A mammoth undertaking

Yesterday was my last day at work this year, as I’m taking two full weeks off on leave over Christmas and the New Year to recharge my batteries. I’ve had an extremely busy week, with several long days traveling to and from customer sites, all topped off by a report which was due yesterday. And that’s on top of about six weeks of an increasingly hectic work schedule. So I’m really looking forward to the time off.

It should also have been my last day in work, as opposed to at work, but when I woke up yesterday morning, it was still snowing heavily and had clearly been doing so for most of the night. The roads were clear, but my drive wasn’t. There is a short but very steep section of drive between my garage and the main road which is lethal when it gets covered in snow and ice. So I decided that, rather than spending my limited energy on digging out the car and shoveling the drive, it would make much more sense to work on the report from home. Thankfully broadband makes that feasible.

By the time I’d spent all morning and half the afternoon wrangling with M$ Word and sent the report off to the customer I was pretty much drained. I know I’ve been overdoing it somewhat recently – that’s been a deliberate decision taken with my eyes open – and I was aiming to pace  myself to get to the end of the year.  I did so, with about an hour to spare it felt like, but then the cumulative efforts of the last few months hit me and I felt absolutely shattered.

The snow was still on the car and drive, as it hadn’t thawed as quickly as I had expected. I had virtually no food in the house, as I’d been away on business much of the week and hadn’t had time to go shopping. And I really couldn’t face going out.  So I decided that the best thing to do was to phone out for a Chinese takeaway to be delivered.  That’s actually the first time since before Christopher died that I’ve totally abdicated on the cooking front, and phoned out for food. It really does feel like giving in, but it’s good to know that it’s there as an option.

There was more snow over night, though apparently very localised. I made the effort to go out shopping this afternoon, and there was no snow at all on the other side of the hill. My car was very obvious in Waitrose car park – the only one with an inch and a half of snow on the roof! It’s good to have some supplies in again in case the snow persists.