So, lockdown continues (well for sane people it does, but they appear to be in the minority in this country), and so does working from home. It seems somewhat ironic to be writing about working from home when I’m on a day off. It seemed a great idea at the time to book the day before and day after Easter off as leave to extend it to a six-day weekend. That was before all the madness started, and it’s now an extended break of looking at places we can’t go and visit.
I’m typing this up on my own laptop, sat in the place I sit when I am working from home. After the third week of it I can safely say, I’m still not a fan. I doubt I’ll ever be a fan. It’s not the isolation I miss, not having to see people on a daily basis is great, if only I didn’t have to speak to them or communicate in any way at all it would be perfect. It’s the environment. It’s home, and no matter how you try and dress that up, it’s never going to change.
I find myself absently looking out over the back garden and to the park beyond. One day last week I spent an inordinate amount of time watching a tree surgeon coppicing a tree in the park. Like a monkey he moved from branch to branch wielding his chainsaw. The bottom of the back garden has seen various landscape changes. One by one the holes in the fences caused by February’s storms and the crazy dog’s attentions have been filled, with the last hole plugged last weekend as the neighbour put up their panel that had blown down. It’s now safe to let the dog out unsupervised.
I have been noticing what the cat does as well. Being doorman to the furry pest I get to see him make his way down the garden to escape to freedom. He has a routine. He jumps over the low side hanging stem of the rose bush at the top of the path. He jumps rather than go around it as that means going onto the grass. When he gets to the end of the path he stops and looks around for a bit, then it’s a leisurely jog down to the bottom of the garden to sit on the stump of the tree that was cut down a couple of years ago. He sits there contemplating whether to leave the property. Then he turns and has a look down the side of the shed; comes around it and looks at the mess of a fence covered by chicken wire where the dog has been trying to get into next door to eat the bread they leave for the birds. He then turns and scratches a discarded patio tile. After sharpening his claws, he makes a dash across the garden and hides under the bush halfway down the other fence. And finally, he goes back to the bottom of the garden and leaves.
He has been a poor confused cat the last couple of weeks though, as with the fences being mended his open access to the park beyond has been cut off, and the poor old fella has seen every walk out route become blocked. He now has to jump up the fence to get out. As it isn’t fully secured it wobbles a bit as he does so before he jumps back down on the other side to freedom. Fortunately, the dog hasn’t figured out how wobbly the gate panel is, as if he rushed it, he could easily knock it over.
Inside the house the layout has changed as well, Helen is no longer working from the kitchen table. We finally got around to putting up the wall mounted desk in the spare bedroom. It had only taken two years between buying it and putting it up. Mainly because I’m a cack handed danger when it comes to DIY, and I’ve been putting off having to drill holes in a wall and attach something to it. The desk that came out of the box bore no resemblance to the one we thought we had bought, and it was heavier than remembered. The desk is in place, and Helen is using it quite happily, but it doesn’t stay plush to the wall, and if it were not for the T support it may well come away from the wall. There will be no way it would support my usual work pose of heavily laden elbows on it holding my head in my hands at the idiocy appearing on my screen.
The commute to work gets no easier. I have taken to managing to avoid the sudden warm downpour every morning on the way downstairs, it has dwindled down to two or three times during the working week. The beard has grown quite wild and is getting to Grizzly Adams proportions. It will have to be hacked off if necessary before it gets to full on hipster style. My jeans are looking at me forlornly each morning as if to say, “give us a break – you’re wearing us out with this everyday malarkey”. Which is fair considering they are now in use seven days a week instead of just three. I feel as if I am well on the way to a full-on hobo look. I think the next step will be the acquiring of a shopping trolley, and the change in storing clothes in drawers to a collection of mismatched carrier bags.
Roll on (not the deodorant mind you, that’s totally against hobo rules) a return to a normal working environment, where it actually feels like I’m at work and I can concentrate on work and I can see the interruptions ambush coming, instead of skype surprising me. (Fortunately for everyone concerned the camera is covered.)
At least I know that on my own laptop typing this I can’t get interrupted by the biggest pest know to man (and woman).
What now Katya?