THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS WATERFALL

This is my current view. It's the world's most famous waterfall and it's right outside my hotel window.

I stood here speechless yesterday when we arrived. I've seen this in encyclopaedia, in pictures, in films and in stories. This is actually the real thing, turning thousands of gallons of water over, every second.

The other side of the tumult of mist and cataract, is the United States of America - which looks like hotels and steel mills. The better view's on this side anyway; the Canadians know it - they've built a whole neon-flashing resort around the view. It's a bit like a multi-coloured sugary funfair: a sky wheel, a 'house of horrors', a terrible waxwork museum, fudge shops, candy stores, souvenir places packed with gimcracks and expensive stuffed mooses, giant flashing signs for the 'casino' and, brilliantly, 'Dinosaur Adventure Golf'. We were always going to have a round of 'Dinosaur Adventure Golf'...

It's a thing, this, for some reason - playing mini-golf around plastic models of dinosaurs. It's not scientifically accurate.

Perhaps more awesome than plasto-saurus on the 17th green, is the sound of the roaring falls. It's something you can't really anticipate - the churning, tumbling cascading water over there, falling out of America and into Canada. It's a constant thunder, pouring and pounding, spectacularly exploding into clouds of mist above the icy pools beneath.

What's more, today happens to be the first day of the season for the boat. I think we're about to get very wet.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

"Take a step backwards and see the bigger picture." That's how it is when you're living outside of your own life for a while, isn't it? You see the points where the canvas meets the frame, you see the contrasts of the dark and the light; you see the brush strokes you live in, and you see with a wry smile, that they all look rather small from 3,000 miles away.

The truth is though, that even from out here, even from another time zone where time itself seems to have slowed down to walking pace, there is always another picture - and it's much bigger than you imagined.

"Time stands still in Niagara," said Nick, driving home down the 401, "It's awesome."

"But that's how I feel about this whole trip!" I exclaimed. 

The last six days might well have flown by in the UK (I don't know) but they feel like two weeks, maybe three, here. I've been on holiday before; this has never happened. It's really quite a wonderful time dilation, though it is flashing like an indicator lamp on my dashboard.

How absurd is my normal life that it flashes by at double-Toronto-time? Have I left any breathing room? Have I slotted in to that drizzly old rat race just to keep pace with the right face? Why?

Or, is there something deeper going on? Is there a bigger picture still, encompassing this culture, that culture and me, even though I'm standing thousands of miles away from my normal life? What really matters? What's really important?

I am aware that it would be all too easy to see this time zone as a kind of anomaly where the sun shines, the sky is blue and strangers make eye-contact with unafraid smiles. It is that, but it's much more - plus, I'm wearing holiday goggles of course. There is always a bigger picture.

And so I wonder what happens if you keep on taking steps backwards, if you keep on looking at things from further and further away? There is bound to be a bigger picture, encompassing the big picture; there are surely more important things in the larger frames that remind you that the things in the frames you see are just brush strokes on a canvas, pixels in a photograph and ideas that exist in ever decreasing dimensions. Out you go then, to picture after picture after picture ... until you meet the Artist, where you start to realise what all those pictures of pictures were about. I think it's probably best to realise that that is where to start looking for perspective rather than where to finish.

The long straight road stretched ahead, vanishing into the horizon, where a hazy Toronto skyline appeared. I think I know that I don't have to be defined by the time zone - if being here has taught me something, it must be that. It isn't a case of trying to live at Canadian pace in the UK - actually, that can't be done. What can be done though is a reorganising of the picture, finding the brush strokes the Artist intended for me in the first place and living at the pace at which he sweeps them so beautifully across the canvas. 

SUPER AWESOME

I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been beaten up. Every muscle was aching. As I lay there under the duvet, I contemplated moving but my arms didn't really want to. My legs too, like long planks of wood were unresponsive limbs, twitching with displeasure. I can hardly blame them.

I did get up though. Looking suspiciously like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, I guided myself down the stairs, arms and legs locked straight.

