Anyway, I drive an hour and a bit more south each day to work now. And frankly, I kinda have my groove going on now. I leave early – about as early as I was driving the other direction – but there is no traffic, it’s a straight drive, and I get in at 8am so I can leave by 4pm and be home with afternoon/evening left. Ish. I *am* enjoying the drive. Last week I listened to Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner as well as starting to catch up on longer podcasts in my library. This week I have started with The Art of War and more podcasts. I’m way behind on podcasts having fallen off the wagon along the way so I’m really starting to feel like I’m tidying up and catching up on things. Today I really enjoyed the Coode St podcast featuring Cheryl Morgan and discussing Hugo categories and politics.

I’ve not really mastered using after work time properly yet and the only thing that is still a bit of an issue is this loss of time. (I’m supposed to be sleeping right now instead of writing this post). This the one thing that I am struggling with – the loss of time. I had a bit of a moan about it to C last week who sighed and said that I need to do less or expect to do less. To wish I wailed that if I did *less* than I do now, it wouldn’t *enough* because it’s not enough now, there is simply too too much I want to do. He shook his head at me, as he does. So I’m working on that bit still.

I’m also starting to socialise a bit more now. Remembering who has a new puppy, who is likely to be [this is a thing that they do at my work that I can’t talk about here] and ask about how that’s going or who might not be in etc. And so on. So I’m able to do that whole small talk thing with people which saves one from the awkward morning tea hanging around thing (which I was doing up til now!). Also feeling ok about laughing out across the cubicles, though not really much shouting. I’m still acclimatising to the open office floor plan again. Having worked in this style before so I know eventually I will be able to tune it all out. Eventually. Eventually. Another cool thing though is since I am now working where I am, I can do the whole “local produce” thing. They have a system at work where you can order local fresh fruit on Monday and it gets delivered to the office Wednesday. I only found out about it last week so this is the first week I’m trying it out. I ordered an 8kg box of mixed fruit. We don’t eat that much fruit round here but I’m hoping that we will, cause it’s good for you! But I might be gifting fresh stone fruit when I come avisiting! There’s lots to take advantage of and I intend to do so, since I’m putting in the hard yard of the commute anyway. I only wish I had a good way of transporting dairy cause there’s this farmer’s market near work …

That’s work. This weekend I finally managed to get to Bunnings, realising that if I didn’t go this weekend, I wouldn’t get there at all in February. I wanted to get a composting bin for our place as a partial offset to my increased commute. So I finally got one and set it up. I just need to double check what can go in etc and then we can also finally do a spring clean of the fridge I also FINALLY got a tahitian lime tree which I had been chasing for a while. And a dwarf pink lady apple tree. So there was much potting of trees and cleaning up of the patio and whatnot on Sunday evening. I just need a new pot for my lemon tree because the puppy seems to think that pot his is toy.

I’ve been wanting to start a new blog series here and had intended to post the first instalment tonight. It didn’t happen. See above re time and my loss of it. So instead I think I might try to first get back into the habit of posting everyday. Gotta start with the low hanging fruit, dontcha?