Sunday 18 January 2009

Escape from the Pit


Free again!




The trouble with day jobs is they often get in the way of the important stuff, like writing. On the whole I do tend to get off quite lightly, especially for an accountant, where a lunatic fifteen-hour day work ethic is still quite prevalent. Fortunately it has been a long time since I had to succumb to such nonsense, and for this I am grateful. I commute by public transport, and although this keeps me away from home for eleven or twelve hours each day, I get to spend two to three of them reading or listening to podcasts; never knock public transport, I get through thirty books a year this way.

But the accountancy world likes to drop one little irritant onto the calendar every twelve months: year-end. This is the time when statutory accounts must be prepared. My year-end is 31st December, so at least I get Christmas.

The photo is of frozen trees in Delemere Forest on
New Year's day, my last day of freedom.

But on 2nd January it’s back to work for a run of two or three seven-day weeks, when daylight and the sight of clouds scudding across the sky becomes but a memory. Each evening I return home in the guise of a zombie, and, although I still manage to write a little, most of it will be edited out of existence during the following weeks of post-accountancy rehab.

But it’s over. I have emerged. My first free weekend. It was wonderful. Sarah and I have done museums, pizzas, gardens... and today we went to Ness, for a lecture about bugs and slugs and their sex lives. (Never let it be said that I don’t know how to give a girl a good time.)

And I’ve worked through a long list of tasks that have been on hold for a while: I’ve booked Wirral Writers a table at next month’s Write Minds event in Ruthin (28th Feb); I’ve booked accommodation for our annual pilgrimage to the Hay Festival in May (accommodation is such a classy word, don’t you think? I'm referring to a 18x6 patch of grass in a field. But it’s a very nice field, and it's one in which we’ve wanted to park our caravan for a number of years.)

This is Hay 2007. I don't have photos of 2008, my camera isn't the underwater type.



And I’ve been booked to play sax/clarinet in two shows in March and April. And I've booked a caravan site for a weekend in London...

Now just look at that, a clear desk.
Sleeves rolled up. Cup of tea. Time to push on with the novel.