Thursday 16th March 2023

With the 3rd month of the year half gone, we now have been told our tasks for the year. For me it means many trips to Denmark, Spring in Dublin, summer in the South of France and even a further trip to Portugal.

Am will be going to work, to audit. My only fear is that we are being seen as magicians, to go to wave our magic audit wands to fix their problems. It won't be quite like that, but I and my friends will do our best, of course.

So these weeks at the end of winter, leading up to Easter will be the end of my salad days, end of being home each night with Jools and the cats, well, I won't be away every week, not like when I was on construction projects. But it will come as a shock. And then there is the balancing of the need to be face to face, with the costs. A four day trip to Denmark costs the company £1500, is what I do worth that expense? Doubly so when they company fights like a tiger to pretend what I find is wrong.

I will use trips to travel to meet people, to take photographs of new places and to recce out new places for Jools and I to visit.

Because it suits.

Me and us.

And then there is the possibility of us getting a pay rise. We might get one, but that such talk is now in its thrid month, I don't hold out much hope.

And so back to work, and another working week slips towards its end, and by Friday day and night will be in balance, and after that more sunlight than moonlight.

I am up to date at work, for now, so my task is to be alert, answer mails and phone calls, and be generally the model of efficiency. I also make cups of coffee and tea vanish, as well as oatcakes and the leftover two venison and cranberry sausages as well as frying up the mash too, for a fine lunch.

I could quite happily go to sleep for the rest of the day.

Then, after lunch, in the middle of a meeting with my manager, I was hit my an optical migraine. I don't get headaches, but I can't be sure when it fades each time, whether I will be drained, have a headache or be fine.

Half an hour later I had a dull headache, nothing too bad, but I sat on the sofa with Scully and half watched the story of the English Civil War and then the Glorious Revolution.

The afternoon passed, I packed up the work computer, mixed up the batter for fritters, and cooked them for when Jools came back. Its still light then, just after half five, soon we will go for a walk before dinner. We say this every year, but this year we shall follow through.

We eat, clear up and the day is done. I do little other than sit with Scully, listen to the radio, and go to bed dead on nine.