fowl

 It is hard to let go, get up early despite there being no real reason to do so. Make a cup of coffee, as is done almost every day.

And then just drift about the flat, unclear of what needs to be done next. Being retired is not so easy. Not needing to go to work is difficult too.

This will take a while, and then it will become normality.

Walk through the town, and up the old hill road that goes up to  the castle. It is steep, and it becomes narrow as it leaves town behind. Leave the road and take a small footpath through one of those high class residential areas. There is an old wooden house which has been carefully repaired, there is more new wood on the side facing the prevailing weather. It is a piebald house for now.

The little path ends up just by the car park next to the playground. Cross the car park and walk through the playground to the little zoo. Find a free park bench, sit and listen to the cocks and the hens in the bushes here. Feeding the animals has been forbidden, because of the danger of attracting wild birds and rats. People are not just scared of the pandemic, they are frightened of bird diseases too.

archaeology

 This little piggy stayed at home,  all day. This little piggy started to clean up the living room, starting with the one hundred and twenty year old bureau in the corner, a receptory for everything, a happy hunting ground for chewed-up pencils that might just work. Or not, there is no knowing this. Clear the table and empty the top drawer of the bureau, sort the contents. A bucket of soapy water,  clean the top of the bureau and the dusty things resting up there. Then wipe the inside of the drawer too. The water is no the darkest grey, this has not been done for years. Take out the second drawer, and deal likewise with it.

Whilst the drawers are drying off, sort the removed contents, decide what is to go where, what has to be stored elsewhere, and also those things that will no longer be needed. There are so many things in the drawers and alcoves of this one piece of furniture, they all need to be sorted.

In the early afternoon, start to sort the coloured pencils and crayons, all gathered in jam jars, all without points, all in need of sharpening.

And an hour later, they are sorted into ones that are broken, and cannot be sharpened anymore, and those that are in order. Sort the good ones into groups and put a rubber band around each group. The rest goes into the bin. Electronic bits and pieces that are probably no use anymore but that may not yet be thrown out go into the top drawer, school writing supplies into the next.

Now the ten lesser drawers all need to be emptied and cleaned. The contents need to be sorted into some kind of order, one for coloured pencils and another for crayons, yet another for old watches and sunglasses. And so forth.

By the time the writing surface has been wiped clean and folded up, and work has begun on the bottom drawers it is evening.

Clearing up the mess of several years.

There are sets of Lego down there from the sons young childhood. He used to love that.

no time

 half past eleven at night is no time to start a morning blog.

A day that started with a walk in the park and ended in chaos, trying to tidy things in the living room, the task got bigger as it went on, not smaller.

And then the son has a small teenage breakdown, frightening, he is suddenly an aggressive young man claiming that he is not being taken seriously.

The serious thing is that this is actually funny, but letting out the sense of humour would not be appropriate right now.

And then an echo from work, despite retirement there is a picture to be found which seems to have vanished.

There is little time for blogging today, no time for note taking.

sorry

diligent

 Walking in the park, walking down the path from the farmyard zoo. Hear the peacock's call, and take the higher path, the one that would lead to the castle if you were to follow it all the way. Just at the turnoff leading down the hill, look to the left into the old quarry. There is a deer standing there, looking straight out. It stays frozen in this position, looking.

Look back at the small animal with the thin legs and the big haunches. 

A woman with a dog is coming up the path.

Warn her that there is a deer nearby, so she stops and puts her dog on the leash. The spell that seemed to have held the deer in place appear to break, the deer runs up the steep slope out of the old quarry.

The dog stays sitting as commanded by his mistress. Commend the dog on his obedience, and praise the owner for her diligent training.

check

 Upon arriving at the doctor's practice, the doors are closed and people are waiting outside. The practice is late opening, for some reason. Maybe this is because it is Monday.

A woman starts to complain, and there is no better reason for her complaint than that she has to wait for five minutes. Say that at least the weather is warm. She calms down, and says that she supposes that these things happen.

