Monday 4th January 2021

And just like that, Christmas is over.

The lights on the tree failed before New Year and we just took it down, easier to chamge the fuzed bulb than searching for it through the tinsel.

Shall we out it away for another year?

Yes, I think we shall.

And before breakfast it was down and boxed up, with Cleo helping rounding up the loose ends of tinsel and any errant baubels.

So, we are ready for another year at work. But there are clouds on the horizon:

For Jools there is the uncertain world of manufacturing in the time of Brexit. For the time being she is working, and they don't seem to be effected too much, but that could change, we shall see. She takes each day as it comes, and is willing to work wherever.

And for me there is the great merger. I expected there to be an avalanche of information when we logged on for work, noews on this and that, or just maybe getting our old e mail addresses back, but there was nothing, just a notice telling us how well Vestas had done in the last year and that there was much work to do.

We have the morning meeting, and there was no news from our managers either, other than things are fine.

Fine.

I had slept through the alarm by an hour, waking up when the kettle was put on at six. So by the time I go down stairs there was a coffee waiting, but I had little over an hour before work was due to start.

Main item for the day was finding out if I was to have to go to Hartlepool next week. I write mails, make calls, and the answer seemed to be that I would. I didn't feel good about it, but people are travelling there from Denmark to work, it seems fair. Only, Kent is the epicsntre of the new COVID outbreak, and travelling six hours and staying n a hotel for four nights doesn't seem the most sensible of courses. I say we would monitor the situation.

So it goes, so it goes.

I should have done a session on the cross trainer. We moved it out of the spare room into the back office, so when Jen stayed she didn't have to bump into it during the night. Scully lay on the rocking chair in the back room, seemed a shame to disturb her, so I made a fresh brew and did some toast.

Yeah, I know.

I have a sandwich for lunch filled with all the out of date ham in the fridge. It was out of date by 36 hours, so I thought it worth the risk.

I am still alive, which I take as a good sign.

I monitor my work e mails, and am there to take calls, though not on my mobile as its still not working, so I have requested a new one. It is somewhere between Manchester and Kent.

And that was it, really, for the first day of work in 2021. No real change, no news.

Dinner was nachos with home made salsa whch contained one of our Scotch Bonnet chillis we grew a few years back, to pep it up a bit. Just one, and no seeds. I also warm the left over Bombay spuds in the micro wave to make a fine, filling and flavoursome meal for two, washed down with half a big bottle of tripel.

We have a coffee, some chocolates. OK, two chocolates.

And then there was yet more football, Southampton v Liverpool, which was a fine game, won by the Saints with a goal in the second minute. Good enough to stop me from falling asleep.