Obviously, a massive volcanic explosion was exactly what the world needs on top of covid and climate breakdown and general political chaos. Twitter is throwing up its hands and saying "Krakatoa!" a lot, though it may just be catastrophising. (Also, apparently there are people who have never heard of Krakatoa, which I find mindboggling.)

Other than that I have had a quiet Saturday. I went for a chilly swim, came back and assembled our new bird feeding station (we have put it outside the living room window, in the hope that we might get close-up views of birds, though so far none have found it) and then cut my hair (I thought I was past DIY haircuts, but the top had got really long and was annoying me enormously, and even if I had the time or the spoons to attempt to go to the barbers', it doesn't really seem like a smart move in terms of risk right now). And then I sewed a handkerchief out of an old pillowcase (I've switched to hankies recently as tissues seem to be in short supply) while listening to a sustainable sewing podcast, like some kind of utter cliche.

Tomorrow I go back to the office. There are definitely some good things about that (being able to focus on work, getting to walk round the Parks), but I am still a bit nervous. ( Masks )

I remain utterly appalled and depressed by the government's ongoing attempts to pretend there isn't a global pandemic going on, though it appears that (predictably) they have denied that there was any truth in yesterday's rumours that they would stop providing free lateral flow tests. Presumably it was a smokescreen to get something else through without an outcry, possibly a further reduction in self-isolation times.

I am so tired. I could barely manage to get myself out of bed to swim today. Finishing a simple jersey top (I just had to sew in the sleeves, which I'd already pinned and hem them and the bottom) felt like a huge amount of effort. It feels a bit early for my SAD to be this bad; the next few months are obviously going to be very tough going.

I am very much not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. Maybe this really should be the year I find a new job. Not that that would happen in time to stop me having to navigate at least one more pandemic-hit term. I may have just had two and a bit weeks off but I'm not sure I have any more energy than I did at the start of the break.

And my dad is in hospital following a fall this morning and stroke symptoms. This is not good.

I am tired and sad and horribly worried and everything is Too Much.

I booked my booster as soon as they were opened to over-40s, for the earliest date I was offered (which I think was actually a day less than six months from my second dose, but it was probably right in terms of the number of days). Of course, I then got leapfrogged by people who had their second doses later as the eligibility was changed, but it didn't seem worth wrestling with the booking site to bring it forward by a week or two, so I stuck with the original date of yesterday. (Given that 2 dose of AZ seems to be fairly useless in terms of preventing Omicron infection, I was quite glad to spend the last couple of weeks mostly at home, though.)

Anyway, I am now boosted (AZ/AZ/Moderna). Side-effects mostly seem to be tiredness, headache and a very sore arm. I spent yesterday afternoon under a blanket watching A Castle for Christmas (and actually rather enjoying it) and haven't managed to get out of bed yet today.

I turned off my work laptop, came downstairs and turned on my personal laptop, and sat there wondering if I really was tired enough for everything to look so blurry. And then I realised I was wearing my seeing-things-other-than-computers glasses and not my seeing-computers glasses. (Juggling two pairs of glasses is, quite frankly, a massive pain in the arse.)

I am tired enough that it didn't seem impossible that that could be making everything look blurry. I had such grand plans for the things I would do with the two weeks between the end of term and the Christmas break, and obviously I haven't actually done most of them and am just crawling through the last few meetings and wishing I could just go back to bed. (I actually went for a PCR test yesterday because I was feeling so tired and headachy, but it was negative, so I think it's just end-of-term exhaustion.)

Only one more day to get through...

My new senior person in charge of academic administration started last week, instantly allowing me to cancel several hours per week of meetings with the people she's now managing. Today, she mentioned that she'd been talking to C, and they'd agreed that it would be good to learn enough about each other's jobs to provide some basic cover for each other when the other was working from home.

I think this seems like an extremely positive sign.

Also, I have just had my last committee meeting until January. And I think I'm getting on a bit better with my new head of department, though I still miss the old head of department a lot.

I still despair slightly of the university's current covid strategy, which has, most recently, involved announcing actually on the day the news first reported the Omicron variant that there was no longer a need for any COVID-related restrictions on teaching. Apparently they are "considering" the updated government guidance at the moment. My money is on the response being "we don't need to change anything but do consider wearing a face covering if you think you might like to and bring a woolly jumper so the windows can be open". Meanwhile, I now have two staff who have caught covid while double-jabbed and who are both struggling with ongoing fatigue and breathlessness (and a third currently at home with a 6-year-old who has tested positive), and my brother has contracted covid at an in-person work meeting, so I decided that I was going to decline the invitation to a large in-person meeting with bonus networking over refreshments this morning and explain exactly why in my response to the meeting invitation.