"I might give the gym a miss today, guys," I said to Nick and Emmie, who were just about ready to leave. I thought about my Mum, who often says things like, 'If it hurts, that means you should do it again,' which suddenly seemed like terrible parenting advice, though I do of course, know what she means. Training your muscles is a steep curve at first, but they, and you, do get used to it.

So, while my friends are lifting weights at CrossFit, I'm here drinking tea and thinking about yesterday.

Yesterday was (what the Canadians call) 'super awesome'. Emmie and I went to the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario, both of which are (what the Canadians call) 'downtown'. You know how London feels fast, busy, full, noisy, congested? Toronto is not like that at all. OK, it is a big city and there are all the things you'd expect - from enormous glass buildings to traffic jams, but the atmosphere is really different - slower, less smoggy, quieter even. We drove right in, found parking and emerged opposite the ROM without any trouble at all.

The best way to describe the Royal Ontario Museum is that it's a kind of cross between the Natural History Museum and the British Museum in London. We saw dinosaur skeletons, fossils, mammals, giant turtles, ancient Egyptians, Nubian pottery and exquisite Islamic art. It was history combining across millions of years.

The ROM is also an outstanding building all by itself. The original Nineteenth Century design is complemented by an extraordinary angular modern wing which wedges itself into the original building as though it crash-landed from another century - which, I suppose it did in a way. Then inside, there are Star Trek style walkways linking old and new, white glass to red brick, romantic curved roof to stark angled windows. It's quite something.

When we'd finished chatting about creation and evolution, Emmie and I went on to the Art Gallery of Ontario (what the Canadians call) the AGO. But not before stopping off at a music store to play some of their pianos.

"Baldwin," I said, walking across the laminate floor, surveying the pianos on either side, "Seiler, Seiler again, Kurzweill, ah Steinway!"

The Steinway was tucked away in the corner. It had a red cloth draped over the keys, with the words "Steinway and Sons" embossed in gold. If ever a thing said 'do not touch' without saying 'do not touch' it was that.

The AGO was inspiring. There was hall after hall, gallery after gallery of exceptional artwork and artists. My favourite was Lawren S Harris, who had painted bold, bright, almost cartoonish images of Northern Canada. I really love it when artists use vivid colours and definitive lines - it gives art a sort of comic-book feel, which some might sneer at, but I can't really think of a reason why that kind of thing isn't as valid as anything else.

We also saw the Henry Moore gallery. Henry Moore was a British sculptor who crafted huge stone sculptures which are sort of representations of the human form I think. Some were more life-like than others.

"Take a picture of me next to this ET fella," I said, standing next to a blob with a long neck and a tiny head.

"You do know that's the butt," said Emmie, laughing. I went round the other side and saw that the tiny head had eyes and a nose. Fair enough.

I think it helped today that the sun was warm and the sky was perfectly blue. Rising up behind the smaller buildings, the CN Tower struck a magnificent figure, pointing and glinting into the sky, reminding me exactly where I was, and exactly where I wasn't. I guess if we had this kind of weather back home, things might feel a bit more relaxed.

My phone tells me I did over 19,000 steps yesterday, not including the workout at the gym. It might not be any surprise then that my muscles are stiff and I can't move properly today. However, on the inside, and not without a degree of irony, I am actually feeling much looser than my normal life permits. 

"How's the relaxation going?" asked Emmie, smiling as we got back to their apartment.

"Super awesome," I said.

PLEASE DON'T KILL ME AT THE GYM

"I've just got one request," I said to Emmie, "Please don't kill me at the gym."

It seems remarkable to me that the things that do end up seeing us off are probably the comfortable things, and the things that might just help us live long, happy and fruitful lives are the ones that feel the most painful and the most like death at the time. In other words - doughnuts are tasty; exercise is tough.

I was dreading the gym - mostly because I am lazy and unfit. I stopped running a while ago when I buckled into a pothole and since then, I've not done even so much as a lunge. I walk to work but that is it. My stomach is displaying a rather tell-tale middle-aged curve at the moment.

