the mass of water and powder. Press the button and hold the mixer tight. Incline the mixer to the right and to the left so that the mixture is even, so that the water and the white powder are well mixed.

Then leave the mixture to rest awhile.

With a big square plastic brush and a bucket of water wet the walls in the upstairs bathroom. These walls are covered in all kinds of paints based on lime or chalk. 

Put on a pair of rubber gloves. The lime in the wall dressing will eat away the skin on the hands otherwise.

Then start to apply the dressing to the walls with a smoothing trowel.

This nonsense is going to take all day,but afterwards it will be done, and the walls in what will be the sons bathroom will have a uniform coating.

rain maker

A big plait down her back, fair hair, plaits over her forehead too. Eyelashes dark with mascara and a white mask over mouth and nose. That is the new look. The young woman in the bakers shop looks up from behind the plexiglass shield on the counter, inquires as to what is required. The son stammers and asks for a cup of coffee and a cake. Order a buttered pretzel and a cup of coffee to complete the order. All told that is seven Euros, actually a noticeable amount of money for two cups of coffee and bits. 

The coffee is served in paper mugs, because there can be no café service today or any other day during the pandemic. The plan is to take the coffee to go out and enjoy it on one of the park benches in the main street pedestrian zone outside.

Pay, and leave the café.

Once outside, it starts to rain. The park benches are all free and are all sodden. The paper cups are hot, they almost burn the fingers. Walk down the arcades with the son, trying to find a place to sit. He suggests the steps leading up to the entrance to the bank, but these are already occupied. There are some steps down to the street, and the top steps are sheltered. So sit down there , on the ground, the feet in the rain, drinking hot coffee and eating cake and pretzel. It is pleasant to behave as if in a café again, even if the usual comfort is not there. The stone step is cold on the seat of the trousers. But it is satisfying enough to make the best out of a difficult situation.

As soon as the cake is eaten and the coffee drunk, the rain stops. This causes laughter, and the idea is to do it all again, to see if this causes it to rain.

five year (plan)

The loose handle on the bathroom door is maddening. It squeaks and wobbles and does not really work right, the door does not close properly, Find a screwdriver and a pliers. Withdraw the pin that has gone loose, remove the handle, unscrew the rosettes around the handle. Check that there are no holes for screws in the lock, that is a feature of newer locks, but then, who knows? 

Replace the lock, place the rosette over the handle, push the square rod through the lock, put on the other rosette and fit the other  handle. Push the handles together ensuring a tight fit. Then put the pin in. Go downstairs to get the big pipe pliers, and squeeze the pin in flush with the shaft of the handle. Then four screws to hold the rosettes. 

Now the door works again and will continue to work until it breaks again.

This small job has been calling out to be done for the last five years.

five year (plan)

Bureaucracy at the building suppliers.

 leave the house behind, walk down the alley with the son, turn right at the lights and there is the car. There is a small damage on the front right of the car, this is probably where the tow hook of that big car hooked it the other evening. An accident whilst parking, what of it?  The car is old and damaged anyway, all covered in dents. Leaving the parking spot, back out into the traffic. This is always difficult. Then the snout of a red car suddenly pokes out on the right. It is a long sporty Mercedes snout.

Stop. The owner of the snout cannot see. Watch as the snout come out carefully, and then the rest of the vehicle. The man in the drivers seat makes divers signs of gratitude. Pass along the street, and at the first opportunity do a U-turn, and follow the red car. Five hundred metres on park the car. This is right opposite to the bank. Leave the son to mind the car and go in, go up to the automatic teller machine, tap in all the necessary codes and get money in cash. One big green note and ten brown ones, makes up to two hundred. And all this because the building suppliers is taking cash only.

Return to the car, there is the son waiting. Drive on to the builders suppliers, minding the surprisingly heavy traffic. Talk to the son, he has his comments on the traffic. At the building suppliers go on foot to the customer bell that they have put up under an awning. The virus has changed many things. Two young women arrive, open the window beside the awning. Tell them the name, and hand over the money. They both go away, and then come back with a collection docket. Go back to the car, drive ten meters forward, and hand over the docket to a man driving a small forklift vehicle. He drives the vehicle about, rotates it on the spot, and with a clatter pushes the forks under a pallet. The contents of the pallet are the order, already prepared. He raises it up, and the eight bags of plaster are placed in the hatchback of the car.

Now the dockets are complete, all is done and paid for. 

