Further steps towards normality (173/365)

I had an actual meeting with four other people today, in an actual meeting room. It was really rather nice to be in a different room from Teams and my email and have to concentrate on the meeting instead of having my brain trying to multi-task whether I wanted it to or not. (Less nice was the fact that one of the participants turned up and first said she'd dropped her mask while cycling over, and then that she struggled to hear if she couldn't see people's lips, and could we take masks off anyway? Fortunately my head of department said she wasn't sure I'd be comfortable with it* so we did the meeting masked and it turned out that the problem was mostly with students mumbling anyway.)

It was also one of the other people who's been coming into the office on Tuesdays' birthday, so five of us briefly stood awkwardly around the foyer eating cake.

I'd also emailed the bus company last week to ask whether the offer to extend season tickets to make up for any time lost during lockdown still applied. I didn't hold out much hope, really, after fifteen months, but given that the last time I used a bus was the day my new annual pass started it seemed like too much money not to at least try, and somewhat to my surprise I got an email today asking when I wanted the extension to start. So now I have to decide when I'm going to feel comfortable taking buses again. Maybe after my week's leave? My first day back in the office will be 13 days after my second jab. (I will probably still be losing money on the pass, given that I'll only be using the bus two days a week to start with, but it still feels a bit like a year of free travel.)

*she knows that I've only had one jab so far** and am visiting my parents next week

**though I've managed to bring my second forward to tomorrow now