Go into the practice as soon as the doors open, and go to the counter. Present the small plastic card, the so-called health card, and tell the young woman that there was an appointment made months ago. She looks up something on her computer and says that it will be necessary to wait. 

Wait in the waiting room, look at a large photographic print of a lump of salt apparently growing out of the water. Probably the Dead Sea.

Two minutes later, the name is called, walk up the long corridor. An old man bumbles across the way, let him pass. Then enter the room with the open door. A woman dressed in scrubs points out a  bed to sit upon. 

Roll up the shirt, she takes a syringe full of blood, and hands over a paper bag.

Come back next week, with an empty stomach, and they will see if anything is wrong.

mess

 it is Sunday now, the first weekend in freedom no different from any other weekend. But whereas yesterday was spent in torpor and shock, today is the day to start winding up the mess at home. After all, there is time now, plenty of time.

There is all the time in the world.

And plenty of mess too. The son starts with a ledture on how all this talk of tidying is upsetting to him. Explain with a touch of exasperation that living in what amounts to a dirty junkyard upsets his father. The son seems to get the point, and some of the things that are lying around disappear. But then there is an online something or other with his girlfriend, and we all have our priorities, don't you know?

There is no refuge at work any more, the refuge will have to be at home.

Especially with the covid virus being so rampant and everywhere closed

Clean up the hallway, and the second passage too.

zero

 The pills have gone out of order, realise that there are still two of the blood pressure pills in the package that should have been taken. That means that they were not taken, which in turn explains the extraordinary swings in humour and tiredness and all the rest over the past two days.

It was not the just the end of the weekday activity of the last thirty years.

At home, there remains a mess that needs to be cleaned, a kitchen disaster, and ugly living room. 

Neither the wife nor the son can be bothered. And there is no refuge in the office any more, for though it was pointless, it served as an own domain, a refuge.

Stay in bed until midday, the aches and pains and stress of the last days soaking into the bedclothes, like water from a drying sponge

1

 slow drive to work today, know that this will be the last time. Arrive, the office is in a state of disarray, it does not matter. Who would care?

The man from downstairs brings a bottle of whisky. This is a goodbye present, all the help over the years making covers for his band. That is all done now, all finished.

All finished indeed.

There is just one more job to do.

2

 The autobahn aces all driving like fury in the morning light, see the headlamps in the far distance, overtake, and then they are there, close, impatient.

That is a poor way to behave, why, they have eyes in their heads too.

Work is a disjointed affair, there are so many different people who want things and cannot have them.

And exhaustion is setting in, it would be possible to sleep for a week. 

Everyone is minding their own jobs, there will be a return to work next week.

To clear up the business of the exhibition.

3

In the bakers store buy two rolls with salami. And take the car, drive fifty kilometres to work, to sit down there and look into a screen, sorting out the final pictures. And there is still the job to finish, those slime moulds.

Really, there are only two days left to do the work of five days. And one of those days is to be spent acting all sociable, and being sociable. That will be the last day at work, the last day before the holidays, the holidays spent going nowhere because of the pandemic.

The day started quietly enough, working steadily at the computer, adjusting picture files to suit a new profile, the ones for the prints have been done and the one for the book still needs to be done. Suddenly all the files get converted to cmyk and all the shadows close and the highlights burn out. Dodging and burning, just faster.

And now the day is over, once again.

fifty kilometres, and eat the tea of pancakes and fruit.

4

 four days left now, and work is going as if it will never stop. The last job for the physics department is to take pictures of slime moulds.

that fits.

and all day sorting pictures for the retrospective that they want to hold. They must have gone mad. But who cares, let us just enjpy it.

five days left

 and leave the house unaware, having forgotten, this is the final Monday, after forty years of Mondays being the first day of the week to go to work. Now the day is the first day of the last week.

Almost the end of the story.

Nine years ago was the time that the banishment started, the work with the trainees ended, stuck in a small room with an incapable boss trying to control the show all the time, charging into this small room unannounced, and all his pithy henchmen with the same bad manners.

This is a university. This is the government. People are not paid well, but their rights are to be respected. Also their persons. 

