Bleugh

There are reasons not to drink on a school night.

To be honest, I was lucky to get to work on time today. I woke up five minutes before I was supposed to leave the house. It shows my absolute dedication to my work that I was able to catch my normal train. My alarms normally start going off at 5:45am and I eventually prise myself out of the bedsheets very soon after 6am. If I am being lazy it may be 6:10. So, you can understand my panic on waking to find the room silent - this means I have either woken up before the alarms, or after. And the amount of daylight in the room was telling.

I even know how it happened. The radio is set to news which is a dull, drone which is more that easy to sleep through. And I remember yesterday morning I caught the wrong button on my main alarm - I even thought to myself "I will have to remember to turn that back on tonight". And then I hadn't turned the volume back up on my mobile phone - it has to be on silent in the office, and I kept it on silent for reasons to be explained, though I did intend to turn the volume up later. But yes, it is a testament to me that I was able to ready and out in those five minutes. And yes, I actually do plan to leave the house at 6:38am.

Why 6:38? I have worked out that if I leave the house at that time, I arrive at the station at 7:00am for the 07:10 train. Now, technically I could leave two minutes later, but my OCD means that I would rather leave the house on a non-round number than eat into my 10 minute safety-buffer. Yes, I could leave at 06:35 to preserve both my OCD and the safety-buffer, but even getting up at 6am that doesn't seem to work (goodness only knows how if I can manage to ready and out in five minutes!) At 06:38 I can comfortably walk. At 0640 I have to run down the hill as far as the Hindu Temple. At 0643 I have to run as far as the Spaceship Co-op (though it hasn't actually been a Co-op for a number of years) and at 0645 I have to run as far as the play-park opposite the Duke of Cambridge.

Anyhow, back to how it happened. Not only was it down to the lack of interruption, but also due to the deepness of sleep. You see, not only did I go to bed considerably later than normal last night (it was around 1:15am by the time I got in, much later than my usual actual bedtime of around midnight which is, of itself, later than my always-missed-but-hoped-for bedtime of 11:15) but I had also been drinking.

I'm a good and kindly soul, and around once a month I do charity work of an evening answering calls on an advice and counselling phone line. I spend all day at work answering calls as a solicitor on a legal helpline so what do I decide to do in an evening? More of the same, obviously. But I do it with a friend, and our treat for being such good people is to go to the pub and do the pub quiz. And we did quite well with it last night, although we were pleased to see that the winners (who must clearly have cheated) only won a £15 drinks voucher which wasn't even enough for one drink each, and not the jackpot. But anyhow, that was the drinking, though I was by no means drunk.

Anyhow, when I got in from the pub my New Zealand friend rang for our weekly chat and we carried on chatting away for quite a long time, until it was so late I only had time for a very brief flit through the shower (I always bath or shower before I go to bed in case I don't have time in the morning. At last my logic repays me) before throwing myself into bed. Late. Honestly the people at work should be grateful I am in at all.
If any of you are interested, the Department of Transport today published the final Port Freight figures. That's right, the figures for all the freight that entered the UKs ports in 2010. They are available here . This is the kind of really gripping information which the government emails me as part of my job.
Now, where's the wine?