Bank Holidays have changed

 I have to admit I'm finding everything quite tiresome now. Had a busy weekend. On Saturday we son had a friends birthday party at an outdoor centre with running, jumping, climbing and rowing. It was a good idea. But you spend your time outside with half an eye on everybody else and the kids kept getting hauled off things every 10 minutes so it could be cleaned. I applaud the centre we went to as they were doing a good job, but it just reminds you constantly that things are not 'normal'.

A friend came over in the evening for supper - again in the garden - again with bobble hats and coats on. Things are going to get more and more complicated over the winter. It's not so much friends I worry about struggling to see - but I do worry about my elderly parents. How is that going to work? Time will tell.

Yesterday was Bank Holiday Monday and husband had day off so I decided to take day off from setting up company too. Before I continue with this actually - I'm having a nightmare setting up the company because all the funded companies out there who are supposed to support me are on furlough. There's literally no help and support and so I've had to call in favours - that's what I'm up to this week - hopefully friends and family can get me sorted.

Anyway, back to Bank Holiday - we decided to go down to the Marina - where it is normally quite quiet because it's the 'uncool' area locally. What we hadn't counted on was that everybody else would have the same idea - also it was the last day of a government scheme where you got £10 off a meal.

Trying to socially distance we walked to each restaurant (that hadn't shutdown due to COVID) and each had a huge queue and only had room inside. We quickly decided that it simply wasn't worth it. So we went to the local supermarket and bought a sandwich. The idea was that we would take it to the harbour wall and sit there. It's been a while since we walked the harbour wall, but we used to do it quite often. It's quite a reasonable walk and it's nice to be able to look at Brighton from the middle of the water with nobody around.

Son and I tried to do the walk last summer, but we couldn't because they'd shut it. So was quite keen to do it this time. We wandered over - only to find out it's STILL shut. They're doing repair work on it - I'm not sure how long it will take them to do it, but it felt really frustrating to have yet another potential thing we can do closed off to us.

Needless to say we ended up eating our sandwiches on some metal steps in an industrial area of the Marina. Not exactly the sexiest of eating experiences. After that we decided to walk over to Black Rock to see what was happening in the 'real world' (ie. not on metal steps overlooking a water pump). I'm actually quite pleased we did. For as long as I can remember a huge section of Black Rock has been boarded up so you can't see it. As you drive up from the Marina you can see inside the section and you can see that hundreds of graffiti artists have been busy inside.

Now I know this is controversial, but I love graffiti. We actually have quite a bit in our house - on canvas, not on the walls I hasten to add. Anyway, loads of the boarding at Black Rock had come down. I'm not sure if they're planning to start building there (I know this is the long-term plan) or whether the recent storms took the boarding down. However, what it meant was that for the first time you could actually see the graffiti that was inside.

Some of the graffiti up there was really quite beautiful. Although I do think that taggers are vandals. My favorite bit of graffiti is the picture for today's post. Actually managed to make me laugh.

I spent the last bit of the bank holiday trying to sort things for son's birthday on Thursday. He's off to school first thing, but they finish at 12.45. I've got a few plans, I'll keep them secret from you right now, just as I'm keeping them secret from him. But I'll let you know more later in the day.

Anyway, cross your fingers for me this week. I find out what my redundancy pay out is and what their plans are for me until my final day. Also I'm hoping to get some support from somebody to make sure I'm doing the right thing when setting up my company. It's the boring stuff like 'what insurance' and 'what else do I need apart from my brain'. Right now I'm not even sure if I should be a Limited company or a sole trader. I've set up as a Limited company but I'd really like to discuss it with somebody that knows about these things. Frustrating - although I'm confident I'll get there.

Speak soon.