And because of that it was all fixed by the internal review, and their psycholigist, and an earnest warning to that non leader of men.

Their psychologist suggest taking notes. One and half years after it all started . Write things down. Keep a diary.

That is what this is. The psychologist did not say to put it online, but here it all is

Nine years, the boss had permission to have a discussion on the weeks work once a week for one hour.

Nine years of that is almost over.

blue morning light

 That cat, at the door of the bedroom, making cat noises, she is in a hurry to leave the room. There is blue tinted light in the window, it is half past six and everyone is asleep. Put the legs out from under the blanket and over the edge of the bed, hook the heels of the feet under the bedstead and lever the body into a vertical position. Lower the feet to the ground. Bend the upper body forward and, thus balanced, stand up. For those of you who want to know, that is the first activity today. The cat is at the door still, looking over her shoulder at this activity. She has ceased to make noises, this can be taken as a sign of approval. Go over to the door, depress the door handle. the cat watching intently. and open the door. The fat cat is out, moving fast, hear the cat flap flop as it swings back. That sound marks the cats passage to the balcony, which is where her sandbox is.

Close the door, go into the kitchen and turn on the coffee machine, and, whilst waiting for it to warm up, make a slice of bread and butter, and put a few slices of salami onto this too. Go out to the cupboard in the hallway and get a cup. Fill the cup with the coffee from the little silver machine that could do with another clean.

Return to the bedroom, sit down in the corner at the little bureau.

That cat, at the door of the bedroom , making cat noises. The light from the window is paler now, and the cat wants to come back in. Get up, open the door, and the cat hurries in, purring, her morning's duty done and now wanting food and probably sleep again after all of this activity.

the last weekend break

 The tailor from Turkey is at his machine  with his wife, they are in the space behind the counter in the small shop in the basemen of the shopping mall. The small shop is beside the supermarket, the upstairs areas in this mall are all reserved for the more glamorous shops that sell clothing made in Indonesia and India and other places far away.

The owner gets up, and takes the fourteen dirty shirts. He runs a cleaning and ironing service, that probably secures part of his income. He takes the name and prints out his fourteen small green tags which will be attached to the shirts so that they will not be lost in the wash. Then he makes his charge, he always takes his money in advance. This is an understandable precaution, he does not want to be left with a heap of clean second hand shirts which nobody wants.

That chore done, go to the supermarket and buy a baguette, a bag of coffee beans, a wedge of brie, two packages of butter and a bar of chocolate. There is no concept of what is needed for the larder at home. and the chocolate is a cheap treat. Still, these are all things that will be used, so that there is no harm in their procurement.

And then walk back through town, back home. This is the last weekend break of the working life.

done 2

 final fridays at work and at nine a telephone call "Do you have time to go onto the roof of the reactor to take a few pictures?"

"Sure, no problem".

Check the camera, battery? card? Ok. Then finish the morning cup of coffee, visit the sanitary facilities, take the id tag,pick up the bag, and walk across the hall, across the plaza, push the Id into the slot at the turnstile and walk around the reactor to it's north side. There is a red cherry picker parked there, with it's boom going all the way right over the roof of the reactor. Farther on, in a small shed, beside the cooling system, the safety officer waits with his mates. He hands over a safety harness, makes sure all the straps are properly tight, and gives a small talk on safety requirements. 

Take the cherry picker all the way to the top of the hight reactor building.

Up there a nest for a hawk has been built.

It has been occupied by pigeons.

Take a picture of a fledgling pigeon in the hawks box.

And then take the pictures of the roof and the view from the roof and of the people on the roof. All of the things that might be needed

This may well be the last job for the reactor in this life.

Done one

 At work, this will be the last job at the printer. Pictures for a crazy artist, a man always saving, he works in a museum. All day, and he works at a computer all night. And he loves to have free printing services, and he is a friend of the boss.

Pick the files, send them to the machine in the basement. Follow the files down, find that they are not there. Was it carelessness or was it the machinery? Try again, look up the log. Both deleted. Unknown file type. Sod it.

