Shame

Even though there aren’t many people in the building to bump into these days, I bumped into an old pal, Chris, who runs the MPhil in Conservation Leadership at Cambridge University. This is a unique course that invites professional conservationists from all corners of the world to get an advanced degree that is very focused on applied skills rather than academic research. In the annual cohorts several of my colleagues have benefited from places, representing Liberia, Kenya, Vietnam and various others. Chris told me that Covid is causing complications for the students arriving this year, with some ready to start, some quarantining, and some without visas and flights. One of the students said ‘Covid is a shame’, which is one way of putting it.

A friend in Manchester text me and said ‘gawd it’s hailing outside. Vile weather.’ This was textbook weather ranting that I absolutely endorse. I looked at Cambridge’s vestiges of sun and felt smug and relieved, until this scene turned dark, brooding and wet. The effects from our office window may look like I was in an end-of-the-world alien invasion movie, but it was just the strip lights behind me.

An unusually good sense of productivity by the end of the day, even though I was in the office until 8pm. It’s our critical week for 2021 budget planning, and I submitted mine just about on time. This is despite some chats with my French colleague Tanguy that threatened to derail me in the home strait. He had previously lived in Mayotte, an overseas département of France, so I wasted time researching Indian Ocean islands when I should have been calculating time charges and cost recoveries.