Socialising

Back in June, I blipped a reception we held in the Old College Quad, where social distancing was being very strictly maintained. As Joppastrand noted on that entry, "Pre pandemic this photo and commentary would have been truly incomprehensible!!" How right.

Today, we gathered again, and this time I couldn't hover at the back. We were gathered to welcome lots of new people, to mark the beginning of the academic year, to mark some retirements, and to mark also the departure of the person who was making a presentation to another colleague in the previous blip, who himself is moving to a new job (you can see his face in the extra...some wrapping paper prepared by the colleague who organised the reception...; quite eerie in my view...). But for me this time there was no hovering at the back taking photos. Unfortunately, the colleague whose departure we were marking was unable to be at his own party, as he is ill with the flu, and in these COVID times, you do not go to work when you aren't well. So he missed his own party, although perhaps someone could have facetimed him in so we could have had some sort of hybrid event. Anyway, as the temporary replacement to the departing colleague until we find someone longterm, and in his absence, I had to make a short speech, exercising my loud voice in an outdoor environment, and introduce some other colleagues for their speeches, etc. It all went very well, we were allowed to have some refreshments (in June it was "bring your own" so I popped over to Tesco to get a Diane Abbott style cheeky cocktail in a tin...), I met a lot of people in 3D whom I'd only ever previously met on screen, we were all quite giddy with excitement at seeing each other again, and it hopefully portends a return of something like normality.

Other than that, I had to contend with doing a remote presentation whilst having my office door lock mended (this involved a man with a can of WD40 spraying it into the lock...duh), and held a couple of in person meetings, which were very interesting. Meanwhile, at home, the missing parcel of books turned up. Huzzah! I'd almost given up.