[208/365] big day

You know who's really great, is diffrentcolours, who woke up very early to drive (which he hates) me to a work thing this morning, saving me from a very long rush-hour bus journey among the unmasked, to some place I've never been before (which is extremely likely to give me anxiety attacks).

(I totally support the train strikes but holy shit why do I keep being asked to go to the far side of Greater Manchester only on train-strike days?!)

And he was planning to come pick me up too! Bless him. I had no idea of that, I'd been expecting to get the bus(es) home, so I told him not to. We'd had an okay journey there in the morning but he'd hit traffic coming home, and I didn't want to make him drive any more today.

I was there for the kind of session I used to do as a volunteer -- when T my old volunteer-manager, now a colleague, asked me to help out, she said "I don't have that many volunteers any more! why'd you have to go and get a job, Erik?"

I said "I didn't mean to, you know that!" and we both laughed; she did know. And she's been scrupulously asking if it's okay for me to take time to do these things now, but my manager is super chill about it, and it is relevant to my job role.

It went fine but it was tiring. Three and a half hours of talking and thinking and wearing a mask and just being around people. And then another hour to get home. The first bus, through areas I don't know at all, eventually turned up someplace I recognized and could get my usual bus home.

I got back just in time to chair a meeting that happens every month but which I'd only been to one of, of course, and that was in my first week or so when everything blurred together. But a lot of people are on leave, including the one who'd normally chair it and about half the people who'd turn up. It was quiet, it finished early, and I felt a little awkward but I think it was okay. There are worse things than feeling a little awkward.

And then I got to talk to barakta about National Fail! I think I now have the information and context I need to finish the complaint. Haven't done it yet, too tired. Didn't do more than skim my e-mail today, too tired. Only added things to my work to-do list, didn't take any off.

Another busy day tomorrow, I can catch up on that stuff, meet with my team, and I have another in-person meeting with T but this is a regular meeting which is less work for me, it's in the middle of the day not at rush hour, it's only one bus away, and it's somewhere I've been before.