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October's Journal
December's Journal
24/11/2020
[16:45] A huge amount has gone on since my last post here. The most important,
and most distressing is that Rachel's father died from complications due to
COVID-19. He had a number of underlying health conditions, and, when he went into hospital to address one of them, contracted the virus and passed away gently
a short while later. Rachel and I were visiting a few days beforehand and I
encouraged her to stay and 'bubble' with her mother. This turned out to be one
of my better ideas and as such she's been here (I'm visiting at the moment)
since then, and has helped her mother with all the things that happen after a
death in the family. I won't say any more about it, except that the whole
family is doing OK, the brother was around for all the important bits and more, while still managing to look after his own family, and everything else I've been
able to contribute towards in terms of making life a little easier for everyone.
Other than that a lot of work stuff has gone on. I did a Satellite upgrade,
realised that all my RHEL6 servers aren't covered by support as I
thought they were, have begun to do battle with 'virt-who' to ensure that the
extra support from Red Hat that we've purchased stretches to cover everything,
do lots of other work, and gone a little stir crazy living on my own without
any face-to-face human contact for weeks at a time.
I think it might be about time I visited a doctor and asked them what options I
have for dealing with the low-to-medium depression I've been living with for...
maybe 25+ years. I'm sure - despite probably mormalising its effects - I could
be feeling a lot better than I do for significant amounts of time, and by
feeling better help the people around me (like Rachel) feel a lot better too.
I was finally nudged into making the plan to see someone after meeting up with
a friend who lives close by who told me about his recent issues with depression
himself. Nothing 'special' about him (other than his strength in dealing with
his situation), but I think enough people have shown me what I should be doing
(and what can happen if you don't) that I've reached a (good) tipping point.
So that's that. Here's hoping I keep up the momentum and get that appointment
booked when I return home. That's tomorrow. I've been here with Rachel and her
mother since last Friday. Rachel will stay here for another week, then go home
for the first time in two months, then a few days later come back to take her
mother to see their family in the Lake District for a birthday treat. A week
later Rachel will come to see me at home for the first time in a long while, and
then it'll basically be Christmas. I hope to post a few more entries (or maybe
only one, on current showing) before the end of the calendar year, and then we
start all over again in 2021. Hopefully with a bit more goodness.
Did I mention last month that I got a payrise? Well, I did. And that plus the tax break for working at home means that I'm doing perfectly well, thank you.
Well enough that I've restarted donating again, and very much hope to be
supporting others at Christmas in lieu of presents (along with the rest of my
family).
Anyway, that's that. I should finish the working day and look forward to a day
off tomorrow, even if half of it'll be spent travelling on trains, and then
shopping at Tesco. See you in a little while.