To make it worse, my perception of 'the gym' has always been the kind of place where I definitely wouldn't fit in - muscular trojans with everything bulging, especially their egos, sleek athletic demi-goddesses looking down condescendingly on the skinny guys, and everybody pumping to a kind of vainglorious body-worship soundtrack that's playing in their own heads. It's Ben Stiller in Dodgeball, it's the gym the guys at work go on about, it's a testosterone-fuelled nightmare and it's never been appealing.

However, I have to say that where I was today, CrossFit Toronto, was a million miles away from all that - a million miles. What I found there were people who were encouraging, friendly, unpretentious and awesome. They taught me how to squat, how to bunny hop, how to lift, how to bench press, how to do a handstand - and it was amazing.

It is fair to say though that by the end of the session, every muscle in my body was aching - I had angled some of them in ways that they had never been angled - and that really did hurt. However, even that dreadful shaking pain gets overwhelmed by the adrenaline, the satisfaction and the achievement of having done it.

One of the things I noticed most today was the connection between mind and body. I found myself today, staring down the wall, concentrating on the bricks as though I could melt them with my eyes while I tried to get my body into the right shape for a dead-lift. It took a lot of focus.

It occurred to me then that the mind, the thinking engine I carry around with me, might actually be affected by the condition of the rest of me. I can't relax, I'm always thinking about stuff. Well, at 10:30 this morning, I wasn't thinking about anything at all! - other than trying to do seventy squats as quickly as possible. It was weirdly relaxing to be so utterly focused - and maybe it takes something like the gym to help find that mental focus. Emmie and Nick both agreed that weightlifting (which is what they do) was a perfect example of that - where physical and mental strength are sort of working in conjunction to perform a result which helps build both of those strengths.

As we drove back through the busy streets, I thought about it - and I thought about it in the context of a passage from the Bible which I'd been reflecting on anyway. It says, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:2). It suddenly seemed remarkable how the Bible was saying the same kind of thing - that a renewing of the mind could lead to a transformation of you - body, mind, soul and spirit. It's all connected.

I smiled to myself at that. We're going back tomorrow I think.

TENSION WIRES

I went for a walk along the boardwalk today. It runs for about 3km around the beach and it made for a very pleasant stroll in the afternoon sunshine. This is all part of my attempts to relax.

I find it so difficult, you know, relaxing. For some people it's as simple as putting your feet up, switching your phone off, drifting into the melodies of your favourite band (or your favourite wineglass) and forgetting about all the things that have spent the best part of the day winding you up. I'm always conscious of the things I carry around with me in my head. They're like tightly strung tension wires, stretching across the Atlantic yet connected to a whole lot of stress at the other end.

There were lots of Canadians out today - really cool people in proper jackets and ray-bans. I listened to their conversations as they went by, catching snippets of dramas and opinions and news. These people are so cool, relaxed and chilled out, it's almost unbelievable. They speak slowly, they look each other in the eye and they're honest. It's almost impossible to imagine any of them running around pulling their hair out or screaming with frustration - they just take everything in their stride. What's more, because they live in an outdoorsy country, there's a natural affinity for the fresh air, for tall sequoias, black squirrels, blue lakes, snow-capped mountains, log cabins and timber-dashed houses. Somehow the idea of relaxation and sport, activity and chill-out, hot sun and freezing fresh water is integral to the culture, like bacon and maple syrup. While I feel like I don't belong, I rather like that.

I think it's taking me time. And here, time seems to flow differently. The plane feels like a week ago, yesterday and the day before are much more spaced out in my memory than they usually are. Time is ticking slowly, as though the hugeness of everything is somehow stretching out the seconds, slowing them down. I have a feeling that the only way to relax is to let time do its work on me too - to gently massage me into its chilled-out rhythm while I let go of the high frequency tension wires of home.