My booster appointment is in 22 days. I really hope I can make it to there without catching covid...

I was very disappointed to find out on Tuesday night that Paramount were pulling Star Trek Discovery from Netflix with immediate effect, only about 48 hours before the fourth season premiere. I love Discovery's commitment to diversity and the hopepunk vibe of the last season was so much more what I needed than Picard's dark-side-of-Starfleet shtick, so I had really been looking forward to having the new season to help me make it through the last few weeks until the Christmas/New Year break. Especially as the current Doctor Who isn't quite hitting the spot for me.

I also Very Much Not Here for the people I've seen popping up on other people's posts about it saying "well, I never liked it anyway" or other things of that ilk.

Work is still ghastly. I was particularly unimpressed to be stuck in yet another Teams meeting about the Ongoing Crisis just after 4pm this afternoon, when there was an absolutely incredible sunset going on behind my computer screen. Also, in a particularly clueless email even for her, our VC sent an all-staff email this afternoon which began by saying what a relief it was to be nearing the end of week 6 of term and able to start to look forward to the Christmas break, which I imagine went down like a lead balloon with all the academics about to enter the hell that is undergraduate admissions.

On the upside, C mentioned the other day that she had been known to typo the signoff to emails as "Best weasels" and I immediately demanded that she sign off all future emails to me that way, then forgot about it until this morning when I received an email signed "Best weasels". Which I think is a wonderful thing to be wished.

Yesterday evening, T commented that I seemed to have been coughing a lot, and I realised that I did seem to have a slight tickly cough. Shortly after, I started feeling distinctly not-quite-well, though not really any particular kind of not-well. I'd done a lateral flow test a few hours earlier, which was negative, but I thought it would probably be better to think about working from home today rather than risking taking germs into the office where I have staff who are vulnerable, or who live with vulnerable people.

This morning I woke up still with a tickly cough and a tightness in my chest, and thought that as well as working from home I should probably book a PCR test. I toddled off to the local testing centre at 8am, got home and started working from home half an hour later, and by quarter to ten had decided that actually, I might be better off just going back to bed. Which I did, and stayed there until one o'clock when I got up, had some lunch and logged on to this afternoon's committee meeting.

I am still feeling off-colour but not terrible. No idea if this is mild breakthrough COVID (I can still smell and taste things, though I'm not sure they smell and taste quite the same as normal, but I may be imagining that) or one of the other bugs that are happily circulating now people are mixing with each other again; I'll be working from home tomorrow anyway, as I don't expect I'll get the PCR result in time to get into the office, and having encouraged my team to work remotely rather than bringing their germs to work I should probably do the same thing even though I much prefer being in the office.

Work is still awful. I think it is going to carry on being awful for a long time yet.

I am so tired that at lunchtime I sat down in one of the chairs in the staff kitchen after I'd washed up the packaging from the sushi I treated myself to for lunch and couldn't get up again for twenty minutes, despite knowing that I really needed to stop chatting to C and get back to work.

One of my swimming friends is recovering from an operation and the other has a stinking cold, so I may not get any swimming this weekend. And I've just seen someone on the local swimming Facebook group saying their bag was stolen while they were swimming in the lake where we swim when the rivers are too high and fast (which they are at the moment) today, which does make me worried about going there. (I always have my keys and phone with me in my tow float, and I think I need to start putting my glasses in there as well, but I wouldn't want my clothes to be stolen either!)

The Ongoing Work Crisis continues to ongo, but somehow today still felt a bit less fraught. And I sat down this morning, looked at my diary for the rest of the week, and blocked out every gap of an hour or longer with one of the things that I really, really need to get done this week. Amazingly, by the time I left today I had actually managed to do three of them, as well as emailing someone to explain that no, they can't just say that they are going to shift the second year of a two-year commitment back a year...

Also, apparently the one thing that is guaranteed to get me to leave work more or less on time is the Parks closing at 6pm, which means that I have to be out of work by quarter to if I don't want to risk not making it through before the gates are locked. Sadly, this only happens for a week in autumn (and sometimes not even that) and a few weeks in the spring, but it is helpful while it lasts.