A lovely morning, 5° and breezy, but didn’t feel so bad. Medium pollen and harder breathing, but an adequate 9:51 mile. Hot breakfast, and I allowed myself a relaxing start to the day, with a view eventually getting a bit of writing done. Among the pursuits that enhanced my morning were selecting and ordering some ink and paper, and polishing several of my active-duty pens. I anticipated that the latter half of my afternoon would be consumed by Zoom meetings, so my expectations of productivity were low.
As it turns out, my expectations were vindicated, but that feels fine. The plague-tension (German Pestangst sounds right) won’t just go away, but if I can eke out some writing and reading in between spells of Pestangst-induced inanition, that seems reasonable to me. I defy productivity guilt! (This, by the way, is one reason I gravitate to making my PDF editions under stress-dominated circumstances. On one hand, it’s very definitely productive. On the other, it doesn’t require of me free, creative thought so much as persistent attention to detail, which soothes and gratifies me, and which results in the end in a useful result.
We ordered dinner form Majliss, and fought through into the final season of Spooks. If MI-5 is reading this, and if this series accurately reflects the work of the agency, just a word to say that you could hire Margaret and me, cos we hit on key ideas about the plot well before Section D does. (Apart from all the torture and killing, of course; we’re not in for that.)