Tuesday 1st December 2020

I drove up to Teeside yesterday.

I chose my hotel well, so it had fine views of the transporter bridge, so I could spend all evening marvelling at its wonderful engineering.

And this morning, I drove the twenty miles to Blyth to carry out the audit. Views over the harbour were spectacular, although I was there for work, I got some shots.

And once the day was done, I drove back to the hotel to process the day and write my report.

That would have been the last two days without COVID.

As it was, I spent Tuesday at home, as I did Monday. No long drive up to Dartford, then round to the M11 and then up the A1 though Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Durham. No I laid in bed until the alarm went off, Jool got up, I laid in the dark, waiting for some kind of light to show at the window, not just the bathroom light from next door.

Waiting for me downstairs was a fresh cup of Java. I drink that, check the interwebs, and then as Jools is getting ready to leave the house, so a session on the cross trainer. It clanks, rattles and shakes like it was about to give up. But I see through to the end of the session.

Jools had left for work, so I am all hot and bothered, so fill up the bird feeders, make breakfast, and put th coffee pot on.

Although I had not travelled, I still have an audit to do, and will have to do it via MS Teams, which gets the job done, but isn't as good and the headphones make my ears sweat. Ear sweat is something new to worry about in 2020.

But other stuff is, like people breathing on you, or licking door knobs.

I digress.

I have breakfast, and look at my phone as our new SIM card from work should be working. Mine isn't.

I e mail IT.

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

What'd'you think, Bub?

They raise a "ticket" and I am told to wait.

I have no had a personal mobile for nearly ten years. Just the work one. I hardly use it, and don't miss it when its not working, certainly when I'm not travelling.

Can you cope? they ask.

I believe I can.

So life goes on, without a mobile. Its been two weeks since I changed the SIM and the phone stopped working. I haven't missed it.

At nine the audit begins.

An audit is a series of questions that a bloody know-it-all (me) gets to ask and the person on the other end has to answer.

We finish at three int he afternoon. I had been talking pretty much non-stop for six hours, and my throat rebelled. I could not stop coughing.

I should write the report, but I give in and make a brew. It makes no difference.

Time passes.

And the cough fades, as does the day. I had done my job, just the follow up to do now.

I should have done a session on the trainer, but my legs said to my brain, are you bloody serious? I don't argue.

Instead I have a shower and change into nice clean clothes.

It is getting dark, I fill the tray with food for the badgers, feed the cats and kittens.

Dinner was fish cakes with fried potatoes and fresh corn, though fresh corn;s days must be numbered as we move into the twelfth month.

I have the other half of the Grande Reserve, and was as good as Monday's glass.

We tidy up, and have a slice of the orange poppyseed cake I made once the audit was done.

It was excellent.

There was football, but no Norwich, so I write nad half pay attention to the game.

Bed at ten, the cats had long given up, as had Jools.

It was dark outside.

And cold.

The full moon had risen in the east, and now sone, coldly, down through light clouds onto the downland.

Night all.