Recalled to life (252/365)

[white_hart]

In the last 24 hours, I have:

- been out for a meal in a restaurant (or actually, outside a restaurant, as we went to the Cherwell Boathouse and had a table overlooking the river)

- been on a bus (actually two buses, one into town and one out again)

- been to the barber's (while my hair is still shorter than I'd like on top, it's definitely a step in the right direction. I found myself getting weirdly emotional at the thought of having hair that might actually feel like *me* again soon)

- been to a bookshop, and bought several books.

This is the first time since February/March 2020 I've done any of those things. It felt rather miraculous to be doing such normal things again, and also rather strange and daring, possibly even foolish. But if I'm going to be working in a building full of students, and getting the bus to work, I think that it's most likely that I will end up getting covid at some point between now and Christmas, and I just have to hope that my vaccination is enough to keep it from being that bad; and given that, I'm not sure it makes sense to keep avoiding the things I'd really like to do, just so I can do the things I have to.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Real life!

We went to an art gallery yesterday!

[white_hart]

Wow, exciting!

[mrs_redboots]

I hope you don't get Covid; if you do, it should be very mild as you've been vaccinated. We are anxiously waiting for my daughter to catch it - her sons have had it for a week now, and her husband is down with it today. Nobody is seriously ill, although the elder boy felt, and my son-in-law feels, very unwell. But the boys are both fine now, and I expect my son-in-law will be by Monday. But we need my daughter to get it no later than next Wednesday if she is not to miss a big family party on the 26th!

[white_hart]

Oh dear - I hope your daughter and son-in-law both recover quickly!

[mrs_redboots]

Daughter still testing negative so far.... son-in-law not well today, but will, I am 99.9% certain, be better by Monday. It doesn't seem to be at all bad if you've had both vaccinations.

[fencesitting]

I am so there now.
Mostly no one is wearing masks at work any more, I'm certainly not in my office. If my unvaccinated coworker doesn't care about catching Covid then I'm not concerned about whether I pass it on to her any longer.

[white_hart]

I haven't been in the office since masks went from being mandatory to strongly encouraged, but I hope people will continue to wear them in corridors. (I have my own office, and didn't wear a mask there, and our guidance always said that people could take masks off when seated in shared offices.) I have quite a few in-person meetings booked in now, and have no idea whether people will be masked for them or not...

[nineveh_uk]

I'm taking the viewpoint that unless I am in a very large and well-ventilated room with only person, I'll be wearing a mask for any in-person meetings, and I will be wearing one in the shared office and expecting it to be well ventilated. I'm prepared to go back to the office again, and actually quite looking forward to a bit more contact, but I'm not willing to risk catching Covid again when I'm still not over the first time! (Nor fresher's flu, which is realistically probably the bigger risk.)

[white_hart]

I'm definitely expecting everywhere to be well-ventilated. Which, as a sufferer of hot flushes, will be wonderful, though I feel sorry for the chillier folk...

[nineveh_uk]

I am the chillier folk! But fortunately because of that I have a lot of wool work clothing.

[fencesitting]

If I'm in a situation where there are lots of students indoors I will probably wear one, but having worked in person at the school for everything except the winter lockdown, and having worn a mask the entire time, I 'm just tired.

And I guess if I'm going to catch it at some point, I'm going to catch it. :/

[nineveh_uk]

That sounds like a very nice day, and congratulations on the hair going in the direction you want.

[white_hart]

It is definitely nice to have a decent haircut again! The DIY buzzcuts were at least fairly tidy, but that was about all you could say for them, and I never got used to how round they made my head look.

[crinolinerobot]

Normality feels like such a treat, doesn't it? Shops! Food that you don't cook yourself! Other people!

(I suspect the novelty of all will have worn off again by Christmas. My commute is already losing its shine.)

[white_hart]

It really does! Though I'm sure you're right that it won't last.

[jinty]

I went into the office yesterday for the afternoon. The best thing about it was having a face to face 1:1 with my line manager, the rest I would have done more efficiently and comfortably from home. It was good to see how it felt as a try-out, but it was tiring and stressful in reality and I'm not rushing to go back in to work in the office any time soon. (I do have to go back and clear my desk next week though, because our office is the one that's designated as the initial flex desk area.)

[white_hart]

My working-from-home desk is normally my sewing desk, and it turns out that a space that's perfect for a sewing machine and an activity which probably involves spending more time standing at the ironing board pressing or pinning is cramped and uncomfortable for spending a whole day seated with a laptop, keyboard and monitor, so I'm really glad to be back in the office. I did find it very tiring to start with but have got used to it now.

[jinty]

I'm only working with a laptop at home, not a separate keyboard or monitor, and of course it took me a while to get used to that in the first place - but now I like it, and certainly better than having a random keyboard and an unadjusted monitor at a desk I didn't choose sitting on a seat that likewise isn't adjusted for me...

[white_hart]

Ah, my work laptop is only 13", but even a larger laptop would be a bit of a struggle with some of the spreadsheets I have to wrangle! And there are definitely bits of my work which would be almost impossible to do with only a single screen.

[jinty]

Most of my team use a larger monitor or even two, but I ... can't be bothered to try? It might make some tasks easier but I've never found it that critical an element of my work.

[lokifan]

Exciting!!

And yeah, given the givens, I think that makes sense.

[white_hart]

Yeah, it was one thing to carry on as if we were still in lockdown when I thought that might give me a realistic chance of not catching covid, but I don't think that's the case any more.

[girlyswot]

And you still might not get it at all. Three of my support bubble had it last year, but the fourth person in the house never did.

[white_hart]

Well, who knows? I guess I just have to wait and see.