The Time Crunch

There's a truism in human life that says that if you don't make time to do something, it can't get done, because it doesn't have the time to happen in.

That's true of everything, from finding the love of your life to baking the perfect souffle to writing the next great novel to changing the socio-political landscape of your nation, to Disappearing. In order for things to happen, they have to have time to happen in.

Which is why I feel like I owe my Disappearing effort an apology today - I was all set to make the time to walk 8 km or so, as I did yesterday, but frankly the tension of deadlines got to me. There's a great expression the Scots have - 'Nippin' at ma head' - for when things or people feel like birds pecking at your skull, at your brain, and won't let you focus on any damn thing else at all.

It's been a 'nippin' at ma head' kind of day. Day-job deadlines, editing deadlines, geeky writing commitments, they've all felt like blackbirds pecking at my head all day long, which means I cancelled my plans to walk tonight, and have spent the time up till now (8pm) focussing on the day-jobbery, because that's my most pressing deadline.

In fact, I was due to be out tonight, canvassing with my pal Ruth, who's standing as one of four brilliant Welsh candidates for Britain's newest, coolest and fastest-growing political party - the Women's Equality Party (May 5th. Get to your polling station and vote WEP!). She texted last night to say she was going to have a hell of a day today, so we'd have to postpone it. As it happened of course, I had one of those days myself, so the good people of Aberdare were spared the appearance on their doorsteps of a baldy, beardy grumpy bloke, growling 'Can we have your vote or what?'

The good people of Aberdare had a lucky escape.

Oddly enough, was just getting this blog entry done and then preparing to go down for dinner and together-time with d.

'Erm...were you gonna do some biking?' she called up the stairs as I was typing line one.

'Errr...' I wasn't, in all honesty, because I didn't think I had time.

'S'gonna be a while before dinner shows up,' she added, 'so you've got time if you want to.'

Serendipity's a fabulous thing, but every now and again, I want to smash it in the face with a chair.
So this is me, going to take advantage of the time I have, to get some biking done.

Good, good...