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I used to hate Marmite. Now I really like it. All things are possible. Sunday, April 26, 2020. Monday, April 27, 2020. WFH: DAY 27. I sleep to the hoot of an owl and wake to a wood pigeon’s coo. The days pass more slowly under lockdown, in my experience. Life proceeds at a gentler pace, even though there’s as…

WFH: DAY 26. Last night I had another dream about losing a bag while travelling. (It recurs, periodically.) The interpretative range for such in popular culture is a wide as it is contradictory. For example: ‘You fear losing something precious’; ‘You need to let go of something that’s holding you back’; and, ‘You’re losing it, mate!’ (I’ll go with the…

WFH: DAY 24. 8.15 am: A communion. 8.45 am: Today was set aside for third-year painting tutorials. Inevitably, the conversations would range wider, taking in matters of health, well-being, and administration. Yes. We’d all like the present reality to be other than it is. But with the ‘curse’ comes the opportunity to: reflect more thoroughly upon who we are; determine…

‘I’m not here right now’ (Webclient notification). WFH: DAY 23. 8.00 am: A communion. I’ve a short list of friends and students on whom I check periodically. I don’t presume that those whom I consider well-able to deal with this crisis always are, necessarily. We each of us, I imagine, pitch lower than our best, some days. Moreover, my incarceration…

WFH: DAY 22. 8.15 am: A communion. 9.00 am: The start of a day of MA tutorials for the Exhibition and Portfolio modules. Inevitably, there were a few technical hitches. (I’d been expecting far more.) The hard part is discerning who, of the participants, is the cause. Often, no one is to blame. At least there was the messaging-mode as…

WFH: DAY 21. Although, the Easter holiday was largely devoted to work (on my own terms). What else was there to do in between one daily-exercise regime and another? I’d set myself the task of testing old and learning recently acquired equipment, familiarising myself with new software programs, exploring the possibilities of improvisation (on my own terms), revisiting a recent…

For in many things we offend all (James 3.2 (KJV)).We all stumble in many ways (James 3.2 (NIV)). Maunday Thursday. WFH: DAY 20. 8.15 am: A communion. 8.45 am: I persevered with my endeavours to ensure that all my personal tutees and the postgraduates were accounted for and safe. At times like these, I feel like a shepherd. Letters were…

WFH: DAY 19. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: Personal Tutee and postgraduate student well-being round-up. Who’d not got back to me? A third and final email beseeching a response. 11.15 am: The courier called to collect. He rang the bell, and moved away. I placed parcel on the doorstep, and moved away. He advanced, picked it up, and moved…

WFH: DAY 18. 7.45 am: A communion. 8.30 am: I returned to monitoring personal tutees and postgraduates. In these times, the otherwise polite sign-off at the close of a letter, ‘best wishes’, has taken on an unusual earnestness and specificity of implied content. On the whole, mature students (in their 40s and above, especially) are dealing with the crisis better…