Back in the office

Now allowed to go into the PhD office! Going in a few days a week as there is limited space. Many new regulations. The good: masks when not at desk, plentiful sanitiser and wipes, every other desk blocked off. The bad: all crockery out of bounds, one in one out to the toilet, which doesn’t really work, and this strange advice to avoid the microwave, fridge and kettle “wherever possible”. What with it not being possible to make a cuppa without kettle or fridge — and having brought soup for lunch — I had to ignore this one. I also desperately needed a spoon for said soup so had to undo some of the forbidden tape on the cupboard here to sneak one out. Shhh.

The truly ugly though is the strange one way system they have imposed on parts of the building. It means you have to walk the length of the building on one floor, then the length of it back in the other direction on ground floor, bypassing many possible-but-forbidden exits on the way to get out. In fact, because some of the corridors have to be two way, the chances of passing someone are greatly increased by this new plan in my opinion. Virtually no one is in the building though because so much teaching is done online now that it doesn’t really matter.

Spending the day outside the house is great though I’d totally forgotten what it was like. Initially I was like ‘this is madness’, and ‘oh god packed lunches’, but it was totally worth it and I got to see people who are not James (no poor James please, he got a day off from me remember!). Also our new tv came today, hurrah! It looks identical to the old one.