Back to work

There was this cartoon I once saw.  It's a famous one from the Punch. A man looks through a crooked  telescope at the other end of which a prankster is holding his top hat. The man sees only inky blackness and says, "Something looms in the distance."

The next year looms in front of me. It's not all bleak. I'll become a father this year. A very young at heart father, I suppose. Lacking the sort of maturity one expects in a father figure. Ah well, the little one will have to make do with me.

But there is another kind of looming which I am terrified of. The new work year. I do not want to be subject to the same hectic schedule which ate into my reading last year. I scarcely finished a couple of books and those I didn't much like. With a kid to look after I don't suppose the situation will improve. I won't grudge time spent with the family. No,  I should get time to read at work. Especially in a job like mine, there ought to be time to read. The effectiveness of our teaching depends on the reading we do.

Today, I'll return with a bunch of papers pending valuation. That'll be my cross to bear this Christmas season. It's all these things looming that's making  me tense. Yesterday i nicked my left mirror on a bus. Because I was tense,  why else.  That's gonna cost me a little. Not anything I can afford, not this year when I've vowed to save as much as I can. And still there are people who would borrow from me.