WFH: DAY 28. 8.15 am: A communion. 9.45 am: I plundered my Inbox and caught up on the latest decisions regarding assessment-submission protocols, organized my Post-its (there’s a subtle pleasure in scrunching one up once every item on its list has been fulfilled), and prepared for the deluge of marking that will inundate my life once May begins. At this time of the year, under normal circumstances, the balance between research, teaching, and admin changes. It’ll change again, in ways that I can envisage but can’t yet calculate.

House (detail) #5:

11.00 am: One-minute’s silence was observed to honour key workers who’ve given their lives in the cause of duty. 11.05 am: Vocational Practice convened a team meeting. It was good to see their faces again. The four-window limit of MS Teams feels a little exclusive. But it’s workable. Over the past weeks, I’ve been struck by the inequities of online teaching and learning. No student had signed-up for this type of education. Some don’t have the electrical wherewithal to fully and easily engage the provision. Others aren’t comfortable with the process. Digital exchange is not suited to everyone’s psychology. Online teaching is here to stay, undoubtedly. It has many virtues, but no advantage over meeting as student and teacher, face-to-face. I’m learning a great deal more about the dynamics peculiar to this mode of real-world delivery and reception. 12.00 pm: I cleared my desk of the administrative follow-up to our conversation, and converted all my Post-its to MS OneNotes.

2.00 pm: I was torn. Further writing beckoned. But I wanted to make something too. So I did both, while fielding an email discussion about student e-submission. in the background. (In the background to the background I continued to work my way through the online back-catalogue of the Welsh free improvisation ensemble Hwyl Nofio.

House (detail) #6:

4.30 pm: In light rain I walked down Plas Grug Avenue, remembering times that I’d done so in the opposite direction, moving towards the rear entrance to the cemetery. Around this time of day, families emerge: a young couple and a toddler are a common grouping. They always look a little bewildered and aimless. The homeward path took me close to the School of Art. We all miss the place, dearly. She’s now as empty as in the time before we first moved in, in 1997.

7.30 pm: I continued to make something. This new suite of sound works is unrelated to the new CD project. ‘New’ is something of a misnomer. The idea behind it is nearly ten years old. Sometimes, for whatever reason, realization lags far behind conception. It gave me an opportunity to implement a technique used my sound engineers. This involves re-recording a digital sound file on tape and, then, replaying it into a digital recorder. The process adds a subtly warm complexion and organic quality to the source.