This is how today went:

8:05 arrive at office. Unpack bag, switch on computer, make tea.
8:20 sit at desk with tea. Read emails.
8:45 decide I should probably stop ignoring the emails telling me my password is about to expire. Spend ten minutes trying to think of a new password that conforms to the rules but that I can also (a) remember and (b) type.
9:00 multiple apps pop up notifications saying I need to log in again. Try new password. New password refuses to work. Give up and go to buy coffee.
9:15 get back with coffee. Drink coffee. Log in to multiple apps with new password which now works.
9:30 ring someone for brief chat about potential temp.
9:45 go to say hello to team. Spend 15 minutes talking to new office manager about various things.
10:10 stop on the way back from saying hello to team to ask most vulnerable colleague if she wants people to wear masks in in-person meeting. Spend 15 minutes catching up about various things.
10:30 regular senior staff meeting.
11:30 go and make more tea
11:40 sit down and start working through email. Remember I need to read papers for meeting at 2. Skim-read papers while also keeping an eye on inbox.
12:45 go and have lunch. Manage brief walk in parks.
1:45 get back from lunch. Answer teams message.
2:00 committee meeting.
3:15 committee meeting ends, teams call with another person who was in the meeting because we had arranged to talk afterwards.
3:30 look at email.
3:45 realise I need a wee. Decide to make tea while I'm up.
4:00 get back to desk with tea, contemplate actual work that needs to be done. Also contemplate state of utter exhaustion which I have already reached.
4:10 person turns up wanting a quick word about something. By the time they go, tea is cold.
4:30 drink cold tea. Have several parallel teams message conversations about various things while trying to write an email.
4:45 send email. Start reviewing documents which have to be submitted by tomorrow.
5:15 submit documents. Write and send another email. Start reading papers for meeting tomorrow morning.
5:30 person sticks head round door to say goodbye and catch up quickly on stuff that's happened today.
5:35 go back to meeting papers.
6:10 finish skim reading 153 pages of meeting papers for 10am tomorrow. Realise I'm not going to catch 6:20 bus. Spend 20 minutes on email.
6:30 stagger out of door and in direction of bus stop.

And this is not actually an atypical day...

It's a year today since I last went to the cinema. The last time I travelled by train will be a year ago sometime in the nebulous space between Sunday and Monday, because it was on the 29th, and it turns out that the last time I had a meal in a restaurant, which I thought was early March, was actually on the 21st of February, so that's already more than a year ago. It's strange, looking back. I know I was already worrying about COVID by then, but I had absolutely no idea (how could I have done?) just how quickly things would escalate from there.

At this stage, I feel quite ambivalent about the prospect of lockdown easing. I'm very much looking forward to being able to swim as a three again, and it would be nice to be able to go for walks somewhere different. And I really want to see my parents again. But I don't want to go to shops, or the hairdressers, and even though working from home has its downsides I don't miss the commute. And it no longer feels like "going back to normal". This is normal now, and while it would definitely be improved by occasionally going to different places and having a wider choice of takeaway options*, I've got used to it, and I'm quite worried that I've actually forgotten how to exist in spaces with lots of people in them and that it's going to be hard to relearn that.


*if we want delivery, and who wouldn't, it's curry, Chinese, kebabs or Dominos, because none of the Oxford restaurants will deliver outside the ring road. I am very jealous of friends who can get sushi and Wagamama and pub lunches delivered.