THE PAPASAN CHAIR

I fell out of this chair today. With a cup of tea in one hand and my Kindle in the other, I sat down and leaned back. Within a second I felt the weight shift and then the terrible inertia of everything toppling and tumbling. The tea slopped everywhere - over me, over the Kindle, over the chair and over the carpet. Then the Kindle went flying as I flailed about in mid air. It all happened in slow-motion, certainly enough time for me to think, ' I can't believe this is happening, I am so embarrassed what do I do, oh I'm on the floor.'

No-one saw this spectacular fumble. Emmie and Nick were both downstairs. They seemed more concerned that I had lost a good cup of tea than the fact that I had spilt it everywhere.

In addition to tea-based disasters, we also went out for a brunch of salad and enormous omelettes, not to mention a hang out in the park and another walk by the beach. The Lake was sparkling today; catching the sunlight as though it were made out of thousands of diamonds.

On the way back I took lots of photos of fire hydrants. I don't quite know why, just fascination I suppose. Emmie told me that if you park in front of one, the firefighters might just smash through your windows to get their hose connected. Probably not worth the risk.

I tell you what else is not worth the risk - sitting down in a papasan chair with a hot cup of tea and a Kindle. A little later, when tea had been restored to me, I gently found a place for the fresh mug on the side table and then lowered myself carefully into the chair rather like the Apollo 11 lunar module. Success grinned its way across my face. 

It was about then that I realised I couldn't actually reach my tea on the side, and leaned forward to grab it...

ON THE EDGE OF LAKE ONTARIO

The plane rumbled through the clouds over Toronto. Below, a network of glistening cars and highways intricately weaved its way between the unfamiliar buildings, sports fields and street lamps. On the horizon, the CN Tower and tall skyscrapers shot up against the background of a shimmering Lake Ontario. The plane wobbled and whirred and the wings shuddered through the white wisps of cumulus.

I've arrived then. Emmie drove us along the Expressway and into Toronto, zipping between station wagons and jeeps. It reminded me of one of those 80s computer games, like Outrun, where streetlamps flew past either side and the skyscrapers hovered above the vanishing point on the horizon.

So far, I've found Canada to be a great mixture of things - modern and quaint, friendly and yet guarded, but above all, sort of spacious and quiet. Nowhere so far, exemplifies this better than the edge of Lake Ontario. Armed with maple macchiatos from Starbucks, we strolled down to the beach as the afternoon sun hung low in the sky. The Lake is enormous - so enormous in fact, that you can't see the other side. Weirdly though, there are no waves. We sat on the rocks as the water gently lapped against the stones. I'm used to roaring waves seeping over pebbles and crashing with sea-spray, the smell of seaweed and the cry of seagulls. This of course, was no sea - and it was beautifully peaceful.

"The cloud base is higher here too," said Nick, gazing up at the sky. That must be what contributes to that feeling of spaciousness - that and the fact that there's nobody about. You really get the feeling that this is a country where not many people enjoy a lot of space, even in the city - and for someone who lives with sixty million people on a small island, that's really something.

I woke up this morning and rolled up the blackout blind across the roof-light window. Sunlight flooded in and I rubbed my eyes in the cold air. The sky is bluer than blue today and there is the sense of adventure in the air. Despite my body clock and the actual clock being completely out of sync, I'm actually feeling quite relaxed and peaceful today. I'm far away from home, a definite foreigner in a world of curious mixtures. This is a land where skyscrapers shadow grand old buildings, where the cold wind meets the warm sun and everything seems strange but somehow familiar.

DEPARTURE LOUNGE

Air travel's complicated. You'd think, wouldn't you, that safely launching an 80-tonne hulk of metal into the air with hundreds of people on-board, accelerating through the clouds to thirty thousand feet and then landing it again, thousands of miles away, would be simplicity itself...

It's all the other shenanigans. I got stopped and searched by security - not because I look like a beardy terrorist, but because I had totally forgotten to take off my crucifix necklace, and it set the scanner off.

"Over here please sir," said a gruff man in a blue shirt. "Shoes off."

They made me stand in a kind of glass booth, like Superman's molecular chamber. While I thought about it, it wasn't really the time to make a joke about losing my super powers. The door swung open and I walked out in my socks, where the gruff man searched me. So much for being 'airport ready' I thought.

