Day 15: I Wonder What To Do With My Time

At the moment, I am surprised that I can fill my days, but I do. Today, for example, has been like this:

Feed cat: 2 minutes. Get food out of thing. Kick cat off ankles. Tell cat to shut up. Try and get hand near cat bowl thing. Object to cat butting hand. Stop. Start again. Cat butts hand. Try and put food in bowl again. Cat butts hand. Food goes all over floor. Pick up food. Cat glares.

Breakfast 20 minutes. Poach eggs, toast toast, make tea. Eat eggs, drink tea, have staring competition with the cat.

Wash 30 minutes. Observe fat bobbing in bath. Scowl. Admire newly-perky feet. Realise that no gentleman caller = no need to shave legs. Realise am trying to line a cloud with silver. Sigh a bit. Put head under water. Bring head up out of water. Repeat 10 times.

Check Email 10 minutes. Some interesting, some not. Some from people I do not know.

Go to gym 15 minutes getting there. 5 minutes trying to park. 5 minutes not getting padlock to work. 1 hour 'activity', peppered with Anuja telling me a 'she said this to him and he said and I said and they said ANUJA YOU'RE MAD' story.

Wonder if it would be bad to ask for a new personal trainer, and interview them all first to find out whether or not they will say things like "a journey of a single mile starts with - oh, I can't remember, but you what I mean!". 10 minutes sitting in steam room listening to Radiohead followed by early period Madonna, both of which were playing on the 'sound system'. 10 minutes in cold shower wondering why shower smells weird and what the smell is and whether it's me. 1 minute not being able to work turnstile, and therefore get out of gym.

Supermarket 40 minutes. Extremely exciting. Runner beans or green beans? Cabbage? What kind of lettuce? Ginger? Rough or smooth oatcakes? Buy ingredients to make own muesli and 2 types of soup aware, as I am, that both these activities will take time.

Unpack shopping 10 minutes throwing away 10 day old courgettes and wondering where all the water in the bottom of the fridge came from. 10 minutes unpacking shopping. Realise now have 8 tins of chickpeas.

Make soup 30 minutes. Put chickpeas in it. Soup a bit boring, but useful. Eat soup.

Read The Guardian 30 minutes. Read all of ladies' bit. Read some of Media Guardian. Snort with derision. See jobs other people I know could do. Wonder about telling them, then decide not to, as they might think I am hinting that I think they should be in full time employment.

Fall asleep on sofa in front of chat show with ugly people shouting at each other 3 hours. Wake up with lips stuck to teeth and car alarm going off with head like cheap fudge.

Eat oatcakes 20 seconds.

Go into garden 20 minutes. Stare at garden. Worry about garden. Garden is dead.

Plan holiday 10 minutes. Discuss flight times with Man On Motorbike. Talk about tents. Decide on hotels.

Look for cat hotel 3 minutes. Very complicated. Give up.

Listen to phone messages 5 minutes. 3 very irritating people, one of whom I hardly know, leaving messages in imperious tones asking me to do things that I have no intention of doing.

The good thing about working with people that you like very much, doing something that is, on the whole, quite interesting, is that days pass quite quickly, and are quite entertaining. Now I am worried that the novelty of having loads of time off work will wear off. I could, of course, go and do something, but I'm not sure I can be arsed.