cat habits

Escape from sleep, and it is dark. Get up by hooking the heels under the bed and lever the torso into a vertical position. It is dark because summer time started last weekend and now an hour has gone. Get up and start to look for the cat in the dark, She had been missing last night, and there was no knowing whether she had turned up or not. Go into the sitting room, there on the couch is  a cat shape, a lighter spot or maybe just some kind of cotrast. Reach down and her head is there, feel the skull bone through the fur. Scratch her head twice, glad that she is there. Turn on the coffee machine on the way back to the bedroom,

Go to the shower and wash, wash away the stickiness of sleep. And then dress for the day. Black jeans, black and white striped linen shirt socks and black shoes. Not forgetting those underpants, of course.

Return to the bedroom after making a cup of coffee and cutting a slice of bread and then buttering it.

Sit at the desk, look at the computer for news.

The cat jumps onto the knees, she wants her morning fondling. She lets her front paws hang over the edge, her chin resting on her humans thigh. Later, she rolls over, then curls up and purrs.

piano

 The drift to retirement is continuing, it is only three weeks away now that the final holidays will start, that will be the end of regular employment. Laziness is already setting in, there is no need to go to work early any more. Doze on, despite being awake at six. 

Efforts have been made to tidy up the kitchen, there has been a moderate success. But is is still a long way to go. Start the coffee machine, and a slice of breakfast toast. There is no need to take a shower today, being too late and too lazy. The cat jumps onto the knees, the seven in the morning alarm sounds,  put on the jacket, pick up the personal camera, and leave for the sunny street. The rest of the family is sleeping, but for the cat.

The car is there where it was left yesterday, turn it on, and the disc player says good morning with Glen Gould.

As it had said good night yesterday.

appointment.

 .... everything is so sordid, the son has not bothered to fit the dishwasher as he had promised and there are dirty dishes everywhere, dirt on the floor and heaps of things lying about. The excuse is that there is nowhere to put them. But that is less than half the story.

Empty the grounds out of the coffee machine, let them down the plughole. This is bad, because it leads to blockages eventually, the proper waste container is overflowing full and there is no wish to bring it out the back now, half asleep and clumsy.

Take a shower and have a shave.

Then get dressed, today there is a dentist's appointment. A big root job,  supposedly. Put out all the things that will be needed, the glasses, the phone and all.

A cup of coffee and a slice of toast, at the writing desk. There is no wish to go into the stale air of the living room, but let the cat in. 

The air in there does not disturb her.

Take the container full of biodegradable waste out to the long balcony, and empty it there. Rinse it out under the tap on the return to the kitchen, and put a sheet of kitchen paper towel on the bottom so that the coffee grounds do not stick.

A second cup of coffee, and then out to the dentist.

pictures, nothing to write about.

 The autobahn on Sunday is nice. During the whole journey to work there are no more than twenty other cars. It is very peaceful, listen to Glen Gould playing Bach.

And all day at work sorting pictures, lose hope of finding a sensible result.

Still and all, sort and sort and listen to the radio.This will take all day today, that is Sunday gone. Work is deserted, this is ideal for concentrating on the work at hand, it would not be possible otherwise.

And now it is evening, five hundred pictures cut down to one hundred, and graded.

So much for a days work.

others mess

 The window light is fading from the dark that was the night. In other words, it is getting lighter. Get up, go to the kitchen, make a coffee before taking a shower. The kitchen is a disaster area, shopping not tidied away, bits and pieces left on the floor why bother? Who can complain of not having enough workspace if you never tidy up? Turn on the coffee machine and go to take a shower, and when that is done return to the bedroom. Put on underpants and socks, then sit down. The cat gallops over, and puts out its paws onto the knees. She seems to know the difference between skin and cloth, for she does not put out her claws. She is confused. Knees are usually covered in denim at this time, ready for her to clamber up. She seems to know that digging her claws into bare skin for purchase is not a good idea. So she wanders away again. Get up, put on the trousers and  make a cup of coffee. Bring it back to the desk, and sit down. The cat gallops over, jumps up onto the window ledge, checks the leg covering,  and steps down onto the knees.

For that she gets her head petted.

Decide that today will not be spent at home doing up the kitchen. Why? Because it would have to be tidied  first, and that would take a few hours, going by the state of the place. And there are all the pictures that need to be sorted before retirement, before the end of work as it has been known hitherto.

So when the cat has jumped down, put on the jacket, put the mask in the pocket, and leave the house.