I'm in the departure lounge, opposite two Ukrainians who are covering themselves in make-up, guided by hand-held mirrors and occasional glances at each other. It's certainly the place. Getting here was a bit like going through cosmetics purgatory - the shiny hall of perfumes. It reminded me of a sort of never-ending Debenhams, where poor souls wander aimlessly between gigantic adverts for Calvin Klein and Revel and Max Factor, amidst the sickly scent of their own eternal failure to ever look that good. I made it through. So did the Ukrainians, although they're doing their best to disguise their faces completely while they sit here.

There are so many people here, coming and going. Well, going mostly, I suppose, given that this is the departure lounge. I wonder where. A lot of stag dos, I'd wager. I saw a circle of lads around a pile of baggage earlier. One of them was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and shorts and the others were jeering at him. I never want to go on one of those.

I guess I'll be boarding soon. Then it's the long flight over the ocean and through the time zones. It's not that complicated by the time you get to that point. You just have to sit there and trust the extraordinary skills of someone you've never met, while they fly 80 tonnes of metal over a quarter of the way around the world for seven hours. 

Gulp. 

I'll be alright. 

See you on the other side.

HOW TO IMPROVE BEING ON-HOLD DURING A PHONE CALL

I had to make a phone call today. I grabbed my mobile phone and my notebook, shoved my notebook under my arm and swiped my tea mug from my desk to make it look like I was going to a meeting. Well, I was, sort of, just not anything to do with work.

I slipped inside the training room and flicked on the lights. Then I dialled the number on my phone and held it to my ear. "Thank you for calling... recorded for training purposes... to make a payment by debit or credit card, please press... Thank you. Please hold the line and an agent will be with you shortly."

Bla bla bla. I looked at the wall clock as the second hand ticked past the 7. I was suddenly pacing up and down, listening to the cheesiest hold music I think I've ever heard. You know, sometimes it's classical, Eine Kleine Nacht Musik or something, ringing tinnily in one ear. That's bearable. Sometimes it's that light jazz you get in lifts - vibes and bass with the drummer tickling a snare drum with his brushes. Occasionally it's the Bublé, but today it was a sort of never-ending compilation of tunes without a tune - it didn't make any sense, just looping round aimlessly, pianos and guitars, thumping and tinkling as though the musicians had just given up and were lazily cycling through the chords until someone wrote them a cheque.

Oh and then a key-change at exactly one minute in (I was fixated on the clock). It made me angry that it was so unimaginative, so dull and so boring that even the key changes were happening predictably on the minute, every minute. Stop... and here we go again. After four minutes, I was about ready to go on the rampage with a hi-hat, so I told myself off for having less than 300 seconds of patience, held it together, and promised myself I'd hang up after five. Tick, tick, tick...

"Hello you're through to Celia can I help you?" asked someone called Celia, sounding as bored as I was.

Now I don't know whether these companies do the awful music thing deliberately. I would have thought though, that something relaxing would have been much better if you're about to speak to someone who might have a complaint or an axe to grind with you. Playing this musack for five minutes down a phone line that the customer daren't hang up on seems rather like poking an angry bear with a stick.

I knew instantly that Celia wasn't in the mood to hear me complain about the hold music. In fact, she didn't seem to be in the mood to do anything other than be unamused, unfunny and unmoved by human compassion. I can't help thinking a little Mozart might have cheered her up a bit at least, if not me.

So, I've had an idea. Rather than hold-music, why don't these companies have on-hold-storytelling? I would much rather hear someone reading a random tale of joy and woe down the phone, plus it would definitely keep me interested. Additionally, it would only add to the illusion that I'm interacting directly with another human being - something these companies know is important to me - important enough to spend billions on their battery-farm call centres every year anyhow. It can't be difficult to come up with some stories that keep you on the line - look I made this nonsense up in no time at all. This'll do:

Click.

