The Home Front
I woke up at 7am when the alarm went off, then fell asleep for another hour. It's taken a few weeks to get used to not running around the kitchen like a madman emptying the dishwasher, feeding the animals, making breakfasts and lunches, and shouting repeatedly up the stairs for the kids to get up.
Once the children get up, it tends to coincide with the first conference calls of the day – I'm still wondering if the artificial intelligence of the cloud is clever enough to block out 'The Nation's PE Teacher' leading a morning fitness programme in the lounge. It often sounds like the house is falling down, only accompanied by laughter instead of screaming.
I haven't done anything approaching 'fitness' for three weeks. Given that I normally cycle somewhere in the region of six miles every day, I really do need to think about getting off my backside – before it doesn't fit in the chair any more. Maybe the quiet hour first thing on a morning would work – a run around the streets nearby.
I forgot to stop at lunchtime today. I was in the middle of doing something, and worked straight through. I only realised late in the afternoon and by then had something else to get done anyway. I imagine this is a common feature of home working – the temptation to just keep going until you've got this done, or that done. Of course the moment I finally closed the computer down, a colleague messaged me – playing the same game – he hadn't looked at the clock either. A few minutes later – while shutting the computer down for a second time, my youngest tipped her head around the door – 'dinner's on the table'.
I've still not spent any time reading the first of many books I've been promising to while in lock-down. I need to fix that.
Podcasts have become a wonderful distraction while working from home – half listening to WTF, Grumpy Old Geeks, The Retro Hour, My Brother My Brother and Me, The Bugle, The News Quiz, and many more. When not listening to podcasts, I invariably leave Spotify playing random playlists – mostly because Spotify doesn't pause to bring you the news.