I stumble in the night,
Never really knew what it would’ve been like,
You’re no longer there to break my fall…
The heartache over you;
I’d give it everything but I couldn’t live through.
I never saw the signs,
You’re the last to know when love is blind…

Monday

Another Monday morning. Hooray. Up early, online, to find an email from my new starter, who hasn’t been given her login details yet. Chased D, who hadn’t got them either. Eventually sorted it out by 10:30, so we could get started with setting up access requests and so on.

Today was particularly full-on; didn’t seem to get a break for anything until I finished about half five, when the question reared its ugly head: “When will dinner be ready?” The only answer to that is, sadly, “Oops”; we both thought the other was preparing the meal. After a brief consideration of the benefits of takeaway pizza, I recovered my senses and threw a paella together. We eventually finished up and got the kids into bed late.

Tuesday

The weather’s getting warmer. While I was busy with my meetings, all I could hear was the noise of the kids outside, noisily having fun with the paddling pool in the sun. As usual, spent all my day in meetings; though I got to share the fun a little bit, bringing along my new starter to one of the planning meetings to give her a hint of what it is that she’s going to be doing over the next few weeks. Hopefully I didn’t terrify her too much when she asked for the detailed diagram and I apologised at how enormous it was.

Lunch was delayed, though my mood was much improved by having a quick game of football in the garden with the whole family before settling back upstairs. The afternoon passed quickly enough, then it was dinner and time to catch up with friends online. We tried using Google Meet, and won’t be doing that again; it doesn’t cope at all with more than one person talking at once. Abandoned it in favour of Zoom; whether we’ll be back on FaceTime next week is anyone’s guess.

F mentioned a fantastic deal on Beef Fillet from Turner and George while we were on the call; as a result we’ll all be eating steak soon, and there’ll be plenty to go in the freezer for the net few months. Finished up quite late, but not as late as we have in the past.

Wednesday

I’ve given in and I’ve started wearing shorts. Realistically I should have before now, but I’m in the habit of dressing for an air conditioned office even though I’ve not been near one for two months. Spent nearly the whole day in meetings with Architecture, interrupted only by the arrival of an Amazon delivery – a new water gun for the kids, and various bike bits for me, including three replacement inner tubes.

Once I was done with work for the day, I set about replacing the destroyed tube; at least, I tried to. The first tube exploded again even while I was inflating it, causing my ears to ring for a few minutes, and drawing the attention of various neighbours in the form of “There’s that banging noise again!” . The second tube went on, I inflated it to a sensible pressure and… it went pop ten minutes later while I was preparing dinner, in this case a couple of wonderful rib eye steaks for us and lasagne for the kids. This time the outer tyre was obviously badly damaged; there was a massive rip in the side wall. The bike will be out of action until at least Friday when a replacement tyre is due to arrive.

Thursday

What happened to the rain we were promised? The day started with not a cloud in sight, the temperature climbing again. Just the right sort of day for having fun in the garden. Unfortunately, that wasn’t on the menu; what was on offer was a day of work which I knuckled down to, though I found time to at least attend half of my skip-level boss’s drop in session; he thinks we’re unlikely to see a return to the office for our division before January, which was interesting. Mentioned it to D, who disagreed, but I think January’s closer than any other date realistically.

Broke for lunch for sandwiches made with the last of the weekend’s brisket, and again found time for a short kick around in the garden before heading back to work for a discussion of project progress, then a knowledge sharing session with another team who haven’t started their AWS journey yet, then a check-in with my new starter who’s getting to grips with everything.

Finished up the day with a bike ride, which started out later than planned after dinner took a long time and then my mum called to see how we were. Headed out with Sleeper, Jr at gone 7pm, and was back a little before 8. At least by then the heat of the day was fading, and it was pleasant to move around. One more day of work; I’m ready for a long weekend…