Hey up!
As George Takei would say, Oh My!!! I haven't posted a single blog since December of 2019, and I really am surprised by that, but then again not...
I thought that I had better get some blogging in on this "Ramblings Of A Forty Something" blog, while I am still a forty-something. Man, I'm still not used to the fact that I am over thirty, never mind the impending fifth decade!
It's been a very full year in relation to work, as opposed to most people in the world during this Covid 19 pandemic. Almost as soon as the lock down was called, our workload went up, with businesses either closing for the lock down, or changing their working times and practices.
When this happened, I mentioned to the Operations Manager at work that I could come in an hour and a half early to help out, to which I was told that I could if I wanted to, and that I would of course be paid for that. Hey, what else was I going to do when I couldn't leave home other than for work or essentials, and of course I thought that it would be for a short time... How wrong was I!
I was doing fourteen hour shifts (instead of twelve and a half hours) behind the wheel of the work vehicle for what felt like forever, and of course doing my regular five nights a week shift pattern. Tiredness is the norm, and I am never rested now. Moody, argumentative, and more pissed off with every day that goes by. Even now, after about six weeks of being back to the regular hours, I still can't get back to where I was before.
Recently there was one of the main sites that have requested to change their times to the during full lock down hours. I said to the Operations Manager "I'm not even offering to go back to the 14 hours shifts to help out now, especially as they forgot to pay the extra at the time, instead I reminded them of the extra hours that me (and others too by the way) had done, and then they paid the whole kit and caboodle in one payment alongside a regular pay day, so the taxman took all of the extra hours money that we had made, and we ended up with not much more than our standard. So, not offering to do that again!
The plus point to working during the full lock down was that I was lucky enough to see how nature responded to there being very people out and about, and that was actually lovely to see, although the wildlife in question didn't stick around long enough for photos to be taken! The wildlife lapped it up.
I decided to start chats with family on Facebook Messenger, and they happened once a week for about four weeks. If truth be told, I felt bad that my family were all stuck in their homes for the most part (except for my cousin's husband Darren, who is a paramedic), and here was I out and about working. I stopped doing the weekly chats, and I couldn't share what was going on at work, as that's obviously classified information. I can't give out details of alarm responses, incidents on sites, etc. Let's just say that there were a few! Some people took advantage of the fact that businesses were closed for the pandemic.
In June when the lock down regulations started to be relaxed, traffic returned to the roads, and boy was it noticeable! During the full lock down, the roads were so easy to get around, because there was very little on the roads. On some roads it was like a scene from I Am Legend, where there was absolutely nothing at all. Suddenly in June, everyone was out and about.
On my way to work in June, I was going up a road that always has cars parked down either side, leaving a narrow area that only one vehicle can get through at a time. I was driving along, and suddenly a car came from a road to the left coming towards me at speed. It was a split second thing, where there was nothing to do. Even if I had the time, I couldn't reverse just in case there was traffic behind me, and I had the right of way! On the end of the road they were coming from were give way signs (or Yield in America, which I know of because of the Pearl Jam album of that title with that road sign on the cover).
The airbag deployed in my car upon impact, and my car was a write off for sure.
I still don't have a car, and with lock down restrictions, that suddenly meant a walk of thirty minutes each way for work, on top of the fourteen hours that I was still doing at that time at work. Out for fifteen hours a day minimum for work, and home for nine hours, on a job where I drive a vehicle on public roads for many miles doing site checks and alarm response across three counties.
I'm still without a car! The £500 I received for my car from insurance doesn't even get close to buying a car. You can't get a car for £300 these days, which is how much that car actually cost. Also, I don't actually want a "cheap runaround" now!
Anyway, that's so much information, and I think that I should shut up now.
Needless to say that the 50/90 songwriting challenge between July the 4th and October the 1st has seen very little input from me, because I only get very little time to practice, never mind trying to write full songs!
Thank you for reading, please take care and stay safe! Love to all.
Tuesday September 1st 2020 (49 years, ten months, and six days old).
