23rd March 2020. Working from home, David’s Diary Entry, The Weekend
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| Herdwick Sheep |
David's Diary
Well it has been bit strange this weekend as there is no demarcation line between work days and weekend days with her being home midweek. I did get caught out and started panicking and making excuses for why I wasn’t working on Saturday. Fortunately M managed to calm me down by saying shhhssss now, it’s the weekend you musn’t work so hard. Mind you that panic soon started to rise when she mentioned the gardening again. My nerves are shot to pieces now, so I just nodded, knowing I was beaten. The only upside is she can’t get any plants because the garden centres are shut and we can’t cut the lawn because I have taken the fuse out of the lawnmower plug, so she thinks it’s broken and I have not got around to fixing it yet.
Cough wise, I have had to drop that ruse as it was freezing
in the van. I did try to sneak back in the house in the early hours, but she
had left the key in the lock so mine wouldn’t fit. The thought of two weeks in
a cold van was a real worry, especially so as there is no TV in there. The only
way to get around it was to fess up this morning to eating a biscuit and then
saying the cough was just crumbs catching my throat. She gave me the look you
would give a puppy that had just pi$$ed on the carpet, but at least I am in the
warm now. Anyway I can easily get around her by doing a few jobs like the gardening,
or by pretending to do some DIY. The main issue will be dealing with the
heightened level of surveillance from her
I did have a plan to head over to the Lakes this week for
work, but was a bit concerned they may increase travel restrictions and close
the County Durham/Cumbria border. The thought of being trapped in Cumbria was a
bit of a worry. I mean Cumbrian folk are wonderful and all that, but some do
bang on about the weather a lot. You can’t get em off the subject once they get
on it. I have a few friends over there and have done a fair amount of camping with
them and they are forever looking at the sky and with a big suck of breath,
saying “ay lad, it looks like there’s a Helm Wind ont way”, or looking at sheep
and saying, “that yan looks to be gannin lame, damp weather ont way I recon”.
The fact it is always windy and raining and the sheep can’t walk properly
because of the mud never seems to occur to them. Oh and while we are on the
subject of sheep here’s a tip - if they start talking about sheep steer em off
that subject straight away. Otherwise you will end up with a long lecture as to
why “yon Herdwick is one of the prettiest breeds t’world ower”.
If the border at Stainmoor was closed, I do know of a
backroad over by Tan Hill, but it does go perilously close to the Yorkshire
border. In fact I am sure it does stray into Yorkshire for a few miles. I have
mates there too, but to be honest I don’t think getting trapped over there
would be any better than Cumbria. Weeks and weeks of listening to them bang on
about the price of Swaledale sheep, tupping time, lambing time, and why
Yorkshire is “t best place int world”, doesn’t bear thinking about.
Anyway all things considered I would rather stay at home and
take my chances with M. To deal with a growing list of jobs and the threat
of gardening I made today a proper work day. When I say work I mean it,
invoices done and emailed, pics catalogued, pics processed and sent out to
picture editors, pic backups completed, cameras checked over and batteries
charged – oh and most importantly, all those empty food wrappers carefully
disposed of in next doors bin. I do
sometimes feel a bit bad about that as it causes a few domestics with the old
couple as she blames him for excessive snacking. That said he’s getting on a
bit so I don’t think she will throw him out. Anyway it is a chance I am willing
to take and if I do find him sleeping in his car I am sure I could lay the
blame on passing cyclists, or some other outdoor types for dumping their
rubbish and get him reinstated.
Anyways back to this M working from home carry on. You
see the thing is, M bless her, is not used to this home working lark which
is why she seems to be a bit too keen. In fact it is if she works to tight
deadlines or something, which is completely missing the point of working from
home.
Home working basically means dossing about for 2 or 3 days
and then working flat out to get everything done. The way I like to do this is to
work really hard on say Monday and Tuesday and then use the 3 days free to do
what I like. Of course you have to make
a massive fuss about how busy you are otherwise you might get rumbled, but it
is a good strategy - even for novices.
Stick with that method and you can’t go wrong.
Saw the whole of Celebrity Antiques Road Trip again so
things are looking up.
PS - We Boris said we are on lockdown as from tonight. Nothing funny about that other than seeing Boris looking more and more like a scarecrow as the crisis deepens. That incidentally is the sort of hair we will all have after we have cut our own for the next few months.
D
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