3 speed

 The first strange thing was a white van approaching at high speed driving on his left. Perhaps this is very British, but it was inappropriate considering the current location. Keep as far to the right as possible, and avoid a collision.  The man probably had an urgent delivery and felt that he had to overtake the truck.

The second strange thing happened on the Autobahn, check the mirror and see a Mercedes, tiny in the distance, rushing along the hard shoulder. The driver had just overtaken the other traffic on the right and has nearly lost control of his speeding car. See the star on the front of his car grow in the rear view mirror, as he rushes down the left hand lane now. Change to the right hand lane as soon as the truck on the right is overtaken and watch 

The man swerve away into the distance.

Drive on, calm down.

Then the third strange thing: A sudden crash, a shock, and that was the shockwave of a big white SUV by BMW passing with only centimeters to spare, the driver so fast that he did not dare drive near the central reservation of the autobahn. 

Life is dangerous in traffic, but three on one day, and that was just on the way to work.

cut

 Awaken late, it is half past six, and it is light outside. Today is the day of the appointment at the barbers, at half past eight in the morning, so there is time. Take a shower, and on the way back to the bedroom hear the cat calling plaintively from the hallway. She was locked out yesterday.

Let her in, get dressed, and start to look at the news. Realise that the stubble has grown, decide that that should be got rid of before the visit to the barber. Go back into the bathroom, put the shaving cream onto the face, and shave off all those hairs that have been growing for the last two days.

And then back and make coffee. Since the dishwasher failed the chaos in the kitchen has got worse, it is a sordid mess of unwashed dishes now. The coffee grinder is gunged up, take the time to clear it. When that is done, and a slice of buttered toast made up, take a cup of fresh coffee and a slice of toast back into the bedroom, and read a bit more. The British are suffering from delusions of grandeur, they seem to believe that the rest of the world owes them a living. Well, let them believe, they will see if that debt can be collected or not.

Say good morning to the son, he and his schoolmates are doing their schoolwork at night now, it suits them better. They may as well use the lockdown for what it is worth.

And then leave the building for the sunny street, it is warm and bright, and go on up the road to the barbers. This will be the end of the shaggy-haired lockdown monster.

10%

 Distressing, there is nothing to talk about, nothing appears to have happened that is worth remembering. Go through the thousands of pictures for a second time, try to reduce the quantity from seven  hundred to seventy. 

Ten percent survival. And then cut that in half. And then see if that all still makes sense.  An exhibition for leaving the job, the end of a nondescript career as state employee working for a university. All those academics, all better at something. But it is a nice way to say goodbye, or at least, it is a nice thought.

But it is sad day and there is nothing to talk about. All the cafeterias are closed, and all the people are hiding their grimace behind their masks.

blue

The second picture of the beer garden bakery produce was accepted, the message came by mail and a sample was brought along with it. So that was all, and that is a relief. Meanwhile, another job in the morning, the slime moulds have returned. Take the plastic tube and all the camera things to the mould laboratory and start to set up there.

With the light diffusing through the agar of the mould culture, take a picture of the yellow strands. For whatever reason, the clear agar turns blue in the pictures. When the light from the flashhead diffuses in the agar, and no light comes through directly, the result is a deep blue.

It is kind of pretty.

Yellow slimy strands on a blue background. A surreal picture. And those moulds move. Take a picture, two minutes later another picture and the creeps have grown and shifted. They are hunting for food all the time. After an hour pack up, there are enough pictures now to continue with. In the office, load the pictures into the mac, and see what is to be done about the blue agar.

Then send of the pictures.

The reply comes back

That blue is incredible! wow! Wonderful.

Oh well, If you all say so.

mind change

 The same as yesterday, look at pictures all day, pick the better ones, ignore those that are no good. Start in the morning after a run on the busy Monday Autobahn, people in a hurry to get to work, showing that they have a faster car.

The same old story, stuck two years ago, there was a lot of work then, in 2019. And so many pictures, so many exposures one after the next.

Then a phone call, about those Saturday pictures. They are all very nice, but they have changed their minds. 

So pack the camera and go to the reactor's office building and talk and set up for another picture. Just five beerhall hearts in a heap, each one decorated with that logo. What a waste of time. Those hearts are over a year old now, and they have gone beyond the date printed upon them. They are inedible, if you remove the plastic shrink wrap the icing falls off.

What a waste of time, taking pictures of stale biscuits six months after the celebration.

