My good friend in Spain asked me by e mail what I was doing so far today. She asked if I was still in bed whilst we were corresponding. I sent her an e mail telling her about my day so far. She said it made her laugh, so I've reproduced it here.

Dear Sair

I was in bed, checking e mails and other messages, like the sensational one you passed on from Eirlys and the incredible Lenny story. Rob, the poor soul! In fact I'd originally been woken up by Twertville at 6:24, who was surprised I wasn't wide awake, up and about, getting on with various chores.

I actually got out of bed at about 11:30 because I was thinking I don't get many lie-ins and here was a golden opportunity, as I was alone in the house. I was generally trying to sleep a bit but various people kept phoning. Apart from Twertville's early call from Poland, Ado called from Vienna and Mochaomhog from Dublin. Being very honest, I ignored the Vienna and Dublin calls. It would have been a truly international communications day had you called from Tarifa or Valencia (and I would have picked up the call, honest). Mochaomhog also sent me an e mail wishing me and the other people in the POTD group, happy St George's day, although I didn't until then know that it was St George's day. Mind you, just like I know that St Patrick was not Irish, I'm pretty sure St George was not English (without recourse to Wiki).

When I came downstairs I really ummed and ahhed as to whether I should or should not have a cooked breakfast. Some of my negative feelings were to do with dietary guilt. I thought about how we haven't got free will (which everyone, incorrectly, thinks we have got) and I was noticing how my desire to consume food which was bad for me was simply, at this moment, greater than my desire to stay healthy. I think if everyone realized that nobody really makes any decisions in the world today, we'd all understand one another better. Anyway, I knew I had some nice bacon which I'd got from Waitrose. It was called "Denhay - Dry Cured By Hand". I don't really know what "dry cured" means or why it is better done by hand, but it sounds good. I am a total sucker for marketing bulls**t.

Whilst the bacon was cooking in the oven (which is my unique way of cooking it and that is a way which my other family members dislike), I assembled the rubbish for putting it out. Although rubbish day is Friday, you have to put it out on Thursday night, as we are told that they may collect it as early as 6:30am. In fact, they never seem to collect it that early, although once they did, so, now I am perpetually scared that if I wait until Friday morning to put the rubbish out, I may miss the bin men and end up with uncollected rubbish, which would be a disaster, darling. The rubbish has to be put in a blue bag and the re-cycle stuff goes into a black plastic box (see pic). Any transgressions on the rubbish regimen simply result in it being left. Rubbish day is big news around here, retired people talk about it in the local cyber cafes.

Meantime, I realised that the bread situation in the house was bad, when I say bad, I mean stocks were zero. Mind you, I did have some frozen bread in the freezer, which comprised three normal pieces and two crusty ends. I tried to get the bread in the toaster, but the crusty bits were too bent and frozen to fit. I ended up doing the pieces in stages, with half of the slices sticking out of the top of the toaster. This required turning the slices with meticulous timing, to avoid burning. I found a few cherry tomatoes in the fridge and I heated these up in the microwave. I used a Pyrex jug without a top on it. One of the tomatoes exploded and bits of cherry tomato were sprayed around the inside of the microwave.

Eventually, I assembled all the food on a plate and ate it. It was delicious, but once my hunger was satiated, I felt guilty. That is classic addict behaviour, that is.

I've still got to take the rubbish to the end of the drive, so I'd better get on.

Part Two

Well, actually, I still haven't taken the rubbish down the drive. There is a reason for this and that is that I've taken the very risky decision to do the rubbish in the morning, Friday, that is. Of course, the worry is that the bin men will, for only the second time ever, come early, however, if I put it out tonight, there is another risk that a fox or other creature will raid the bag and leave stuff all over the drive like it did last week. I hate picking up old flowers covered in rancid yogurt from around the drive. Jesus, decisions like this are so monumental!

Whilst all this was going on, I was putting off filling in a form that I must do regarding some pensions administration. Like everybody I know, or have ever encountered, I HATE doing pensions administration. What is ludicrous is that in my former job, I was actually responsible for managing the pension for my Company, which was once a large and famous company with thousands of members in the Company scheme. I think the real reason pensions are a problem worldwide is that people simply detest doing anything about their pensions, including even thinking about them, because pensions are astonishingly boring! When I was an accountant and I imparted that fact in conversation with someone at a party, they might typically respond by saying "God that sounds really boring!". My stock retort to that would be that compared to being a pensions actuary, an accountant's role is like that of an international jewel thief.

I just had to get the form in today's post, so I filled it in. I did it in the kitchen, where I could see that outside, it was an absolutely beautiful day and I mused that whilst Reading basked in the glorious sun, I was doing pensions admin. I have to say, even with my background, I didn't really know what I was doing with the form or why. All I did was sign and fill in exactly as instructed by the financial advisor's secretary who'd put yellow arrow stickers by each section I had to complete. I even had to sign a section to confirm that I'd been given "all the appropriate advice", I was of "sound mind" and I knew precisely what I was doing. Actually, I don't think anyone could really make such a self declaration with any degree of certainty, so we all just sign and hope for the best.

