Retail therapy ... and other signs of 2012

The new year has got its feet under the table, as it were.  Things are slowly getting back to normal after the long festive break - although I confess that I haven't as yet got round to recycling those greeting cards that won't find their way into my 'sentimental retention' file.  And work-wise, this week has been remarkably better than last: not 'good', by any means, but with income likely to be more than twice last week's, I can't be other than satisfied.

The pattern that 2012 has established so far for me is one of semi-retirement.  That is, I might like for it to become semi-permanent if I were to find I could afford it (if that's not too tortuous!)  With one notable exception this week I've tended to get up quite lazily, and go in to work around 10.0 or later, which has had the benefit of getting some stuff done on my desk in the morning ... and the disadvantage of allowing me the latitude of staying up later at night!

Eight jobs this week have provided an interesting mix of the known and unknown, the long and short, and the good and bad fortune - oh, and that repeating genie of which I've spoken in the past got a hand in it as well.  A repeat of the Shoeburyness run I did last week was my only job on Monday, and Tuesday provided only a couple of locals.  I had risen to second on the list by mid afternoon, and was offered second refusal at an anti-social job for delivery in Lancaster by 8.0 the following morning.

This entailed being woken by a phone call at around 11.30pm, to meet someone for the collection, and a long, slow, economical drive taking as long as conveniently possible for what should be a 4-hour journey.  One aspect I particularly enjoyed was spending over an hour at Shardlow services on the A50, virtually the only customer - certainly the only one sitting there from 3.0 till 4.10 - sipping my coffee and reading my long-suffering book-in-the-van.  It seemed a warmer way of losing some of the excess time than trying to sleep in a cold van; and anyway, after six hours' rest, if not constant sleep, before leaving home, I wasn't particularly tired - until later on.

I mentioned the repeating genie - his contribution this week was different from the usual.  One of two jobs taken to Birmingham yesterday, was a box collected from our local college for delivery to a college there;  this morning I collected a similar box from the same place to go to a college in Norwich.

One of the tasks to which I was able to devote - or should that be sacrifice - my time at home this morning was reinstating my podcast feeds, which I managed to lose last night when I closed a dialog box on the computer without noticing until it was too late that one of the check-boxes was ticked!  At least this will prompt me to tidy up some that I downloaded long ago but have never got round to listening to!

Finally this week, a confession.  I have discovered the joys of retail therapy.  I blame the boredom that accompanies the present low level of work, although that's probably not justified.  Last weekend I replaced my hi-fi.  The old one had long since stopped playing CDs, and they all sit in the cabinet in the hall unable to be listened to.  I offered the old hi-fi on freecycle, but it seems there are no handymen about who might like to attempt the challenge to get it working again.  Tomorrow it goes to the tip.  And with it will go my old toaster, also replaced.  The excuse for this is that it was cheap and tiny, requiring the end of a standard slice of bread to be trimmed so that it would fit into the slot.  I deemed this wasteful of both bread and energy!

Add to these extravagences, the normal service to the van last Tuesday, and this week's follow-up to the eye test last weekend, i.e. new reading specs, and I can see why they call one day in late January 'Black Monday'.  It's when all the credit card balances, inflated by festive spending, have to be settled.  In my case, it's not festive over-spending, but a simple Micawberesque case of outgoings exceeding income, but one way or another it cannot be allowed to continue!