Timetable

Sorry about yesterday. Just tooooo busy. Rude of me, I know. I'll try not to let it happen again.

Trouble is, I had quite a lot of work to do with long deadlines. Now, I'm not the kind of chap to get it all done straight away, me. Oh, no. That would be far too easy. No, instead I think to myself that it's ok, I've got three weeks to do this thing, and two weeks to do that one, and they shouldn't take more than a couple of days each, so I can do the little urgent half-hour stuff and browse the blogsphere and play poker and all of a sudden I'm completely out of time and panicking and it's all gone tits. Again.

You'd think I'd learn. But I never do.

So, just to ensure I don't miss out anything, today I make myself a Timetable. Lists of which phone calls and emails I have to make, in what order. A slot to pop out and visit a client locally. Time when I have to put the casserole on (new man me), and go back to it to check it.

It is a good Timetable. It says 'Run, and/or dig the garden, just before lunch (don't forget Shuffle. Or key)'. Then the time is just before lunch and I don't really fancy going for a run cos it's snowing, but the timetable says I must, so I do. Bit of a bully, the Timetable, maybe, I'm thinking.

So, I'm out running, running, across the fields and through the woods and the sun comes out and the birds are singing in the trees and there's a pleasant breeze and I'm feeling pretty fit and not too tired and I'm thinking maybe that the Timetable was right after all. Then I fall over.

Still, I think, picking myself up and wiping my hands on my shorts, that's hardly the Timetable's fault.

And then the Shuffle plays a blinder to see me home: Joss Stone's Super Duper Love lifts me through the woods, Pink Floyd's The Great Gig In The Sky comes on as I head out across the middle of the stubble field: all earth and sky and that soaring vocal; inspirational. And then I pull through the houses at the edge of the village and up the hill powered by The Kinks' Lola. (I may not be the world's most masculine man, but when I'm in bed I know what I am: I'm a man and so's Lola. Oh yes. If that doesn't give me enough extra puff to get up the hill without walking nothing will). Glad the Timetable reminded me to take it. And just as the song finishes I arrive and I have my key, because the Timetable said to.

So I'm thinking quite kindly of the Timetable as we speak. Next item, go and check the casserole again and maybe add water. That's what Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's book tells me to do, and that's good enough for me.

I've even started writing tomorrow's Timetable. I think this could be a runner.