A long time ago there were a family of fruit flies who lived in the corner of a supermarket. One day the Littlest Fruit Fly got trapped in a yoghurt pot and had to be rescued by some of the others in a daring rescue mission. Grandpa Fruit Fly had said it was ridiculous to go buzzing down the dairy isle during the day-time as there was bound to be trouble with pensioners or those coloured-hair people who push giant trollies around. The Littlest Fruit Fly was desperate to explore and told Grandpa Fruit Fly to go back to sleep and dream about bananas - there was a whole world out there and he wasn't going to let it go by while he hung upside down in the corner. However, it wasn't long before Littlest Fruit Fly saw a bright blue light just over the delicatessen counter and felt like he had to go and check it out. As he flew towards the neon light, he felt better and better, as though nothing else in the world mattered, until suddenly, in a lightning bolt of panic, he felt his whole body spark with electricity and went flying through the air, wings and limbs jolting. The next thing Littlest Fruit Fly knew, he was trapped upside-down in a yoghurt p...

Good afternoon, can I take a reference number please?

Next time I'm in charge of the outsourced support centre of a multinational corporation I might just suggest it.

FB, FARAGE AND FRIEND-FINDING

I had a weird desire to get back on flopbook last night. I don't know what it was, maybe that feeling of isolation, of disconnection or just being left out of the party.

The thing is, I know it's not much of a party. I'd wager it's all politics, cats and babies at the moment - and that sounds like a squabble I'd rather avoid.

My Mum told me the tale of someone she read about - a student I think. He went home for Easter and switched a photo of himself (which was on the sideboard) for a photo of Nigel Farage. He just slipped it into the original frame! I think he's waiting to see how long it will take anyone to notice.

I don't think I'll be getting back on flimsybook anytime soon. Perhaps what I do need to do though, is find alternative ways of connecting with people, finding out how they're doing and wishing them well. There are people I've forgotten about, people I haven't seen for years, people I miss terribly and people who once made me laugh so much that I couldn't drive home. Where are they?

Maybe I should do that. Maybe that's what that weird desire was really telling me to do. I feel like I need the adventure of finding my friends again.

LATE NIGHT WASHING MACHINE

Climb into bed. Switch off the light and let the cool dark flood over you while the night breeze begins its gentle lullaby. The pillow softly cradles your head and the duvet is warm and deliciously heavy as you snuggle down into...

I've left washing in the machine, haven't I?

You know, there are few things more frustrating. I scan through the options, blinking at the ceiling. Leave it there? Not the best - I'll have to wash it again in the morning. Get up and hang it up on the clothes horse? My eyelids flutter shut with exhaustion and annoyance. That is the thing to do, isn't it? I tumble upwards and out.

For reasons beyond my understanding, the clothes horse is in the garden. After a few minutes looking for it in its usual slot, I spot it standing out on the grass, illuminated by the light in the kitchen. It's empty, bare like a white plastic tree in the middle of the lawn.

I turn the handle of the back door. Locked. Of course it is. Where's the key? In the egg basket, it'll be in the egg basket where it always.... it's not in the egg basket. Why is it not in the egg basket? It's always in the egg basket - since time began the egg basket has always been the natural home of the back door key, far from the lock and hidden from burglars and small children. Children. It's in the doll's house. I see it glinting on the miniature stairs, out of place and over-sized, compared to the tiny furniture. The door unlocks.

Bare feet. Do I risk it? The grass will be cold, maybe even wet. There might even be slugs. Definitely wet though - it's the middle of the night. I find my slippers eventually, wedged underneath the sofa, and I carefully retrieve the clothes horse from the garden, closing the back door behind me.

Out comes the sopping pile of wet clothes, tumbling together from the washing machine. The shirts will need hangers. I scoop it up into one massive wet pile and carry it out to the clothes horse, leaving a trail of socks behind me as though I'm leaving weird clues for Hansel and Gretel. That annoys me. I dump the pile next to the clothes horse ready for the tedious task of sorting and hanging. My eyes are itchy and my muscles ache a bit. I walk into the fridge and the corner digs into my back, causing me momentarily to wonder what it's like to be mugged... by a refrigerator.

