First day back at work outside today, in classic Ministry style I’ve been procrastinating, avoiding building sites, driving uptown gates to get the site manager’s number to book appointments to do my thing. I’ve been working on a decimalisation of the days as the weeks have kind of bled into each other; weekends becoming less relevant, Tuesdays one time worst day of the week now sometimes finds itself as a reason for celebration. The patio or as I have now renamed it, “The Terrace” has been dictating the past few weeks, and only yesterday or possibly the day before more hardcore and sharp sand was lifted over the fence ready to transform into an extension to the new terrace. So today’s realisation that I have to get back on it has given me a small case of the blues as I think it probably is and has a lot of folk who’ve had to get started again. 20 years doing the job, an expert at what I do, suddenly I feel like a timid child, gloves on, helmet on, sunglasses on and mask on, head down and crack on, wishing to get off the site as soon as I set foot in the compound. I finished, did the same thing on another site and hurried home, happy to be in my safe place.

Its Mental Health Awareness Week and as well as being aware of it, this return to work, despite nothing changing, poole are dying in their tens of thousands, and the country is opening up and unravelling, I’m hoping there’s not a second wave, but with the state of leadership in this country l fear the worst. But today has held up a mirror to my own mental fragilities, i’ll be ok, but I can see this is going to take some time…