Back upstairs, take the files to the other machine, one with an ancient version of Photoshop. Open the files, and close them again, save as tiff type files. Send them down to the basement, they have been accepted by the rip now. Good. Feed the stupid stiff fine art paper into the machine, the roll is dry. So it has a forcible curl. Work it into the printer.

Start printing.

The stiffness of the paper has destroyed the print, the suction was not powerful enough to hold the paper down. A printer head crash.

Try again.

The printer complains. A notice appears saying  that it is to be restarted. Stop the raster image processor. Turn off the printer. Turn it on. It says "call a technician". Turn it off.

Wait.

Turn it on, and it starts booting as normal, as always.  Start the Rip software again. Feed a bit of paper waste into the printer, and start printing, resolve to print all of the prints at once, one after the other, as a long job. That will prevent the end of the paper catching in the print head, as there is no end.

Leave the machine to it's work.

For the very last time.

Crack noise

 Pull into the parking lot, it is close one the right hand side. There is a wooden railing there, it is only millimetres away from the side of the vehicle on the one side and on the other a red car. A typical squeeze, trying to make a parking spot where there is not really one. Reverse just a little bit, and there is a cracking noise from the front. So forward again, and put on the parking brake. Leave the vehicle and walk around to the othere side to see what the crackle was. See that the post holding the wooden railing is leaning outwards, and the bottom of this post, being nearer to the car had caught itself in the right mudgaurd, and on the short, ill thought of reversing manouver had caught and pulled the plastic mudguard away from its retaining clips. Crack Crack noises. Push the plastic thing back, realise that there are many clips and that one may be broken.

Leave it, and go to the office. Think that it will be necessary to get some carpet tape during the day to hold the errant plastic parts down. It is too cold to repair things properly.

In the evening, it is snowing, all cold and wet. Take the roll of fabric tape, tear of a strip, and stick it to the mudguard, pressing firmly. Crack Crack noises. The mudguard is back in place as if nothing had happened at all, sitting as firm as it ever had.

favors

 On arrival at the parking spot at work, realise that the wallet with all the money and the cards is on the table at home beside the laptop. The first thing is to check the petrol gauge, is there enough in the tank to get back home? There is enough, so that is all right.

This will be a day without cups of coffee from the vending machine, and no sugary cakes to go with it. This circumstance is probably healthier anyway.

Go to the office, the little bag with the two small bottles in them. They are schnapps bottles, a token of thanks for the jobs done by the machinists at work, So, walk to the first workshop, chat about copper electrodes and the difficulties involved in machining these metals, and then on over to the nest workshop, and talk about metal for a while. Then return to the office, the office that looks more desolate every day.

In the mail, a stack of files that a friend of the boss wants to have printed. That is the kind of work that would rather be forgotten about, people who think that the world owes them a favour.

future concern

 Wake up and realise that it is Monday. It is the second last Monday of this persons life as an employee, and it is just like any other Monday. Awake early, shower and make coffee, all these things as always, the first day of the week. Read the news on the computer, America is boring, it seems to be turning into a respectable country again, Britain is being plucky and giving the virus a fighting chance and France is in misery. Germany has two men fighting over the replacement of the chancellor, and both trying hard and heading for failure.

Feed the cat some of the cat food that has been resting in a tin since yesterday, in the refrigerator. The cat seems alarmed and backs off. Leave the food be, it is a problem that the wife and the son can solve when they get up in three hours time.

Nearly forget to take the pill against the high blood pressure, the pressure that is climbing steadily. The neck is sore, the right ear is hissing, who knows what on earth is going on. Leave the house to face a  sunny day.

And now, in the evening, the day has turned bloody bitterly cold and snowy.

This weather is typical for April, and there is concern about what will happen when work ends, retirement starts, and there is no pressure to get up and go to work in the morning

rage

Rage will not help

Rage never does help

leave the house, in rage

Go to the bank, at least the power of the purse may be some comfort.

Withdraw a sum of money from the machine, maybe enough cash for the rest of the month.

Walk over the little park by the church, the one that held the Christmas market before the pandemic struck.

