Long (Hot) Summer

Well, bloody hell, what a year this is. It's hard to believe what has happened since Lockdown in March. Actually it's hard to believe that lockdown happened. I was sent home on the 23rd March with a laptop and a cheery give us a ring if you have any probems by my manager and the IT team. I was one of the lucky ones who got a laptop and didn't end up with their work Desktop Pc and monitor and a dongle to connect to the work servers. And here I am almost 5 months later sat at the dining table working from home until Christmas, possibly never to return to the Office. It feels hard already to think back to late March and April to how bleak it was, and even this month, stood in a queue to get into Ikea ( don't ask) I couldn't quite understand what the hell was going on. At least I'm not the only one as quite clearly the Government has no idea what is going on either as they have demonstrated time and time again over this Summer. There are some positives to this for me. I don't have to make small talk in the office with a lot of idiots. That is a big bonus. I have been able to run more too- which is a good thing because I have been eating more. And I have been around to support my wife more as she goes through another reorganisation at work which is leading albeit slowly to redundancy. I persuaded her to rejoin a union earlier this year after many years of not being a member and that has turned out to be one of my rare moments of foresight as the company go through the management team trying to pick off the ones they don't want. There are downsides too, boredom being one of them but I can't help feeling I've been lucky through all this.

2020

Hard to believe it's now 2020. Back when I was a young boy the thought of living until 2020 was unbelievable. Now we are here it feels like the last 50 years have gone by as quickly as fast forwarding a film on Iplayer or Sky. This thought has hit me a bit this year. Age is only a number I know but later on this year I hit 59 and my wife turns 60. Those are fucking big numbers.

Not that long ago my wife could have retired on a full pension now she will have to wait until she is 66.