The Joy Of Pre Work Routine

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

A couple of days back I was in the bath when the phone rang. Now this bothered me, Firstly because I was in the bath and as I think I've made clear before I like baths.

There I was then relaxing in it's (manly blue) bubble warmth. Listening to a Ramblings BBC Radio 4 podcast that I'm slowly going through. This is the one about walking up some ex MOD land to get a view of Belfast and when the weather is really good some part of Scotland. It sounds better on radio trust me.

But when the phone rings I knew I had to move and all vestiges of comfort dissolved as my lumpen wet frame raced to the bedroom to answer the call. And thereby lies the second reason, for unusually for a Saturday morning my wife and daughter were already up and out of the house for the day as with a friend they were on the way for a day trip to Hereford (which apparently is not an interesting place to do any shopping in - I'm merely noting what was told to me afterwards you understand). So was worried that something had happened to them.

I needn't have been so concerned...it was work.

"Is it possible...." I was asked "you can work a few hours earlier tomorrow?"

Replied probably yes. Given that I was working on Sunday anyway it didn't particularly bother me. Just needed to clarify with wife and daughter that there wasn't any issues that might stop that and as it happened there wasn't. So ten hours was spent at work that day. Money is,after all, money.

I need to make two separate digressions here. Firstly I'm not making any statement about how hard I work or otherwise. Indeed learnt recently about a man who was working a seventeen hour shift at KFC (though I'm not sure whether this was exceptional or the norm). Working in intense heat and smelling fried chicken flesh, perhaps if it exists then whatever their shift it's KFC workers who can most vividly imagine what hell is really like.

Secondly since I've gone onto the subject of KFC. If you are a young gentleman wishing to invite a young lady who works there to a date then offer them a beef dinner. Reeking of chicken at the end of their working day puts them off the stuff so anything else that is as far away from the hen as possible would be welcomed. That is I assure you, the only piece of dating advice I'll ever give in this blog.

Anyway,back to Sunday. If there was one thing that bothered me about working from an earlier than expected start time it was that I'd have to change my routine. There is you see a certain comfort in having a routine before you go to work. If we take the afternoon/evening shift as an example I would wake up, have some breakfast whilst watching something on TV and then have my second cup of tea and if I'm feeling particularly reckless another cup of tea. If this was school time my only normal duty would be to make sure that my daughter got to her bus on time having of course being fed.

After another cup of tea that would then be bath time with a precursor of shaving and cutting any unsightly hairs from my person. Bath time:Normally half an hour occasionally ten minutes of the aforesaid bubble primed inaction.

Once out of the bath and dressed I'd wander round the house tidying things up and vacuuming where needed. Occasionally going round to the local shops for any provisions (this mainly meaning milk for tea,bread for sandwiches and chicken - not fried but slices - for what I'd normally have for the sandwich filling for lunch).

Come lunchtime I'd have a chicken sandwich whilst watching some more TV have two more cups of tea. Go to the toilet, get some mineral water and I'm ready for work.

Sunday was different. Woke up and after a quick breakfast and just one cup of tea went to have that bath. Just ten minutes this time though. Listened to A Point Of View also on Radio 4. Going through the podcasts of that programme if I have to take a quick bath. It seemed I've used up all the Clive James talks so instead listened to Dame Joan Bakewell explaining why diaries are a valuable resource and are threatened by the modern age. As if blogs did not exist.

And so to lunch. In the mid morning you understand. Needed to have something more filling than a sandwich so went for a microwave meal. It was perfectly fine, though nowhere near as alluring as the packaging would suggest. Is there any microwave meal I ask you that looks as good as the photo on the box?

Everything else I had to do was in the knowledge that the countdown clock was moving faster than normal. I would of course do it again given the same circumstances but still, the description to the normal pre work routine took a bit of getting used to.

Sad isn't it. But that's the point. Predictability is the greatest strength of the routine. I've been unemployed and I can tell you that having long periods of time to yourself is not as simple as would be made out by the politically right. You become depressed,listless,unmotivated and feel as if you are living in a parallel universe to those that are in work. And to you George Osborne I've have seen a full episode of Jeremy Kyle once in my life and I hated it (pre watershed MMA).

The greatest trick that the political right has ever been able to pull off is that there is a vast army of people scrounging off benefits at the expense of those who work. Of course those people exist and need to be dealt with, but the trick, and it is a trick, is to suggest that these people represent the majority. Whereas the majority are decent people where life has taken a sharp downturn. People who would revel in the dullness and predictability of a pre work routine if it came their way.

Until the next time.