At the end of the deck

Today has been my last day of work before starting two weeks of leave from work. I won't say holiday, as we can't go anywhere particularly. Furthermore, my plan is to use much of the time I won't be working to do things in the garden here at the beach house, and also do what is possible in day trips to the new home. We are hoping that we can get some more things done, but the block right now is the need for building consent. And then have a builder available to do the work. Nothing much may happen for some months.

Friday is officially my half day. However, I needed to hand over to the colleague who is covering my role in the unit. Made more difficult as my registrar is off sick; hopefully not Covid. Then another of the young psychiatrists we have recruited from other countries needed to have his supervision report completed so that he can apply to Council for vocational registration. Discussion about how the three separate DHBs work together during the Covid restrictions, spilled over from the morning into the afternoon.

While waiting between various calls and zooms I read an interesting paper on the (lack of clinically significant) effects of antidepressants on the unborn child. Given that maternal depression has significant impacts on the developing child in utero, the accumulated evidence suggests only minor effects on average. 

By the time everything was done, it was late in the afternoon, the rain had returned and I lacked the wish to go out for a jog. I looked for something that appealed to me and saw a couple of the "wizard's staffs" the grandsons had gathered from the beach a couple of summers ago in a pot behind one of the prolific daisies in the big planter box between the end of the deck and the fence.