I pull out sleeves, shake out t-shirts and drape jeans and socks over the clothes horse. Up go the shirts on hangers, hooked on the uplighters like some kind of hideous wall-art. It strikes me that it's more like a multi-coloured to-do list of things I must iron. Finally, I switch out the lights, tip-toe my way back to bed with a glimmer of satisfaction, and close my eyes, ready for sleep to finally take me into its...

I've left a trail of socks across the kitchen floor, haven't I?

THE BRIGHT AND COMFORTABLE NEW WORLD

I'm going to Canada on Friday. It's quite exciting, the thought of jetting across the Atlantic, setting foot in a continent I've never seen, and crucially, taking a well-timed break from the norm.

I'm going to hang out with Emmie and Nick.

Equally excited about it, are the Intrepids, who will no doubt fill the house with Classic FM and eat liver and onions while I'm gone. That's what they normally do. I wouldn't wonder if they invited all their friends round for a bungalow party - Boggle would be out of the cupboard, as well as that bottle of Shloer that's been waiting for it. There'd be Schubert thumping through the stereo, and platters of cheese and biscuits being passed round while Jean from next door plays canasta with milk bottle tops.

Still, there are four normal days between now and then. Four normal days of technical writing, choir practice, band practice, packing, shoelaces and water meters...

"We had a water meter installed today," said my Dad at lunchtime. My Mum rolled her eyes.

"What for?" I said.

"It's so your father can tell us we're using too much water," she interjected.

"Eight minutes in the shower," he replied, "is plenty."

I fear the worst. He already has a kind of sixth sense when it comes to fiddling with the thermostat, not to mention his on-going mission to switch the lights off, regardless of whether there are people in the room. I think my Mum was imagining a world where the taps are twisted tight and there's an alarm clock in the shower. Mind you, last time they went away, I didn't have a bathroom at all, so I can't really complain.

Speaking of setting foot in the New World, I went to Sainsbury's yesterday and bought new shoelaces. I don't know why I've not done this before - it's a brilliant way of refreshing an old pair of sneakers. I spent a happy half hour threading white shoelaces through tiny eyelets. My tired old trainers are suddenly bright and comfortable - which is great, because the last time I wore them they got soaked in the Peak District. I had to take the laces out and dry them in the sun. It's tough work threading old, stiff shoelaces back into sun-dried trainers. I reckon, sometimes all we need is a little refreshing and everything looks bright and comfortable again.

Well that's exactly what I'm hoping for.

STARGAZING

Clear skies tonight so I went out to the field for a little stargazing. I strapped my head torch to my baseball cap, slipped into a hoodie and headed down the lane.

I really love the stillness of the village at night: the streetlamps are on, curtains are drawn and an orange glow seeps from most windows. Out beyond the garages, where the houses stop, the mysterious world is dark and empty, a gaping chasm to be explored. It's perhaps not so mysterious though - by day, the path leads right out to the golf course - I assume it does the same thing at night, only darker.

I flicked on my head torch and headed out into the field. I could hear my trainers padding through the grass. I thought I heard bats or something so I stopped, illuminating a patch of grass about twenty feet away. Millions of tiny insects were flitting through the torch beam like snowflakes caught in the headlamps. I switched it off so that I could look up and get a view of the stars.

There are lots of things I love about stargazing. One is the realisation of how vast the Universe is and how beautiful it is that we can see these distant points of light. Another is the way in which the picture deepens the more you look.

In fact, as I stood there, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness, I realised that I could make out fainter stars swimming into focus as I peered up into the heavens. The sky seemed to be teeming with light, bursting into silent song. It's a bit like a painting you look at and appreciate at first, but somehow gets deeper and richer and finer the more you look at it. Further in you go, as though the paint itself is drawing you into the artist's story. There's something rather elegant about it.

