Well it’s Monday and it’s all pretty shit. As of Thursday, we’re back in lockdown, schools and universities stay open and you can meet one person for a socially distanced walk. Support bubbles remain in effect but my support bubble and I can only see each other via the medium of public transport, as I don’t drive and Ma doesn’t own a car. She can hire one but that’s expensive. So.

I’ll see Ma on Wednesday, and maybe on the 14th Nov. This is not the end of the world. Ma will miss the allotment (and me), I’ll miss Ma. We’ll both miss Ben, Laura and the boys.

The thing that is really pissing me off, is that there doesn’t seem to be a plan. I’ve been working from home for eight months (and I’m one of the lucky ones that still have a job), I was in lockdown from March until July this year. During that first lockdown, the government did fuck all to devise a strategy on how we would cope, it did, to quote our current prime minister, ‘spaff money up a wall’ on a test and trace system that didn’t work and giving our money away to it’s mates and donors, while refusing to feed school children. Government is a shambolic shitshow in this country AND we have a no-deal Brexit around the corner. Meanwhile the PM is moaning because 150k a year isn’t enough money to live on (presumably because you have to support an as yet undisclosed number of children). Morally bankrupt, I expect from the Tories but unable to plan, strategise or even to get to press conference on time with a decent powerpoint presentation or a bloody clicker, I do not. I didn’t like Tony Blair but at least he was fucking able to run the god-damned country.

I know five people who are actively planning not to follow lockdown guidelines this week (I’m not one of them) because they can’t see what they are doing it for. If we get to the 2nd of December and they extend lockdown there will be more people that can’t see the point. This is partly the Cummings effect but it’s also because no-one has any idea of what strategy is for the end of lockdown. We don’t have a common purpose, the government is supposed to devise the strategy so we have one. They have failed on every measurable level but they have managed to divert taxpayers money to THEIR friends and family. It’s corrupt and disgraceful and they feel so little shame. They called a press conference for 4pm and didn’t fucking turn up until 6.50pm. People are dying, losing jobs, going hungry so they can pay their bills AND they can’t even get their shit together to turn up to a press conference when they say they will.

Other than my extreme anger about this complete shower of a government. I’m trying to work out how to survive the next couple of months with any of my marbles intact. It’s the struggle to retain meaning and optimism when everything is uncertain. I know I’m in a luckier place than others, but a first world problem is still a problem..

I’ll let you know if I find anything that helps.

This week, I’ll be frantically working out how to sent party packs to the team for Christmas, when I can’t go into the office and the expenses deadline is 30 November, onboarding an new member of staff, listening to the US election coverage, trying to hold on to my sanity AND trying to source sanitary towels and selection boxes in the midst of panic buying…

Somebody send gin…..