A day in the life

My last day at work before the break and the last day ever for E, a fantastic volunteer who has held the education advice service for refugees together all though Covid when others weren't able to carry on. When I came back to work in September I was hugely relieved to find him there and gave him a Covid-inappropriate hug. When he told me in November that his life had got too busy and he wanted to leave at the end of the year I was gutted.

9.10 I'm aiming to get to Oxford between 4.30 and 5.30 for a half-hour stop to charge the car. (The electric car that was flat when Firstborn went to collect it last night for his drive to Margate is now fully charged.) Great - suits me fine.

We were going to say farewell to E at the big Winter Party on Monday but that was Covid-cancelled. So what to do on a bleak Thursday with only five people in the office?

9.53 The car says it has a range of 157 miles (fully charged). Might need to top up on the way to Margate which will delay things a little.

I go out to buy chocolate and wine as a present and while at the Co-op I buy cake. Back at the office my colleague, who has come in from London specially to say goodbye to E, orders pizza for a communal lunch.

12.46 Battery losing capacity. It only got me as far as Chievely. Had to wait in a queue and now charging. This is going to be a long journey.

Another colleague goes out to collect the pizza.

12.51 Having to use a slow charger at the moment, going to move on to a swifty when I move up the queue.

A meagre seven of us assemble to show E how much we're going to miss him. At least I managed to collect about 30 signatures on the farewell card. We eat pizza.

I give my informal farewell speech. I happen to have known every education adviser in the organisation since it started 25 years ago so I tell E [my phone pings] how he is different from every other: the only one under 60; the only one without a career in education behind him; the only one to wear shorts to work; the one I'm going to miss beyond words...

13.36 So far I've spent an hour driving and 2.5 hours wrestling with broken chargers, queueing for chargers and actually changing. And I'm still not fully charged.

We eat cake.

13.46 (from B in Margate): Family vote whether I should stay put / take the train/tube/train.

E and I return to our respective desks to tie up some loose ends before the break.

14.03 'LIFE is so much easier when you CHILL OUT' (jpg of an epigram Firstborn saw outside Costa Coffee along with a stressed face emoji).

I can't focus on detail. I write an email about whether it would be overall better for clients if the organisation stopped providing some of its services and left them to other organisations.

14.10 (B) Heavy heart, I think I should stay put.

I decide not to send my email.

14.25 Leaving Chievely now. Heading to Oxford.

At 3.30 I give E, still working, another inappropriate hug and walk home to comfort Firstborn who has established that the charger in my street is broken, as is the one just down the road, so he's driven the car to he one up the hill 3/4 mile away and is now walking back.

At 4.05 I give him lunch.
.........

At least there were three of us together for the stresses of the rest of the day - mainly monitoring the car battery's rapid loss of power on our way from Oxford to Bristol and trying to work out how to find then pay for a charging station. My waning enthusiasm for electric cars was tempered by the kind people who helped us, and realising that the state of this shared-car battery is probably due to lots of hirers doing short journeys.

The evening ended as it should, with mulled wine and a mince-pie taste test, and with the old one falling into bed while the young ones watched a violent movie.