But there is no help for it. They want that picture, well, they may as well have it.

ten years to go

A day sorting pictures, a car ride in the morning on the empty Autobahn. Work is deserted, there is nobody there. The parking place is completely empty at eight in the morning, a thing not seen before, not in the last thirty years.

In total silence, sort through all the pictures taken during the last twenty years for the reactor. There are so many, and so many are just awful. They want a retrospective of twenty years work, this is nice of them, very kind indeed, and an honour too. But the work involved in leaving through thousands of pictures, hundreds of near repeats, checking the sharpness, making decisions takes all day.

Now it is four in the afternoon, and the eyes hurt and the head hurts more. There are still about ten years of pictures left, this will take an age now.

But not today.

Write this.

This was a trying Sunday so far.

And tomorrow will be a difficult Monday.

fake

 Outside the office the sky clears, and it is early afternoon, so everything is in order to take the pictures of a beer mug, a bottle with beer in it and a heartshaped pastry decorated with icing. This was a present which the reactor had given to all of it's guests at the opening of a large new building last year. The beer bottle and the beer mug are both decorated with the new logo of the institute. This depicts the new building and the iconic dome of the old reactor. A picture of the buildings with the presents in the foreground is needed to illustrate the cover of the annual report of the reactor users.

The weather is cold, it has just been snowing heavily. The snow does not rest on the ground, it melts away. Take the equipment and two sets of presents out of the office and over to the reactor turnstile, take all the stuff into the compound and go over to the place selected for the picture. Set up the small tripod with the plate on top, and the tripod for the camera. Then realise that the ID card is missing. Rush back to the turnstile, the ID card is there on the ground where it had fallen.

Carefully cover the metal surface on the tripod table with a paper table cloth. Fix it to the vertical pillar of the tripod with a cable binder. Put the beer bottle and the glass beer jug on the surface. A single careless motion, knock the bottle over and it drops onto the pavement and shatters. The smell of German stout is just like Guiness, it reminds me of an Irish public house. Take the second bottle and place it on the ground next to the camera bag. There are only two bottles, if this happens again the picture will have to be taken next week. Next, try to remove the transparent plastic foil wrap around the heart shaped pastry. The icing of this pastry has become so brittle that it comes off with the wrapper.

Take the second heart shaped pastry, and decide to leave the wrapper on this one. Take a bite out of the other pastry, the one with the broken icing. The pastry is so hard that it would break your teeth. And it tastes old and horrible. It should have been left in it's wrapping. Arange everything on the little platform and take the shot. Start to move the things about, for a different view. Then, the light goes, and it starts to snow again. Put the lid on the camera, cover the presents, and wait. A security person comes over and wants to know what this is for and demands an ID. Then he walks off again.

Wait untill the snow is gone, and the clouds have moved aside to show a blue sky. The picture will look like summer. Even though it is so cold and windy.

hope

 Start the day with the cat on the knees, she is turning regular. Perhaps she likes having her head scratched. She always looks before she jumps, it is almost as if she expects another cat to be there. Not that she would countenance having any competition in the house.

Today is the day that photos are to be made of a building and there is nothing but snow, and short clear spells. This will not get better, regardless of the deadline that is to be met. And a picture of a beer bottle in front of a white building with a grey sky behind it is just not nice. A waste of time.

But there will always be hope,

but now it is dark and there is no hope.

it should not be the cold

Why is sleep better during this cold weather? It is six thirty in the morning and :
awake refreshed
This should not be, experience has not shown this for the past years:
a perversion of facts, a distortion of experience, :

a welcome change, for once:
now the only hope is that it is not the weather but a general improvement which will carry on into the summer:

Wake up, go for a shower, make coffee, the cat calls from outside the room's door:

Let her in, she jumps up onto the knees and purrs, lies down and lets her chin hang over the edge.

The cat is happier too:

maybe there is something in the air

confusion

 The computer at work had to work hard overnight to make sense of the hundreds of thousands of individual images on the hard disc in the server farm. Go to the computer and turn on the screen, see that the machine had been working untill early in the morning. See an impressive array of jumbled images on the screen, there is nothing there to say which picture came from where. Pictures repeat, raw jpeg tiff and a few png, this is just not what was meant to be. Search for early scenes and events, see that they have gone. 

What!

What?

This cannot be, this may not be. Did the program that makes catalogs delete them or move them or put them somewhere that they should not be? They are not there, they are not on the local disc, the files found and numbered yesterday have gone away, so it seem.

