Thursday 24th September 2020

At 12:00 midday, the Chancellor announced that the furlough scheme was coming to an end.

Less than two hours later Jools had a call saying she was being offered the chance to go back to work, on the shop floor as a machine operator, working 12 hour shift 4 nights a week.

She accepted, so from Monday we will have a new life: me working days, Jools working nights. My dinner will be her breakfast, and my breakfast her supper. We might have three hours together.

We have no idea how long this is for, or with Brexit coming up in just over three months what happens then, if we get that far.

But for the time being we have this new normal, the opposite it was back in 2009 when I worked nights at the box factory, and Jools worked days. I drove home in the morning when we talked for half an hour until she went to work at the same place.

At least I have no commute, and next week, no trip to Hampshire or the Isle of Wigt to take me from home. And that is how it might be until Christmas or beyond. There is the chance of trips to Seaton and Invergordon, and these might well happen, but will be done when safe to do so, and travelling in the case of Invergordon in a 13 hours drive in one day.

So we will see what the new week brings, but before then we have five days together.

Which is nice.

Thursday is, well, Thursday. Bin day.

And that is about it. And work.

With the warm weather a thing of the previous week, and waves of cloud and rain sweeping in from the west, there was very little chance to take something new for the shot of the day.

That I have kept the shot of the day through the lockkdown and summer, and now as we are poised to be locked down once again, limited as to who and how many people we can and can't meet, the subjects might get a bit repetitive.

But we shall see.

Another day goes by and I don't go on the new cross tainer. I know I should, and I say I will start on Monday. There is no excuse, really.

But still I laze around the house once Jools has gone for a walk. I make breakfast as I listen to a podcast, prepare the coffee.

The usual

There isn't much to report of the morning; work for me, and chores for Jools.

I am in a three hour meeting about audits when Jools makes me marmalade on toast and a brew before she goes out to Thanet on a plant hunt. It was while she was out that she got the call from work about the night shift job.

Not much more to say, really.

She returns home just before one and over the Channel, over Cap Gris Nez, in fact, a thunderstorm rumbles, turning the sky to the south black as night, while in the foreground the low sun lights up the garden.

It is the way.

I have to be honest, my friends, the world is a grim place right now, I see not much to give us hope of better days ahead, either here in UK or in the US where a similar kind of madness stalks the streets, though theirs is dressed in faux camoflague gear and armed with automatic weapons. I dispair of common sense and grown ups taking charge, instead I see years more chaos, our rights stripped, and just surviving.

Some people's lives matter more, and for others there is no way they can protest without rattling the trumpflakes.

I fear there are much darker days ahead.

Jools does some gardening, I finish work for the day and cook dinner; courgette fritters and fresh corn smothered with pepper.

It was rather spendid.

In fact we were so ahead of the daily chores, that by the time it began to get dark at half six, I was up to date. So I went upstairs to read the David Hepworth book for three or so hours, marvelling at the world of the late 50s and early 60s, and four moptop posters from Liverpool took the world by storm.

And changed music. And the world.

But no one thought they would make it. Or when they did, it would last.