the remaining daylight hours

The cold has arrived. And it's mostly dark. Though it's light when I walk to work, before I close myself off from the world for the remaining daylight hours. The managerial gig has been given legs til October. And we've just clocked into what is being billed as The Most Hideous Month of the year. Oh joy. It's official: I have no life. I'm wracked with tiredness. Food-ism is gone. Lunches are coffee, and whatever I have scavenged in the morning (thank goodness for muesli bars and leftovers). I realised last weekend, after a much-needed massage from the musculoskeletal guru, that my back has been a crunchy Rubik's cube of stress for who-knows-how-long. I could barely turn my neck and didn't even realise it until I left with big arse cupping bruises on my nape and a slightly new feeling of movement. Ick. Mostly I don't see, hear or read any news (or any cultural communicado, for that matter), aside from my new fascination for TweetDeck. Which I hook myself up to in the evenings like an information junkie. (I have a theory about that - in a nutshell it's about how my twelve thousand emails a day is changing my brain to need to respond to stuff. Which I get barely the slightest chance to skim over.)

Ho-diddly-hum. I'm aware I'm whinging. But this lifestyle SUCKS. I am so terribly frustrated at the lack of balance. I work my arse off for solid hours daily. Meanwhile my whole body falls apart and I have no time to enjoy life. Weekends are catch up and attempted recuperation.

I realised (as did the mindful observer) that I'm probably approaching burnout. And that it's situation 'dissolve into a molten pool of angst', or take a break. So we've cancelled work for August. All of it! We are thinking of selling my little car, getting a second-hand four-wheel drive and camping the east coast, starting or ending up in Gippsland. We would've liked to go west and central, but thought four weeks might be cutting it fine. And I would be the happiest little camper if all I did is hang out at the beach (probably in my thermals with current weather, but that's completely fine), read, do morning yoga and just walk and potter with camera and pen. Maybe revisit Hat Head National Park, Ben Boyd and others a bit more off the trail. I have whole-body cravings for horizons and shorebreaks and salt air. Which I realised last weekend when we escaped down to Burleigh for half a day, which is where the above was snapped.

So, this week I came home to a present: a swag! Now, to survive the month from hell. I'm afraid I'm not going to want to go back. Again...