Then I thought, "Mmm, beautiful day. Get the bike out and cycle to the post box, before the last collection at 4:30". In the garage, I realized that the bikes were not in good order, as they'd been left all winter. Tyres needed blowing up, chains oiling etc. In my saddle bag, there was an old bag of Maynard's wine gums which seemed to have, sort of, melted down into a multi-coloured sugary goo. The bikes were also all locked together with several different locks and over the winter, I'd forgotten which key was for which lock. Also, on seeing my wife's bike, I now remembered that I was supposed to get it serviced, or service it myself, ready for her return from abroad, when she'd said she intended using it to cycle to work.

After several visits to and fro the "kitchen key store", a box where we keep about 30 keys for all sorts of things, some marked, some not, I managed to unlock the bikes. Then, just as I got the two bikes out of the garage, I had a really strong urge to go to the toilet, for a number two, as we euphemistically call it in this country. The thing was, I didn't want to just leave the bikes there, because, theoretically, they might get stolen by some opportunist thief walking by. I lent them either side of a small Acer tree and locked them around it with a long wire lock. This process was quite tortuous as I needed to resist all urges to evacuate as I messed around with the fiddly locks. I went back into the house and took a very satisfying and very necessary dump, and admittedly, I also played a couple of games of Tetris on my Gameboy. This is something I invariably do when using the bathroom in sit down mode. However, by now, I was in a hurry, as I was in danger of missing the post, a deadline which mustn't be missed.

In truth, there were also inherent delays caused by writing the morning story for Sair's e-mail. In fact, ridiculous as it seems, delays were caused as I looked for the correct spellings of various complicated Celtic names like Eirlys and Mochaomhog. Let me say, those names are not pronounced as they are spelled either, but that's another bloody story, so when you read them, I hope they cause you difficulty. As an overall point, I would say that once you stop work, things progressively take more and more time. You get in a fug with your priorities and you get distracted by all sorts of interesting things. Radio 4 is an endless source of incredibly interesting programmes, but they lead you to check things out incessantly on Wikipedia. You want to find out everything, including how and why the Universe started. I've even started studying someone who thinks they really know how the Universe started from absolutely nothing (That's professor Lawrence Krauss, by the way, check him out) However, all the time, people are sneeringly asking you "so, what on earth do you do with your day?"

I went out and unlocked the two bikes. I needed to get moving. Wait a minute, I suddenly thought! I might need a copy of the nine page pensions document I'm intending to post. No, its not "might", I DO need a copy. That's definite. I didn't know what the f**k I was signing, so at least I should keep a copy in case the courts say "So, not only did you not understand what you were signing, you didn't keep a copy eh....and please, do tell us again, what profession were you once a member of?". "How come I'm now involving the courts?" was my own question to myself. So, I forgot the courts. Back to the actual problem, "That's OK" I thought, just photocopy the whole thing on our printer. "God, no. I can't do that. The ink's low and you'll need it later to print the boarding passes which you haven't yet done, but you should've done". "I know", I thought, "I'll just scan them. That'll do it. Scan and there's no need to print".

I had to lock the bikes again and go back in the house. My wife's bike did that weird thing where the front wheel turns of its own accord and the bike slowly falls to the floor. Each time I let go of the one bike to get the other, the one I wasn't holding would start to fall. Eventually I realised that leaning them against a tree was a really stupid idea, so I took them over to the fence, which was a more stable place to lean them against and lock them.

I realised the laptop was in the kitchen and not currently hooked up to the printer/scanner. By now, I was swearing. I had to power down the laptop and re-power it up whilst plugged into the printer/scanner. Don't ask me why, but I used to be able to use the printer/scanner wirelessly, but suddenly that stopped happening, so now to do scanning, you have to put a laptop next to the printer and physically plug it in. The trouble is, my old laptop takes forever to power down and power up again, so, when you are in a hurry, this is very irritating. It behaves like it knows you are waiting for it, and those whirring noises are the damn thing laughing at you.

Eventually, I powered the laptop down, moved it next to the printer, powered it up and scanned the nine page document. I sealed the envelope with the original document in and then took it outside. I mounted the bike and cycled to the post box. I had to carry the envelope, rather than put it in the saddle bag, to avoid getting sticky goo on it. I got to the post box and got it in in time for the 4:30 collection. Job done.

Back at the ranch, I even managed to service the wife's bike, although I did get three-in-one oil everywhere. I even adjusted the brakes, which seemed to be semi-on the whole time.

And so, its now 6:30 and not only have I had a typical day, I've managed to tell a few people about it. Job done x 2.

I can't wait 'til tomorrow. IT'S RUBBISH DAY!

Love & Peace