Up before the dawn

It's dark outside. It's so dark that the dawn chorus hasn't even started yet, nary a solitary lark or even a farting sparrow. I'm tired as well - disturbing dreams and broken sleep.

I was ready to fall asleep at half past nine last night but instead I downed a cup of coffee and set out in the pouring rain to pick Alicia up from the theatre where she had been to see 'Much Ado About Nothing' for her English course at school. It was slightly stressful as i wasn't entirely sure which way I was going round the one system in town - I avoided my usual route due to some football match or other - but I got there on time and found a space by the side of the theatre. I phoned Alicia and told her to turn right when she came out and then go round the corner, and then had to call her again to tell her "No - the other right!".

I got home just in time to see the end of this week's episode of Six Feet Under, which was moving and depressing in equal measure when the final credits rolled and I realised from the dates on Nate's tombstone that he was the same age as me. Vita Brevis.

Work is a piglet as well - I was in Leeds yesterday for a meeting which had been postponed several times and turned out to last just ten minutes and could easily have been dealt with over the phone. Still, at least I got my statutory sushi from Little Tokyo. Today I've got to go to Birmingham and see what we can do about our expenses invoicing. Yet again, we have taken a simple system and tried to use it for something it was never designed to do. What makes it worse is that we designed it ourselves last year, and if my boss had asked for it we could have built in the necessary functionality to cope with our stupidly convoluted expenses structure.

Hope everybody has a good day today!