Day 32 — Friday 24 April 2020

Well…

It was a ‘s..t’ walk with ‘Pip the Dog’ this morning. Why?
For some bizarre reason she decided to have two poos in the middle of the pavement!! And this was before we got to the fields that we normally walk on! Normally she does a number two (poo) when we get to a small wood that we walk through to get to the fields and maybe another one on the fields, although usually just one is enough. So, two smallish ones on the pavement on the way to the top of the hill, towards the small wood. Normally I take two poo bags with me, to collect her business, so I had already used those on the way to the fields. I really didn’t expect her to do another bit of business, the very second we were back on pavement again. This time she found a bit of grass, but still I had to collect it, luckily for me there was a bin quite close by. But, I had no more bags and the only thing I did have was my glove, yes I have a glove that I use to put on my right hand when I collect her business so that I have double protection in case a bag splits. So I had to collect her third bit of business with the glove and then place it in the bin and at that very moment in taking the glove off, a bit of poo, stuck to my hand, aaaaaaargh!!!

Quick wiped my hand on the wet grass a few steps away and then walked home with my right hand in the air, making sure I didn’t touch anything, even when I got home I made sure I opened the door with my left hand and then rushed to the tap to thoroughly wash my hands.

I know, I know too much detail, but remember this is my personal journal and therefore these COVID19 notes are only for me!

The rest of my day was spent until about 4pm doing bits and pieces of work, emails, tidying up stuff, sending more login details to taiko drummers for Taiko West, adjusting the website, uploading an audio track and other various things.

I finished my work day at about 4pm.

The funniest event of the day was some messages that were exchanged between Luke and his Mum, Clair.

He’s designing a Tattoo and told her that he didn’t realise how unprepared he was during this s..t corona lockdown, stationary wise. He needed, so he explained, A5 paper and paper with small squares, he meant graph paper and also pencils and a rubber. So Clair explained that the correct spelling is stationery with an e, instead of stationary as in ‘the train is stationary at the station’. So we had a real chuckle about this, because Clair is stationery obsessed and likes all sorts of stationery and she told him that she has been waiting for this moment all her life. Of course she has plenty of stock of all of this and as she’s going to her Mum on Saturday, tomorrow, to do the cleaning she will drop off all the stuff that he needs and more in the morning. Clair also does an evening call with her Mum at 7pm every day and explained this story and again there was a huge amount of laughter and I couldn’t help joining in, even though I was sitting in the other room.

After the day had finished I normally have a quick look at LinkedIn to see what’s happening and saw that a recent client, Gorilla Spirits, asked if I could do a small edit and whether I would charge for it or not. Hmmm, what to do.

Hi Michael, I wonder if you could do a small thing for me. I’d like a copy of our video with it to finish after the team slide and before the ‘over to you’ slide. I don’t think there’s much work involved but let me know if you need to charge.

So I responded with:

Hello Andy, thanks for connecting here. Normally there would be a charge, as these things never take just 5 seconds to do. The charge would be £50 + vat. However I would like to be helpful and maybe if you have a future project, I will remember to add the cost to that? I know there are no guarantees, especially at the moment. Will get it done over the weekend. Best, M

And this was his response:

Thanks Michael, much appreciated. I’m sure we’ll do more.

Fingers crossed then that there will be more in the future. 🤞

Michael out…

[embed]https://youtu.be/ETuunVRMPm4[/embed]

Michael de Groot

Ps. U.K. government data sets:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/881217/2020-04-24_COVID-19_Press_Conference_Slides.pdf