For me, a pair of mobile phone headphones! I'll be buying them today.
I went out for a longer than usual run yesterday and I was bothered by phone call after phone call concerning one of my clients. It became an intellectual challenge for all concerned. When a man has a severe alcohol problem and the plan is to restrict him to a maximum 4 cans of lager per day and without warning his disability scooter breaks down (can only walk about 5-10 steps) and it can't be repaired for nearly five days, what do you do? Everyone panics! The off licence is one mile away. As a one-off, a relative agreed to pay for a taxi, the 'passenger' was four cans and one pouch of tobacco! A Plan B had never been considered. Why would they need to, the scooter would obviously work forever and he would never change. Wrong! His lager plan has worked well for four years, but yesterday everything fell apart at the seams.
My run obviously then turned into a walk. Ideas were put forward, one suggestion was for 6' high locked metal cabinet to be placed in his flat and the Care Company would then be asked to unlock and give him his daily allowance at each mornings first visit. They refused of course, which is fair enough. Another idea, is there a Deliveroo type service in the area and if so what would they charge? Still waiting on this one. Problem not yet solved.
I worked out that along my 10 mile route I must have had about 15 phone calls, back and forth, some short, duration and some long. Ahh, the pleasures of Care in the Community, I get that warm fuzzy feeling just thinking about it!
Why do I need the headphones? Hopefully, I can then have my hands free(ish) to quickly get out my notebook and pen and be able to write some legible notes. At one point yeasterday I managed to lay my phone on the top of a fence and turned the loudspeaker on, but at the other places en route one of my hands had to hold my phone to my ear, not good for writing notes on a piece of paper.
I'm in a good mood today, sunny and calm, just off for a run and have just heard that a neighbour is going to collect todays booze. If I was clever I could write a TV comedy programme about all this stuff, along the lines of Just Minister.