Leave the office again complete with the mask and go to the coffee vending machine. An early coffee, and a packaged apple tart should help.

Perhaps there is a backup, somewhere in the depths of the server farm, a raid system, a time machine to repair past faults.

Ring the boss to ask, he is in his home office, not to be reached, directly, leave a message.

Look at the file structure carefully, it is all one folder with loads of folders inside holding the individual jobs. There is one new folder. It is called "New Folder With Items".

This was not there before. Take a look inside.

That is where those files hide. Working late last night, it must have been confusion.

bin

 Out in the alley in front of the house, and there are black bins in front of each and every house, but not in front of the family's house. That is bad, this is the second time that this has happened and the bin is full. The son had been told to take the bin out last night, but he didn't. There were other things of concern for him. Return to the red painted wooden entrance door and unlock it with the blue tag on the keyring. Take the dirty black bin out and put it in by the left hand side of the door, the side that remains shut except for those times  that the trailer has to be taken out.

Remember where the car is, it is to the left, not in front of the polis station today. It has a coating of soggy snow.

Remove that, and go to work

Work was ten hours all together today. 

Too much after a life of ease during the pandemic. There will be no soggy snow on the car today.

Just drive home.

wounded bird

 A pigeon is on the sidewalk, it just sits there. 
Approach, it does not fly away. 
It turns around and attempts to run.

See that it's back has been mauled, the unfortunate bird probably had trouble with a falcon. Those birds of prey have returned to the church spire, they keep the pigeon's down. Leave the unfortunate pigeon be, it will probably not live for very much longer. Further on, by the church, there are the remains of another pigeon, it is half eaten. It will not go anywhere.

Up the stairs in the old cinema building, up to the dentist's practice in the top floor. The woman there is waiting, she just points to the waiting room. Wait, until called.

The dentist takes a look, and then she makes a picture, and then she injects aneasthetic. Five minutes later, she and her assistant are both fighting to get the old crown off and to clean out the root canal. She pushes her needle in to the point where it starts to hurt again. Shake and shiver whilst lying in the dentist's chair, never dare to close the mouth or to shout. There are so many needles and drills and mirrors in the mouth, that would go down badly.

feline

 The pain has gone and sleep is sound as the alarm plays it's melody, test the sore area with the tongue and discover that all is not well. The slightest pressure is painful, closing the jaw suddenly is not a good idea.

The cat is well again too, except that she has stolen a fatty bit of German "leberwurst" the night before. She takes one look at her just arisen purveyor of cat food and starts to make those gulping noises that cats do when they are about to vomit. Hurry over with a sheet of paper wipe and place it under her chin.

The obliging animal vomits into the paper, making the whole sad affair so much easier to clean up.  

But that is all not unhealthy, her coughing and spluttering has gone, and she is active and eating, getting involved in gluttony again.

Make a cup of coffee, and feel the slow onslaught of the days torpid depression, the things that only an external kick will allow to dissipate.

Maladent

 The alarm on the mobile phone has sounded, get up and shut it up. It is cold and sleep has not been good. Go to the bathroom for a the morning's ablutions and afterwards pick up the toothbrush and the toothpaste and brush the teeth. Wash the face and look into the mirror. The face is  horrible, all hairy and unshaven.The top of the head is covered in a wild mop of white hair, the barbers's appointment will be in two weeks time. Take some shaving cream and rub it into the face until it lathers, and then take up the razor. Initially it scratches as it is drawn across the face, rinse it in the warm water in the washbasin and the scratching lessens. A new blade will be needed. The tiles underfoot are cold and nasty. Clear all the white foamy soap away with the razor.

The tooth is sore, upper left, number two, and the gum too, and the cheek under the eye is numb. In the mirror see that the face is swollen on that side.

The appointment with the dentist was made for Monday morning, let us hope that she does not deny the existence of a problem yet again.

Return to the bedroom feeling sick, really unwell, with the numb face and the sore spot on the gums

fears

Maybe it is better to just relax an to stay quiet, to not respond to the dizzy spells and the coldness in the appendages. It is winter after all, there is no way that warmth and comfort can be induced to stay inside this old house. But the permanent fear and depression, keeping to one place in the house, living in a corner is surely a cause for concern. The pains in the neck, and the back, the whistling in the head, especially on the right, the sore teeth, especially the upper left, are all nasty. The permanent necessity to go the bathroom and all the bits and pieces are all getting to be to much. Perhaps it is just the too much concern with the self, too much introspection. All of the going to work will be gone soon, and there is nothing there that will fill the permanent vacuum, the harbinger of which is the anti virus lockdown.

fall to sleep

Today is a day of home office and the will to anything at all is just not present. Not in the least, not at all, it is so hidden that the wish to do constructive things appears unnatural. Get up make coffee, try to change the sensation but it will not go away. Take the pills, register that the toothache has returned. This was to have been a constructive day, and it has started badly.

