‘Interestingly, I seem to be haunting a number of peoples’ dreams recently’ (JH, correspondence (September 24, 2020)).

7.45 am: The promissory:

8.30 am: A communion. 9.00 am: I attempted to finalise the MA students’ requests for studio space before bombing up the hill to meet with Mr Garrett for our annual ‘space allocation walkaround’. We’ve now laid claim to a decommissioned hall of residence. (It was no longer sophisticated enough for today’s discerning students.) But as studio spaces go, they’re the bees knees — with a kitchenette and a lovely view over the bay. It’s the best deal we’ve ever secured for the postgraduate students. ‘Good bye Old College; hello Travel Lodge’:

En route and thereafter, I finally revalidated my staff card at the Porters’ Lodge. The free condom dispensers have now been replaced by a free face mask offer. Not as much fun, but just as important from a health and safety perspective:

10.30 am: Back at home, emails dripped into my inbox like rain through a leaking roof. The School of Art is in a molten form presently — constantly reshaping itself, moving like lava, and solidifying temporarily until the equally mercurial world around it begins to shift again. As staff, we were all swimming against the oncoming tide, and feeling, at times, that we did well just to stand still. Throughout the afternoon I posted reminders, updated class times, finalised classrooms, maintained communication loops, and bent with the wind. One day we’ll look back and regard this period as a heroic time for teaching.

I needed to get back to … :

7.30 pm: And so it went on, and on, and on. I was at a point where individual tutorials could begin to be planned for next week. Fitting them all in will be a real howler. But it does now feel as though the USS School of Art is finally beginning to leave space-dock on impulse power.