Monday 13th January 2020

How can it be that a day back at work feels like a day off?

Being at home, sharing the day with the cats and the radio. I mean, what's not to like?

But, and let's be honest here, I have rather let things go over the festive period. And I know that Kit Kats for breakfast, dozens of sausage rolls for lunch and roast turkey and pink fizz for dinner every day, isn't healthy.

And with it being winter, walking out anything outside isn't pleasant, so, there's nothing else for it, but to be friends again with Mr Cross-Trainer. I made all sorts of ecuses, some even based in fact, before and over Christmas not to start then, but now, with swollen feet after the best part of three days driving, train journeys and meetings, time to get the lard pumping.

As always its that first step that is the hardest, so after Jools left for work, and the heating made it too warm to get sweaty, I put on my trainers, switch on the radio, and get going.

20 minutes.

One. Oh this is OK.

Three: OK, the novelty has work off.

Five: must be nearly done now.

Eight. What d'you mean, eight minutes.

Ten: halfway there. To Hell.

Fifteen: why stop now, just when I'm hating it?

Nineteen: 60 seconds to go. 59. 58. 57.

Twenty.

Thank fuck for that.

But I did twenty straight minutes, no breaks, no cheating. Sure, I was hot and sweaty, needed a shower, but not blowing bubbles.

Its a start.

I go down to the kitchen to cool down, looking at the merle of blackbirds already searching for food under the feeders. I'll top them up soon, and sprinkle additional seeds on the ground so they won't go hungry.

And then to work, eating my healthy breakfast as I check e mails.

It is sunny outside, but soon will cloud over and get windy, so I go outside to take shots of the hellebores just coming into flower for the shot of the day before going back to work.

I have an audit report to write, and so spend the rest of the day looking for appropriate clauses in the various standards to which to raise my comments against. This is the bane of the auditor; we know what's wrong, but just what is it that has gone wrong?

I have soup and some homemade potato bread for lunch, some power food to help me concentrate.

By three I have my draft done, and sent it to my fellow auditor to review. Phew.

That calls for a coffee.

Jools is doing yoga when she finishes work, so I have a long, quiet, lonely early evening, with just the cat's plaintive wailing that it must be dinner time now, Dad, to keep me company.

I listen to the radio, write a blog. Or two. And edit shots. Dinner is to be cheese toasties, meaning no preparation is required.

So more lazing about.

And she returns, at the height of the storm, arriving indoors with the cats saying I hadn't fed them. Liars!

I make dinner and a brew. And by the time we finish it is eight in the evening, and soon be time for bed.

Where'd that day go?