Bureaucracy rules the day.

exhausted

breakfast done, go upstairs and turn on the gas heater. The small bathroom needs to be plastered, at least it's walls do. Collate the necessary tools, and the mixing bucket and go down to the bathroom to get a bucket of water.

four hours later half of the walls are covered in a layer of white lime plaster. It is not perfect, but it will do for some time. And anyway, it is only the first layer. And frustration has set in, there are other jobs which would be preferable.

Tiredness has worked it's way into the bones, the exercise and the effort have taken their toll. The age that has slowly been advancing has sapped the strength away. So lie down in bed and listen to the choir of bees hum between the ears and consider a shower to get rid of the plaster dust in the hair.

no need to have bothered

 the sound of the tablet's waking music travels across the room and ends a nightmare. Get up in the dark and navigate to the bureau on which the tablet is resting. Go to the bathroom and have a pee and a perfunctory wash and return to the bedroom to get dressed

With the small lamp by the bureau on, get dressed, same clothing as yesterday. Make a cup of coffee in the kitchen, a slice of toast, and go back to read the news. Myanmar, now led by group of fat old authoritarians. America, where the jury is filled with the defendant's gang. England and the rest of the United Kingdom with it's own peculiar brand of autocracy. Ireland, as usual whinging about the eternal injustices it feels the need to suffer. Today is a day of bad humour and tiredness.

Last night, back in town after work, could find no parking spot close to home. Cruised the narrow streets, traffic coming the other way too close, hits the left hand rear view mirror. No damage, that was lucky. In the end, a parking place found more than a kilometre from home. Walk back, forgetting to check the parking regulations in that area. It was raining.

This morning,  the location of the car is a worry, after all the space where the car is, which was so absolutely clear of other cars, may have been declared a building site with parking restrictions. It is still earlier than seven in the morning,  resolve to go and collect the car. It is still raining outside, or maybe it is raining again. The car is there, and so are many more. There are no notices restricting parking or anything. The whole early-morning expedition was unwarranted.

So what?

Take the car back, drive around the town because of the mess of one-way streets. The parking spot near home is free now. Park the car, and return home.

Another warm drink, and some reading. Much ado about nothing, the car could have stayed at the other end of town.

digital archaeology.

 masked, pass the pendulum after clocking in to work. Climb the curved stairs around the swaying pendulum, then down the passageway with the small circular windows on both sides. The passageway is the inside of a square tube bridging the space between two buildings,

The office is much as it had been last week. The cleaner has been through, it is clean. A thorough man with his mop and his rag.

Start to sort things, people start to telephone. Most of them want to know as to when retirement starts, well it will not be long anymore. One person want's to chat. Listen and talk, chatter bla bla. All very pleasant.

The boss telephones. The usual unsure unclear fuzzy request to go to his office. This is better than him coming to this office, he is always difficult to get rid of. Enter the office, a grandiose wave to the round table. One sheet of paper to be signed. Talk about things that should be done and things that will have to be done. And do not spare on criticism of those academics believe that their qualifications will automatically inveigle them with leadership abilities, when all they do is want others to clean up the mess that they have made as they proceed to start some other disaster. But never mind, they are all intelligent and qualified people.

just some of them are unpleasant.

Then back, and start to sort and backup and organise the work of the last ten years. Nobody will be interested. Maybe in fifty years some scholar will use the pictures as evidence or illustration of something. A sort of digital archaeology

to the post office twice

 It is shortly after nine and the alley outside the house is empty. It will be no time at all now to take the letter written yesterday to the post office. It is a short note to the pension fund. Behind the church there is the sound of two men shouting at each other. No, they are not shouting. That is just the local accent. There is no aggression involved. Pass through the dead pastor's gate, it is named after him. Turn left to proceed up the under the arches on the one side of the street. At the next road junction stop and wait for a car to finish a turn. The driver does not seem to be sure of where she is, and unsure of where she is going.After a few stopping and starting manoeuvres, and reversing and all kinds of other unpredictable activities she goes on her way, whence she had come. The car's number plates show that she is from a different town.
The post office is empty but for two people at the counter. Walk the length of the building. Give the official the letter and ask him how much that will cost. The official is behind a plastic shield. on account of the virus.
He says eighty cents.
Prices have risen for simple standard letters.
Pay him, and return home. 

Drop by at the accountant's office, she has her papers ready for collection. Talk to her for a while, and then on back upstairs. Make a photocopy of the papers for the own records, then write a short note for the tax accountants, and put the originals into an envelope.

Now it is shortly after ten, the alley outside the house is empty.

And returning from the post office this time remember to drop by the apothecary. The Ibuwhatsit tablets have run out. Repeated attempts to allay the whistle in the ears and the sounds like rushing fluids in the head have failed. This is dissapointing, but the tablets are good for dealing with headaches.