Situation Standard

Yet again, I appear to now be idiotically busy over the next few weeks – well, really ’til the end of the year, what with one thing and another.  I still don’t quite know how I end up doing this to myself, but it’s pretty much standard behaviour these days.

I’m not complaining – in general I like being busy, and prefer it to days doing nothing  – but every so often I look at the calendar, and the board that holds all my upcoming tickets, and think “Lyle, you really are a bloody idiot“.

So, just in the next six weeks, and in no particular order, I will be…

• Seeing Sir Ian McKellen as King Lear in Chichester (and staying overnight, possibly stopping off in Oxford on the way back)
• A one-day conference in Birmingham, which may or may not happen, depending on other work commitments/stuff
• A day-trip blitz run to Sheffield
• A day in London doing a food festival in the morning, and a play in the evening
• followed the next day by a day-trip run to Middlesbrough and Durham (for reasons I won’t go into now, as it’d identify the dates I’m away)
• a weekend in Newcastle (which is, of course, not the same one as being up in Middlesbrough, despite proximity and so on)
• A day trip to Cambridge
• An evening in London, via Oxford (there’s reasons, but yeah, still idiotic)
• And at least two other visits to London (with another one in early December)

Not just those travels, but somewhere in there also needs to be

• Finally getting the starter motor on my car replaced (a hassle/fight that’s taken way too long, and will get written about some other time)
• Seeing a number of films, which I’ve already got tickets for
• other (more local) food things
• Working (of course)
• And finishing off two other projects.

In short, all a bit mad.

I know I’ve said it before – but for next year I need to start doing a little bit less, not being so booked up, and allocate some downtime for myself.  I just need to get some perspective on it all – because ‘downtime’ for me is also car-time and driving-time, it’s time where I can just float a bit, figure things out and so on.

Mind you, that’s also what I’ll be doing over the next six weeks, so I can figure bits out and what I want to do (and how) in 2018…