Thursday 12th October 2023

Five years ago, on October 1st 2018 I rekindled this blog as 365-2-50, then 55. My first entry on that year documenting my 55th season on this planet was to mention I'd returned from leave and the image was of the door of my office I then inhabited. Scroll on five years to 2023 and as I stood making myself a coffee, I thought, is this it? 

Five years ago room 0.19 3TPR in Broadcasting House Bristol was a hive of natural history activity. We were making episodes of Living World, Tweet of the Day and Natural Histories, it was busy, it was creative, the room was often chaotic. Then money became tight, those programmes were no longer being made a-new, with only the ghost of their past alive in repeats on Radio 4. Then I was informed my office was scheduled to become a disabled toilet. My career was going down the pan. 

March 2020 covid hit the world. For a year as a 'key worker' I was given permission to 'volunteer' to come into the office on a regular basis. I languished in a near empty building providing dedicated support to the teams working at home in the form of supply of kit and logistics. In many ways this was a fascinating time as I rattled about a site with a handful of other key workers, where only months earlier 1000+ people worked.  Eventually by the end of 2021 some of the team began to drift back and by spring 2022 we were nearly back to normal - but by then working from home became a confirmed process within the BBC under a hybrid system - 2 days in the office, 3 at home. Which in reality means just stay home. Plans for that disabled toilet were shelved but I moved next door into 0.18 3TPR, the Management Office to work alongside my boss Kate the Unit Manager. 

A few months later my old office was earmarked to be a kitchen. I guess that is one step up from a disabled toilet. The reasoning behind that was that television (Natural History Unit and Features TV) moved off the Whiteladies Road site in May 2022 to a new facility in the city, Bridgewater House. This left only about 80 people at the old site. Consequently the BBC Restaurant here and the BBC Club all closed due to lack of footfall. What few local television and Network radio people who remained working in the building had nowhere to go to have a meal, buy a sandwich or make a tea or coffee. 0.19 3TPR therefore became a 'kitchen hub'. 

In a way this is a metaphor for all life, things change and while we think what is normal is today in a certain place and it will never change, in reality there is no certainty in anything we do and absolutely nothing remains the same for long. But at least I have somewhere to make myself a coffee, progress indeed.