29/05/2020 Jack’s 18th Birthday

My youngest is 18 today. I am sure not the 18th he dreamed about. No trip to the pub with his mates, no night out at Welly, or Spiders. Just a trip to Sainsbury’s local with his ID to buy in his first legal beer. Maybe a kick-about in the garden with his brother then a few drinks in the garden. What will happen is; we will laugh, we will hug, they will laugh at their old Dad when he tries to play football, we will do some day drinking, we will remind each other how much we love each other. Today is a day to our wonderful son becoming a man (I am on holiday today). It wont be fancy, but it will be memorable. Jack we are so proud of you and the lovely young you have become.

This week I have been getting use to working from home. I have been working from home on a phased return for a couple of weeks, now and this was the first week working from home feeling well. It has been more challenging than I thought. Over the past couple of weeks I had just been putting my head down and getting through it. This week I have been much more tuned into work and much more aware. So from a work perspective i have been very productive with no distractions from people knocking on the door, or phone calls. Those incidental moments just don’t happen, all I get now is the dog barking at a pigeon or an Amazon delivery. As a result work seems less varied, and I wonder if what I am producing is somehow less as it is not being informed by those discussions that just happen in the office when putting together presentations or sessions. That is what I am struggling with I think, or at least one of them. I miss the casual and varied social interaction I get at work, those short discussions in the kitchen, those impromptu Q&A sessions in the corridor, those moments that add a richness to work.

I am also finding creating my own barriers for work challenging. I have had to designate our dining room as my office during the day, so I have some form of separation from where I relax. When I have my break I go into the front room away from my workspace. What I am noticing though is that I keep looking at my emails even after I have logged off. Living and working in the same building is also beginning to give me cabin fever, something I had not noticed when I was still recovering. Next week I am going to have to make a conscious decision to go for a longer walk after work just to get out of the house.

I have mentioned this before, but having a routine is really helpful, but however that routine cannot be a drudge. I have noticed this week that you can get into a routine that is not helpful. So next week I will be adjusting my routine to make it easier to separate home and work, and create a routine at work that has more interaction with colleagues.

From Monday I will start to wear my work clothes to the office rather than jeans and T-shirt and then getting changed at the end of the day, just to help with that work mindset. I will use the the rest of the house and garden as non-work environments, therefore no work will be done in any other part of the house.

With regards to interaction we do have occasions during the day when I will speak over the phone with my boss or my colleague Nami. I think I will suggest that once a day we have a short video conference tea break to have some social interaction face to face, so we continue to communicate effectively and try to add to the richness of our work.

I am certain in the future we will be spending at least some of our weeks working from home to best utilise the office space we have, now we know we can work effectively. If that is the case I will have to create a work environment that is useful and effective.

I am so pleased today that I have been able to write a blog that has not been centred on my illness. It is wonderful to spend some time celebrating my youngest Son and writing about adapting and moving forward.

Now is the time to start to make tentative plans about how we are going to live our lives after this initial stage of the pandemic.

Stay safe, and have a lovely weekend