Take a blood pressure reading. One hundred and thirteen over eightyfive is the result of that, and that is low. Still, there is nothing to be done about it, and it is supposed to be better than too high. Still, put on the clothes.

Go out to lie down on the couch for a moment, little knowing that it will be midday before consciousness returns.

last picture

 One camera bag over the shoulder, and a tripod in it's bag there too. A case with camera equipment in the right hand and a stepladder in the left hand. Cross the big modernist hallway in the university building that had been built in the fifties of the last century. Kick the glass fire door with the left foot so that it will open. Rush through before it swings closed again. Then the outside door, deal with that using the same procedure again. Now cross the open space, the concrete terrace, down the stone stairway (granite) and cross the tarmac paved forecourt to the small aluminium staircase that leads to the side entrance to the reactor compound. The compound is enclosed by a three metre high fence that is topped with barbed wire.

At the turnstile remove the identity card from the plastic holder after putting down the case. Pass the card through the card reader, the locking mechanism gives a happy beep and the lock is released. Pick up the case again, and with a great jangling from the ladder against the metal fencing, pass the turnstile, barely fitting with all the gear. Walk on, then go over and hide the stepladder behind a small shed containing monitoring equipment. Later on, there is a group photo to make in front of the reactor building, and the ladder will be needed then. Go on to the main entrance, and - There is a big glass revolving door. Put away the silly idea of attempting to take it at a run, carefully gather all the bags and the case and go through slowly. Get through safely without damaging anything, and leave all the equipment on the floor beside a statue of Professor Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, perhaps he will keep an bronze eye upon the stuff.

Go back outside to talk to the press secretary, she has finished her phone call now. Discuss the job, and there are three changes.

Then the question: "Why did you hide a ladder behind that shed?"

The answer is that  two pictures are scheduled at much the same time, and there will be no time to rush from the first floor, down the stairs and across the plaza to set up for the outdoor group.

The thought occurs that this will be the last picture ever here.

After more than twenty years, a picture of the university president and the directors of the reactor all standing one and half metres apart because of the virus, will be the last one. Maybe, unless they think of something else.

large vehicle

 having left the house in the morning, think of nothing, just think of moving on, to find the car. It is there where it was left yesterday evening, somewhere opposite that church at the end of the park. The melody starts on the mobile phone, it is seven in the morning. The melody only starts as a reminder, in case the god of sleep decides to put in overtime. Reach into the breast pocket, take out the phone and turn the alarm off.

The car is a long way down the park, actually past the church. Press the button on the key, and see the lights blink. Get in, and a short blast from the windscreen wash system clears away the coating of hoar frost on the window.  There is a car in the mirror now rushing along. It stops alongside, and the driver attempts to park in the space behind. That space is free, but it is not large.

It takes a while for the other driver to notice that there is someone in the car that past which he is trying to manoeuvre. A short beep on the horn does it's part.

Back the car a few metres, and then leave the park space behind.

The man now has two empty spaces to park in.

In the mirror, see that he is still having difficulties.

Perhaps he should buy a smaller car.  

gawping

 Beside the autobahn, down at the bottom of the embankment, there is  a tank truck on it's right hand side. It is just lying there, on  it's side with the left door open to the sky. There are no police and nobody there now any more, but the traffic has slowed down to a crawl, they all have to stare and look and gawp, there is no blood or anything, just a tarpaulin  with two large plastic containers on it. Perhaps to drain  diesel, who knows. In the rear view mirror, far back along the hundreds of slow moving cars the orange beacons of a heavy duty wrecking truck. The truck that is on its side is  a tank truck, an articulated vehicle. After the accident the traffic starts to flow normally again, the usual madcap cutting in and daring overtaking, forcing others to brake, all until something breaks.

Work will be strange today, there is a computer to repair and a slime mould to take pictures of. Drive on slowly, there is no haste any more.

mock flamingo

There is no joy in staying at home any more, and yet that is what will be demanded as of the end of next month. Six weeks, and then that will be it. Out of work. Life will have to be redefined as a pensioner.