Enter the park, and take the steep way up out of the valley.

Through the trees, the park has many springtime couples wandering about in it, families with children.

And at the top of the valley, there is the green lawn, people are out at their picnics. 

Sit down on a bench and read

In an hour, the rage has subsided

The sunlight, the birds making their noises, the young children being their usual clumsy selves.

The rage has gone some, and things around about give pleasure.

again

big numbers

 Saturday journey to work,  a small journey with the son. There is a computer to pick up, a machine that has being discarded. The son wants to run it out of interest, his interest in computers as a thing unto themselves and not for any practical reasons. It is the second of two, the first one was brought home yesterday evening, and subject to study. It was found to be incomplete, the memory chips had been salvaged . But only the memory chips on the easily reachable upper layer. The thought was that those on the lower layer in the machine left in the garbage container might still be there. He would then be able to fire up the eight processor twenty-four core per processor sixty-four gigabyte total machine ram memory with eight hard disks with two hundred and fifty gigabytes each at the front end. Just to see it work, if it works and to understand the technicalities of how it works. The machines are no longer viable for serious research, they have become on object of study themselves.

This is better than hanging about.

Hence the drive to work today. On the journey the conversation dies as the distance increases. At work, drive straight to the salvage area. The machine is still there, so back up the car, open the boot. The son loads up the really heavy double height rack mount unit, and an old monitor that is in there too. Drive to the other side of the building, enter using a key, and collect the mobile 'phone forgotten yesterday. And leave the small bottles of spirits bought for the mechanics in a small shop in Landshut. Earlier in the morning.

The son is tired, he is a teenager and tends to be more active at night. Drive home, a few comments on the traffic, and then the journey is over.

short

 Speak to one man only today after a full day at work.

A loud knock, the university carpenter comes in.

He has a small painted plate and he wants a picture made of the painting, and he wants this picture combined with another painting to make a new picture. He hopes that it can be done before the retirement. 

For that comment, he gets a laugh, it will be unlikely that it will be done after retirement.

Sit all day correcting the pictures, and by evening they are finally done.

All of them.

Leave the carpenters work for Monday. And those prints for the artist too.

that will do

play, don't say

 not knowing why they don't make sense listen to the talk on the radio, a continuous stream of comments so intelligent that the brain smarts trying to understand the esoteric ramblings of a brilliant musician and his interviewer. It is not clear, for the man makes brilliant music and talks about it as if the music needed his talk. It would be better to just listen to the music.

Then the music plays, and arrive at work with water pouring down the face from the eyes, the music does things that the musician just cannot explain. Put on the mask and leave the car standing, and  now there are only fifteen more days to go.

why awake at all

Why awake at four? Is it because of the snore from the other side of the bed? No, this is probably not the reason for the early awakening.  There is just the necessity of a visit to the bathroom, then out to the kitchen and turn on the coffee machine.

Then back to bed and daydream in the dark until five in the morning and then go back into the bathroom to have a shower.

Then make coffee and have three cups. This is probably dangerous, the poor old heart might take umbrage and stop working. That would cause a temporary difficulty for some, but that would be the end of it.

And it still takes a long time to get all the things done and to leave the house.

PLEASE WAIT

 log in
move the mouse over the on-screen button and press the mouse button
the artist's fancy print job is point one percent finished

Then the printer
press the real life button to eject the paper roll
Adjust the spindle for the wider core
install the artists fancy water color like paper
Press the button to feed it into the machine: The printer does not see it.
stupid machine must be blind. (it is)
Take the roll out and hop the end off of the floor a few times so that the paper fits snugly to the end of the spindle
refit the roll, press the button
This time the machine manages.
The warning light for the ink type shows, press the button on the machine to change the ink
CONFIRM THAT
ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CHANGE
CONFIRM
The machine rumbles and gurgles.
Message: Cleaning, 1%
Oh No
PLEASE WAIT
imbecile stupid bit of apparatus:

After ten minutes the printing starts, and the artists sombre fantasies appear on the paper, ink rich and in the highest quality. Perhaps they will sell well for him.

