Early again

Each morning this week, I have had to drag myself out of bed at 6 to sort the kids out ahead of the school run. Parenting, ne?

Today, when I had the (much needed) opportunity to stay in bed a little longer, my brain decided that 5:40 would be the best time to boot up and begin actively thinking. Which is something it needs to do each morning,sure.

But twenty to six?

It’s only lunchtime and I’m already looking forward to bedtime this evening.

8%

Approximately 14 hours* after clicking the Update and Restart button on my PC, I am the lucky recipient of this message:

Working on updates 8%
Don’t turn off your PC. This will take a while. 

Oh joy. So much for my plans to edit photos and write a blog post then. Sadly for me, the photos are very much on the PC in question, so there’s no getting at them for at least another week**.
Sadly for you, I have dug out an old laptop (running Windows XP, nogal) so I can write something on 6000.co.za. Happy days.

The headache left me after 11 hours of lovely, cosy, delicious sleep last night and so today was full of activity: science project with the boy, a couple of DIY things around the house, coffee and biscuits (and a quick drone flight) in the local park, and a last-day-of-the-school-holiday visit to the local indoor jungle gym, climbing wall and big slide in a warehouse place. You can’t do that with a blinding headache. Well, not when you first enter, anyway. You don’t really have the choice once you’re in there.

Tomorrow brings an early morning, the school run and (probably) all of the traffic that Cape Town can muster. I’m in no way prepared (mentally or otherwise) for this rude assault upon my freedom (especially the hour and a half after 6am). I can only suggest a quick glass of Marlon and an early night to begin the process.

Working on being ready for the new school term 8%
Don’t think it’s going to happen. This will take a while.

Right. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I’m off to work on the first part of my preparations now.

Wish me luck with the next 92% (on both counts).

 

* this is a huge exaggeration.
** this one is even bigger.

Next week

Much as the theme music of the pisspoor Sunday evening offering of Carte Blanche heralds the end of the weekend in Checkers-shopping households all over the country, so tomorrow morning’s alarm clock will be the last “late” weekday wake up call as the kids head back to school on Monday after 4 (four) weeks off.

I say “late” in inverted commas because we’re not talking a nice long lie-in or anything. Just an extra (and ever so welcome) hour under the covers. That’s all over now – at least until a week in late September.

I will have to do the switch over the alarm setting on the phone from School Holiday to School Day as soon as I wake up in the morning, or I will forget. Good bye, Holi.

And back also, I fear, will be the traffic. Journeys to and from work will take three times longer next week than they did this. Also, it’s nearly August, so several or more of those journeys will be in the rain.

There is no upside to all of this, by the way. There doesn’t always have to be a light at the end of the tunnel, although a tunnel might help with the trip to work.

Normal positivity returns tomorrow. After that last early morning hour in bed.

Dew Diligence

One from the back garden last weekend. I really like it, so I’m leaving it really big.

A scene of contrasts, no?

It’s busy. There are the complicated lines of the restios and the spider web, but equally, with the dew, there’s the elegance and the tranquility of the early morning.
It’s light at the top. It’s dark at the bottom.
It’s intricate and detailed at the bottom. It’s all fuzzy and defocused at the top.

It was a lucky shot, made good by the subject, rather than the skill of the photographer, but I won’t tell anyone that.

As I said earlier, I really like it.

Bigger (if you think you can handle it) here.