Panic Buying After All

This working from home business is actually quite good. Not having to commute to work is actually two hours of my life that I do get back, five times a week.

Then there’s the girl in the office just down the corridor from me. Her office is the only one with coffee making facilities so I get to pop in quite frequently for a chat. She’s quite friendly but she does she keeps asking me for ‘IT Support’ which I hope is a euphemism for something.

I risk a trip to my usual Sainsbury's at lunch time wearing gloves. I figure going round a shop I know will be quicker than one I don’t. Again there are plenty of empty shelves but this week I manage to grab the very last pack of chicken. Apparently supermarkets experienced an additional 15 million visits last week alone but here’s me sticking to our one shop a week. I’m just not cut out for this panic buying lark.

While I’m in the area I pick up my wine delivery from work because the wine company decided to deliver to where they usually deliver to despite me asking them not to.

The Olympics are postponed to 2021. Which I’m sure will please Laura Kenny, as she can now get her shoulder fixed, but perhaps not her husband. Jason may now hang up his cleats.

The other big news is that Son’s wedding is sadly delayed until September.

L sets up a home gym while along with Daughter she does a Joe Wicks workout session online. I’d never heard of Joe Wicks until now. He’s been doing workouts for kids but apparently a lot of women reckon he’s good for getting their heart rate going.

While they’re doing that I order a couple of beer kegs from Shipstones and some bottles from Swannay in Orkney. So perhaps I am panic buying after all.

(Wednesday 25^th March)

Wet Hair Day

Today is another ‘run to work’ day and I'm informed by email that it's also 'wet hair’ day. The aim being to show everyone that it's absolutely fine to have wet hair when you arrive at your desk in the morning due to your astonishingly healthy and active commute to work. One should be treated as a God/Goddess of Healthiness and not stared at with disapproval.

I don't run today but I did cycle, warding off the chilly temperatures with my new lobster gloves. It’s too cold to work up a sweat so I douse my hair under the tap afterwards, then sit at my desk dripping on my keyboard. No one notices. Though they have all probably dismissed this as simply my normal behaviour. No one else joins in either.

I’m not sure my new cycling gloves are much better than those I already have but they’ll do. I can’t send them back now anyway as I’ve wiped my nose down them.

A pub lunch today, which is late but only by about ten minutes. This is enough for them to give us free chips... so can’t complain really apart from no longer being able to make a claim to being a God of Healthiness.

Squash is also late, due to traffic, but we still get five games in because the ones after us are late too. I don’t win any of them. 

(Thursday 5^th February)

It’s All Relative These Days

I cycle again. All part of the fitness plan and it stays dry again.

L wants to know if I've phoned a physio yet? No not yet, the knee is fine so far, sort of. Ask me again after squash or after I've unwittingly knelt on it tonight. I really must stop doing that.

Lunch time is spent in the pub, which is very pleasant and will fortify me for the rest of today’s fitness plan.

Unfortunately, I run into a bit of trouble on the way home. An old man passes me, well when I say old, I mean he was older than me. It’s all relative these days. I set off in something approaching a hot pursuit but can’t catch him. I do get close but he nips through the lights just before they change and I get stranded the other side of the junction.

I watch him up the road overtaking another cyclist with long flowing blonde hair. I think I know who that is. I often see a couple of chaps with such flowing locks on my commute, clearly it's one of them. Neither are to be tangled with, so he’s brave passing them.

When I get moving though, I start to catch this other cyclist and realise it’s not a chap at all but a girl. Naturally I have to go past her, which isn’t easy as it once was. Sadly most girls on bike are now fitter and younger than me by some distance. It’s all relative these days. This one is easily overcome though but she’s a grumpy one and doesn’t even acknowledge my greeting as I go past.

Then it’s squash and four very long, close games. I’m crawling by the end, two days on the bike does not a good pair of legs make. I have never been so delighted to see the next couple of players turn up for their game and I thank them profusely.

(Thursday 3rd January)