In the park today watch the old people and the younger ones, and the families with their children. The old ones, the old age pensioners, are just dragging along. The children are enjoying life, as they should.

A boy calls the rheas in the enclosure flamingos. Point out to him that they are actually known as Nandus, but he just says that they look like flamingos. 

Apart from the beaks, the wings, the colouring and the legs, and the inability to fly, he probably has a point. Who cares about details. His mother smiles. Later on she will run up and say" What were those birds called again?"

After the long climb up the hill, rest sitting on a park bench and allow the pulse rate to subside and the breath to calm. A little girl in a bright winter outfit rushes by and smiles. Say hello, and let her pass. Five minutes later, she rushes by again, pauses to say hello and smile and runs on. The father of the girl is following her, he smiles and says that he has to do another circuit, she demands it.

And then take a walk doen to the bottom of the hill, back to the town.

Requiescat in pace

 There are people out, enjoying the bright sun and dressed warm against the cold air. The park by the Saint Jodok's church has a few people wandering about, some of them with their dogs. The dog owners have their little plastic bags ready, to absorb the dog turds as and when produced. Years ago, somebody had put out poisoned bits of sausage, in those days before plastic bags for dogshit became mandatory. That was nasty then, but these things don't happen any more.

Still, people are careful.

There are people sitting in front of the church, leaning against the brick wall, This has managed to absorb some of the heat radiated by the sun, and it seems to be nice to lean against it.

There are gravestones on the wall of the church, some of them with very nice lettering carved into them. They are all that is left of the cemetery which had been relocated years ago. Instead of being misused as rubble, examples where kept and mounted in the walls of the church. 

Some had always been in the walls of the church.

Take a picture of a square gravestone, standing on it's corner like a diamond shape in the brick wall.

slime

 today is the day to go to work to make pictures of slime mould and to hand over some prints to a professor. 

On the drive in to work the frame of the glasses gets caught in an inside pocket, and is broken. That is a pity, but that is how things go, things break and are then broken. A visit to the optocians will help, they are always so helpful.

And work is all it's usual dreariness, the place of work anyway. Sit at the same table, the telephone rings, there are some rolls of paper to be collected. They are the specialist artist paper, the heavy stuff.

And at nine, the professor who studies the physics of slime moulds arrives, explains, and later in her laboratory shows off the little treasures in their culture dishes. The moulds feed on oats, and they leave yellow trails in the jelly of the culture dishes. They are delightful little creatures, with all there little tubes and pseudo whateveryoumay thinkthatthey are things.  They are pale yellow in the blue jelly.

The professor says that they are to be disposed of in the house waste after having been photographed.

Feel sorry for them, lil' slimy creatures.

adhesive layer

 laziness is like a sticky substance, one that adheres to the bedclothes and to the surfaces of chairs, that strengthens its adhesive qualities with the warmth of blankets and the heat emanating from radiators. It is now ten thirty in the morning and the recovery from yesterdays work and the ensuing depression has caused this laziness. The bed feels the best place to be, and when that is done the seat at the table by the radiator is the place of choice.

The planned excursion in the park to get the blood pressure going is pushed ahead for a few hours, fitness is work. Take the small candies artin or whatever it is called and the capsule, the two pills that the two doctors ordered.

For the heart and for the bladder functons, all those details, some help but nothing spectacular. There is nothing that will drive the sticky layer of laziness that has settled over the mind.

pictures in the park

 Work from home, look at the computer, try to sort the pictures taken over the previous years. It is not a job that needs doing, why nobody will look at the news that is no news anymore at any time in the future. Still, it is a home office occupation. Two months more, and then regular work for regular money will be done, and all that is left is regular money.

Not as much as before, but not as bad as nothing.

And it is depressing, that there is nothing to replace work with,

Except for taking pictures in the park.

nowt

 work in place has been cut down to one or two days a week.

That means a ten hour day

up to the limit

It is seven in the evening

counting breaks, that makes ten hours.

The breaks that could not be taken

That is it

it is not healthy

never mind the virus

today, so pissed off there is nothing to say

nowt

short

 Peacocks retire into treetops to roost at night, and in the morning at eight they had not yet  descended. The one big bird is spreading his feathers in the bare treetop, more a matter of maintenance and preening than of display.

Every now and then, one of the two throws back his head and calls. An incredibly lout call.

Wait, maybe they will fly down, that would be a rare snapshot, a peacock in flight.

But the birds just stay up there, preening and calling.

And that is the highlight of today's walk in the park.