The favour demanded by the bosses wife is done. Her artist friend had better be happy, for he will have to print the things himself in future. The future begins on the 23rd of this month.

care less

For the first time in weeks, go upstairs, and into the storeroom, there is a refrigerator in there, a deep freeze. The door is wide open, this should not be. The three white plastic drawers are visible, and the loose bags of stuff in the bottom space. There is ice forming everywhere around the door, as the machine draws the moisture out of the air in the room and freezes it. Try to close the door, but it will not, because of all the ice. Go downstairs and get a bucket, and tell the son and the wife what has happened. Both deny any responsibility. But surely the door did not remain open on its own.

Go upstairs again to the refrigerator with a metal speatula and the bucket, and break away the growths of ice. Remove the drawers one by one and scratch as much of the excess ice away as possible. The contents of the bottom compartment have gone soft and squishy, they are probably spoilt. Put them into the bucket with the ice flakes. 

Finish scraping away the excess ice and close the door. It closes easily now, and shortly afterwards the compressor on the small deep freezer starts.

Take the bucket downstairs and put the whole lot into the kitchen sink.

Agree that nobody did this deliberately.

It was carelessness.

And it does not matter any more.

Daisy d.

 ... carry on up the hill, it is strange, but there is no running out of breath today. It is a lovely clear day, a bit cold but that does not matter. The son keeps his mask on, he says that it keeps his nose warm. It is not the intended use of the things, but at least it is a positive side effect. At least it is for him.

He is taking pictures of flowers, the small low flowers that grow in early springtime. Small blue blooms and small white ones too. Birds are making a fuss, all with their regular calls, trying to attract mates.

Later on he reaches into his pocket and takes out a few Easter eggs and arranges them beside one of these flowers. He may be making an Easter picture for his girlfriend, that is a nice thought. It may even be true.

Walk on and leave him to his artistic efforts. Sit on a park bench, look over at at he enclosure where the rheas live. The birds are becoming increasingly unafraid, they take the visitors coats in their beaks in the hope that they are edible. The birds have very long eyelashes, this makes them look a bit like a cartoon, like a humorous drawing. A kind of long legged daisy duck

elastic failure

 Today has turned  cold again, pushing spring away into the future. It is the Saturday before Easter Sunday, there are young couples out on the streets braving the cold, perhaps some of them are glad of their masks, a sort of protection from the cold air. Take the climb up through the park, the one on the flanks of the valley holding the town and the river. Three young women come down the path, bright and cheerful, one dressed for spring and one for winter and one with a coat thrown over whatever she is wearing. The spring one seems to be in a hurry. 

Take the corner leading over to the path that goes up over the Devil's Bridge, the path is not so steep here. Being really unfit, there is no need to overdo things.

Then the elastic band in the underpants gives away, and they slip down, this is really uncomfortable, but decide that it is to be lived with, perhaps it will be possible to surreptitiously pull the stupid pants up further up the path.

But then it starts to rain, and that is enough to cause a change of plan, to go back down through the town and to return home.

It was all no fun anyhow.

not today

too tired to think

 The two weekends spent at work demand their compensation today, it is just pure tiredness. A strange alarm sounds, steadily working its way into the mind with a repetitive jingle. It is in the hall, all alone forgotten by somebody, set on an old android tablet. Touch the button at the top of the tablet and then touch the screen on the writing that say stop.

It stops.

And then go in and take the blood pressure pill and collapse back to bed again. It is not fair to be so tired. But it is not about fairness,  it is just exhaustion.

At least easter is free, and it is free of chocolate eggs too this year.

foolery

 ...later still this morning, why, it is the first of April, a day of foolery. 

The cat doesn't care, she checks the knees, puts out the claws and heaves herself up onto those warm human knees. Just the same procedures every day. The coffee is okay.

And there is no bread there that is anyway near fresh, just petrified ancient baker shop dried out reheat stuff.

Something to chew on, it is good that the teeth have been fixed or the pain would be unbearable.

And then head out to the car, this is the last time before the last Easter break from work