Well today has been a bit of a different day...
Today should have seen me back in work with my colleagues planning and getting ready for re-opening our doors to children on Monday but instead I found myself in court.
But not to worry I was in court for a very good reason, to serve as a member of a jury. I had been due to start my jury service next week and had received notice that my service might have to extend to three weeks rather than the usual two. Because of the possible time extension I had been asked to complete a questionnaire to determine whether I was able to complete a full three weeks. I had returned the questionnaire stating that I would rather avoid three weeks as it would be detrimental to my work; I was already not looking forward to missing the first two weeks of the academic year as it was.
Well, yesterday afternoon I received a phone call from my local crown court asking if I could attend court today in lieu of my scheduled jury service and in doing so I would avoid the possible three week stint. So I agreed to attend on the basis that the case I might have to sit on would last today and possibly tomorrow but that that would be my jury service completed.
This meant an early start to my day, well early compared to the last few weeks, and I found myself checking into the court just before 9am along with my fellow jurors. After running through a few bits of paperwork we sat waiting our call...we sat and we sat and about three hours later the jury was picked and I was 'lucky' enough to be one of those picked. We were sworn in and then broke for lunch! But then the afternoon was taken up with the case which turned out to be a little different from the norm; we were to assess whether the defendant had committed the act they were accused of rather than deliver a guilty or not guilty verdict.
Thankfully, we were able to come to a verdict resolution today and so my jury service ended around 4.15pm this afternoon, with the juror officer commenting that we were discharged and had 'completed the quickest jury service ever'!
This means that not only have I been able to execute my civic duty, for which the judge and court officers present all thanked us for, but it also means that returning to work next week is no longer disrupted.
But as my team were in work today I will have a day of work tomorrow to catch up on what I have missed today and complete some necessary administration bits and pieces.
My first job when I arrived back home this afternoon was to grab a big cup of coffee as the court was not able to provide any access to food or hot drinks as they would have done ordinarily because of 'covid'...really not sure how that works as cafes etc are open?!! I had the foresight to take a flask of coffee with me but it was lacking in volume to the amount I would usually drink (decaf though!).
And whilst I've been out all day we have had delivery of some of the items for our bathroom revamp that is due to start next week. We now have a garage full of boxes although all are strategically placed so that we still have room to complete our gym workouts. Which is exactly what we did when Simon finished work for the day.
And while we were out in the garage I just happened to hear a van pull up and upon investigation found it was a delivery for me of some clothes that I'd ordered at the beginning of the week - yay!
So whilst today was not the day that I'd originally had planned it turned out to be pretty good and extremely fortuitous.
See you all tomorrow.
xx
