Countdown

It's now only three weeks until I finish work and a little over four weeks until I leave for the trip to Australia. I'm both excited and scared. I don't have any regrets about applying for voluntary redundancy, or about leaving my job, but I know that work is an integral part of identity for everyone - including me. I'm aware that I need to refocus. And of course the trip is a part of doing this, of making the break between my current work identity and my identity post Bradford Council employee status!

There seems so little time to do things at the moment - both at work (winding down) and at home (travel preparations and putting the domestics in order). Now that the Christmas period is over - always a big blob on the horizon, obscuring the view beyond - there are just a few weeks left. I'm feeling hampered by this cold and cough which has dragged on for over a month now and which leaves me feeling tired, fuzzy and unfocussed. I only went back to work (after the holiday) on Wednesday and today I have had to take the day off sick after feeling unwell all day yesterday. I went for my jabs (diptheria, tetanus, polio and hep A) yesterday and I think this my have aggravated my - already sore - throat. I also began to feel very drowsy yesterday evening, actually falling asleep on the sofa whilst watching a video clip of the Great Barrier Reef, which I'd really wanted to see. I decided I'd have to go and have a nap at around 7.30 p.m., asking Paul to wake me at 8.00 o' clock. He did try, but I was too tired to get up and slept on for another hour or so. I woke later, feeling thirsty, then read for an hour.

This morning my throat still felt raw and I was still tired. I actually slept until lunchtime. I have to get over this as I've only a few weeks to get organised!

My period of reading yesterday evening was productive as I refined my itinerary - which I'd not updated since the very basic draft I produced in early December.