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I've really lost track of time. I could have sworn it was June. Maybe Wednesday. Saturday? 2024? 6pm on a Tuesday?
Three Saturdays ago, or was it Friday, I can't quite remember, I made a curry as per my last entry. It was bloody good. Sadly I used the last of the garlic, the last of the cumin and the last of the Mohicans so now its doubtful I'll be able to make any more despite having all the curry gravy in the world. I had enough left over though, so I had it for my lunch the next Saturday, or was it Saturday just gone. I can't remember. Feels like Saturday today so maybe it was the other week.
Yesterday, it felt like Saturday. I'm not sure. I seem to remember in times passed there being other days in the week, like Wednesday, Friday, Christmasday and Birthday. It seemed to be a Saturday anyway. So to celebrate I ordered a pizza. Usually I have the leftovers for breakfast the next day, which I'm sure should have been a Sunday, but as it was Saturday again, it made a nice change.
Then today, Saturday, weird thing, the analogue clocks in the house were all an hour slow when all the digital computer clocks seemed to be correct. I thought the time change happened on the last Sunday in March, but it's Saturday right? March, not February? Or maybe I missed it.
Far from being the last man on Earth, it has been interesting observing the comings and goings of local people over the past couple of days.
Mrs Gnomepants and I discussed how easy this sort of situation could be used to commit terrible crimes such as murder, body disposal or milk theft. Few witnesses, ease of access to places where discoveries wont be made for a while etc. We also mentioned how literature tropes may now change, indeed, the idea of a sitcom came to mind where a couple who meet for a one-night stand end up quarantined together in a flat. Oh the possibilities.
Following the purchase of Dan Toombs' The Curry Guy, I have been rediscovering my love of homemade curries. Sadly the lack of shops delivering to our rural homestead (those who are more vulnerable/closer to the depot taking priority) means that I am left with the ingredients we have. Already planning using the weird gnarled carrot I found under the dresser in the kitchen, the aged frozen venison mince we have had in our freezer since 2010 BCE and the mysterious bag of frozen "meat. It will just be like going to an actual curry house.
While out for a socially acceptable distant stroll in the empty Northamptonshire countryside, Mrs Gnomepants and I looked at the positives and possible issues that could arise because of recent viral events.
1. There are probably lots of affair having people unable to see their bit on the side.
2. There are probably now lots of people holed up at home with people they dislike.
3. DIY stores will probably experience a boom as people do all those projects they have put off.
Being week 4 of no job, I have notice a distinct drop in the amount of well paid jobs and a rise of poorly paid "temporary" work in distribution and logistics. To mitigate , I've brought my no-job strategy forward a month and began my application for benefits. Cancelling of subscriptions and notifying debtors of my situation. I don't foresee any jobs arising soon.
News reached me on Friday that the company I worked for is now laying off more people with the added threat of a 25% pay-cut for those that remain. I worry for many of them. Things are not going to be good for a while if this continues.
Having readied the Power Armour and renamed Quincy to Dogmeat, I find myself almost prepared to take on any post-apocalyptic scenario. However the thing I cannot be prepared for is other people's inability to act rationally. As a result, supermarkets and deliveries in rural towns are both empty and virtually non-existent. I'm already eyeing up the dead fly which is stuck between the blinds and the window in the conservatory. It should increase my HP by +1 at least.
For months, on the run up to recent events, I have been saying to anyone that would listen (which is not very many people I must say) that we should be hiding weapons caches in the countryside, ensuring that there are underground networks of vital supplies and intelligence and preparing to fight the rise of fascism which, it seemed was clearly on the rise. Yet here we are, teetering on the dangerous precipice of civil liberty like a foolish Instagrammer doing the planking meme on a rotten piece of wood over a pit of hungry alligators. Scary times.
I am already using the amazing skills I spent £30k on getting during the late noughties to analyse the media and, as suggested by my tutors, question everything, look beyond the articles and read between the lines. I have been playing a nice game of predict the future :—
the end of cash (increase of contactless payment, enabling the state monitoring of your purchases)
In February, with tensions high in the sales office (heightened by a distinct lack of sales calls, the removal of temps, a visible drop in sales attributed to Brexit, the falling pound and poor high street sales), I was called to a meeting to be told that my and five other employee's role was at risk of redundancy.
Now, I've been made redundant four times previously so, as you get more experienced, you start to notice the signs; Whispered meetings, lack of work, telling glances between senior managers whenever future plans are discussed. So it was no surprise that Az (my manager) laid out the company's situation and plans in front of me. A month later, after playing all the silly redundancy games where they offer you a role clearly not suitable for you, meetings to discuss what you do and the passing over of duties to others, I was put on garden leave with a fairly nice redundancy package.
This was fine until a few days into my break from work, it became frighteningly clear that globally, something more worrying was brewing. Covid 19.
I'm now on the fourth week of my non-work period. I'm bored, feeling isolated and unwanted while still trying to stay positive, focussed and constructive. Sadly, with the whole virus thing going down, it seems that the jobs market is already starting to show signs of trouble.
I sported a beard over the past few years, that is to say I kind of fluctuated between stubbly bumfluff and full viking on a "Cant be arsed/ its expensive to shave" basis. I even bought into the whole male beard grooming bollocks that was fashionable recently. I had the electric beard trimmer and everything!
Then, over Christmas on our cruise, I saw lots of males with varying face carpets and a moment passed, a shadow moved across the waters, a penny dropped and yea twas like a veil being lifted. I realised: Beards were so last year; overly commonplace, scruffy and just a general statement of laziness.
Now, like other hipsters of the same ilk, I've now been sporting the clean shaven look and I am championing it as the new wave of male fashion statements.
That aside, Mrs Gnomepants V2.0 often makes comment about the kemptness of my head hair. I've always been a bit of a hairy yeti though recently, now I have a respectable job and need to make an impression with people of "traditional values", I've compromised and agreed to three hair cuts per year moreso now since my hair is thinning due to age, and I start to resemble Joanna Yeates' landlord Christopher Jefferies if I leave it too long. But when Mrs Gnomepants V2.0 insists on a trip to the barbers, I dig my heels in firmer and find any excuse not to go. Eventually I do give in though. I mean I'm 45 now...I have to be responsible and adult and stuff. Sometimes cardigans and slippers alone can't cut it...
Following a rather splendid calorie fuelled Christmas cruise, a few large pizzas and a return to bad sandwich van habits coupled with an incessant whistling in my ear, a few comments on how healthy I've been looking and feeling in need of something different to do, I thought I'd give the Whole30 lifestyle a pop.
"Whole30?" I hear you, like many of my work colleagues, ask with a curious, bemused and sometimes cynical look on your skull covering, "What's that? Some sort of jigsaw/badger collection/religious cult?". No. Far from it.
I've been explaining Whole30 to the uninitiated as a kind of dietary reboot that has been popular in Amerrycar for a number of years now. Its a lifestyle plan that tries to get you to think in more detail about how and when you consume food, how to scrutinise and analyse the ingredients in convenient things you buy and generally stick two "holier-than-though" fingers up at people who eat nothing but nice things like pizza, cheeseburgers and chocolate all day without any obvious external repercussions.
Rather than me copy the whole text here and then struggle with relinking the images, I have posted an account of my recent trip to Suffolk with Lovely Wife on the Wordpress page.
