Back to Work

Yesterday I went back to work for the first time since March last year. At the time I expected to be home for three months. For it to be over a year was beyond anything I could have imagined. It was good to be back, but I found it ridiculously tiring - I think mostly because the prospect (and the reality!) of sorting out the administrative side of going back was stressful, and also because being out and with other people for a long stretch of time was so unfamiliar. It was good to see colleagues again, though there are only four of us on the team I am part of - we have two teams working in the office alternate weeks, to keep the number in the office at any time as low as possible. One thing I had not missed was the 1960s brutalist concrete building. I now have to park across the road as the office car park is being used part of the time as a drive-in Covid testing centre. I took this photo as I walked across and can't believe there are no cars as this is a busy main road. 

I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to collect a new parking pass (mine needed updating as it still had the registration number for our old car) and get my swipe card reactivated very quickly and easily. Things then fell apart when I tried to log on to my usual computer, which gave me an error message I had never seen before. I phoned IT for help, only to find the computer had been decommissioned automatically as it had not been used for so long. It will need "rebuilding" (oh dear!) which is likely to take a couple of days, so I had to hunt for something else to use. At the fifth attempt I finally found one that actually worked properly; the third one I tried seemed to work, but turned out to have no internal memory left so it persistently refused to open things. By lunch time it felt as though all I had achieved was fight losing battles with technology! I will be working again tomorrow, this time supervising researchers. We are only allowing one person in at a time to look at pre-ordered items, so it should be quite straightforward. I'm just hoping the computer in the searchroom behaves itself and I don't have another "computer says no" day! 

We went swimming again this morning. I am definitely getting the hang of swimming freestyle for longer distances, and did a total of 30 lengths without feeling quite as exhausted afterwards as I did last week. We have now taken out membership with the leisure centre which makes swimming sessions much cheaper. This afternoon we had a Zoom meeting about a training session we have been asked to provide for a client in the Caribbean in the summer. This is the first time we have done any international freelance work, and it is a one off that isn't likely set a trend! It was a lovely spring day today, so after the meeting I spent a couple of hours out in the garden. I have also been busy meal planning. Over the last year R has regularly used Hello Fresh, a company which sells meal kits online. She sent me a voucher for a free box of three meals, so I have ordered that for next week. Assuming we like what we are sent, I'm planning to order from them through May to see if it is a good fit for us. I like the idea of trying out new recipes and that you are sent exactly what you need so there is no waste; M is prepared to be a bit more adventurous in what he eats, so long as there is no pork, seafood, cheese or curry, and TG has never been a picky eater and has quite adult tastes. I'm quite excited to give it a try.