The last day of the month; I managed a sprint to Cramond (10km) on the bike before clocking on at the coal face. A productive day for once. And on domestic stuff too. Being pay day and bills to sort out etc.

I WFH again in the afternoon (not my home) - as part of a wider move to - I dunno - just freshen things up, be more supportive?

After work, we arranged to meet Nic.O.La at Blackford Hill - having previously managed a round of it in the mists of a few Saturdays ago, I figured it might be nice for Her to see the view.

So a pleasant 90 minutes followed by a not pleasant cycle back past the scene of  fatal accident on Morningside Rd - 3 year old boy died when a car mounted the pavement and took out him and his mum. I'm guessing medical emergency but still heartbreaking to see.

I managed to rustle up a cherry blue cheese chicken salad with sorta 'ranch' dressing I suppose? And the remnants of the cherry and bitter chocolate squidgy pudding. Her lass came in pissed; the lad was busy shouting at the PS4 for 3 solid hours - a pay in / winner takes all Call of Duty tournament.

I was glad of the peace when I sidled in.

It's been a strange month. Piece by piece, little by little there has been a decline in - general well being. And it's obvious from blips (and with the benefit of hindsight) that there's a general mumph been creeping in.

I'd had a thought about 10 days ago that my 'happy places' (aargh! I hate the expression, but it explains it, so) were largely gone. I can't remember as long a gap between Munros - not even when children were born; galleries etc are off limits, coking has become much more perfunctory and cycling has been a struggle.. Saturday's slog around E Lothian showed that there's hidden problems post CV with breathing and endurance. It's not just less exercise, there's something more underpinning it; 58km on relative flat should not leave me sleeping for 3 hours.

Then lets look at the politics of the world and the UK. The behaviour of the current Westminster government is appalling. The naked greed and utter contempt that's shown to the British public is horrendous. From Rees Mogg dismissively ridiculing people who followed fire fighters advice at Grenfell, to the £45 million saving to a billionaire former pornographer at the expense of those who need social housing, Matt Hancock's utter ineptitude (Daniel Rashford, anyone?) and Priti Patel's celebration of the ending of our right to travel freely within Europe - how is ending free travel for UK citizens like I enjoyed and is now not a thing for my children - oh and her 'Dominic Cummings is old news' in response to the half million who flocked to Bournemouth. How out of touch are you? It's exactly because we all remember it that we're going there - dur! Raab and the taking of the knee? All lead by the most inept bare faced liar of them all Boris Johnston. Not a leader, but recently described as the sort of person to see which way everyone is heading then running in front of them and shouting 'follow me!' A charlatan. 
Trump /  BLM / USA is another example of this. Is it any surprise that the 3 countries who have suffered worst with Covid 19 are led by the 3 most wacked out crackpot eejits going? Er no.

And closer to home, I watch local government fail in their efforts to address issues of space for pedestrians and cyclists (my favoured modes of transport) whilst there have been 3 high profile instances in the past week in Edinburgh where the inability of anyone in charge to protect the citizens in the most basic way is shocking.

And the worst of it? I feel so helpless. The government care not about death rates or infections or testing, they care about money. There's no obvious way of changing things bar in 5 years time at the next election. 5 more years of greedy callous people in charge? Great...

It's fair to say I've not enjoyed June 2020. But the most obvious thing is that I'm not taking any joy in taking photos. Once I realised I'd taken about a third of the number I would expect to take in a month, I realised it was time to act.

I've spoken to Her and we're joining forces to hold each other up. I think we've both suffered more than we know with CV and the consequences directly and indirectly. Expect a smattering of a back log to be filled in and some more photos going forward.