I think people are like that too - there are depths to them that you only see when you take time to look, to really look; when you listen to the complex but beautiful way that their constellation has come to be. It's one of the things I love most about friendships I guess, working out what makes my friends tick. If your friends are anything like mine, some of them are bound to be pretty unusual - but for me, that's what makes them such beautiful, quirky, faithful, funny people - the glittering imperfections and character traits you don't necessarily see at first, at least until vulnerability brings them out to sparkle against the velvet night. They're all stars in more ways than one.

On went the torch and back came the swarm of tiny insects. I scrunched across the silvery grass and made my way home for the pot of chamomile tea I'd left for myself. I do love a bit of stargazing.

SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY CHASES A BEAR OUT OF THE LIBRARY

This morning, I collapsed a JIRA window and the text at the top of the Burndown Chart automatically contracted into a sort of weird poem...

Track the total work remaining and
project the likelihood of achieving
the sprint goal. This helps your team
manage its progress and respond
accordingly.

I know it doesn't scan like a poem, but it looks like someone trying to be arty, which is funny, because JIRA is probably the last place to find someone trying to be arty.

Of course, it's just responsive design, working out how to word-wrap a paragraph. It's poetry, accidentally created by a machine.

I started wondering if anyone's ever programmed a machine to write poetry. I don't mean with any particular kind of emotive elegance or profound meaning; I just mean an algorithm which is designed to find the most efficient rhyming word and fit it into the right number of syllables - even if it makes no sense at all. Like this:

Paul McCartney at the library
Picked a toothbrush up
He combed his hair
And chased a bear
Then won the FA cup

Or this:

I found a little monkey
Playing chess with JFK
I asked him who was winning
And they both said go away

Of course, thinking about it, it's much better to let imagination loose than trusting a machine to do your crazy thinking for you. I quite like the idea of splicing odd things together - a bit like a monkey playing chess with John F Kennedy or Paul McCartney chasing a bear out of a library. I like things which are just about imaginable, theoretically possible, but are so ridiculous that if you ever saw them, they would make you laugh for a week.

Like someone trying to be arty in JIRA, for example.

WIN MY MUM A CAMPER VAN

In between complaining about car insurance companies giving away toys to grown-ups, the Intrepids sometimes like to watch old quiz shows on a TV channel called Challenge.

A favourite choice is 'classic' episodes of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? It's one way of re-living the 2000s I suppose - seeing Chris Tarrant's grinning face as he waves a cheque at members of the public.

"The next question's worth £10,000," he said, last night (and twelve years ago), "Remember, you do have two life-lines and you don't have to play it."

Down go the lights in time with the tension-music.

"What was the name of Britney Spears's first number one single? Was it A) Oops I did it again, B) Toxic, C) Sometimes, D) Baby One More Time?"

Ten thousand pounds that's worth. Knowing the answer to that is worth ten thousand pounds. It's outrageous - what does it matter? What actual value in the real world is knowing that information? In actual fact, what value in the real world is knowing any bit of random trivia?

The music pumped. The contestant looked pensive.

"Baby One More Time," said my Dad, authoritatively (and weirdly). Unbelievable.

"Yeah, that's what I would have said," I nodded.

"When are you going to go on a quiz show?" asked my Mum, looking at me, "You could win me £10,000."

"For what?"

"A camper van of course."

"Right."

You know sometimes, the world seems topsy-turvy. Young men with well-co-ordinated feet get paid thousands of pounds per week for running around and swearing at a football. Knowing useless information on television is rewarded by small fortunes, and car insurers sell their products on the promise of fluffy meerkats and toy robots.

It did get me thinking though. I mean, I remember a lot of unimportant stuff - maybe I could go on a show and win my Mum a camper van?

Or maybe I could just work a little harder.

STRONGLY-WORDED NOTICES

I've always found it amusing how the person who gets mad about the state of the kitchen is almost always the same person who's in charge of the company laminator.

There are three different types of notice up now, encouraging the collective 'you' to jolly well put your cups in the dishwasher and clear up after yourself, you lazy bunch of antisocial slackers. It doesn't say that last bit - I made that up but it's certainly there in the subtext. On the face of it, this new addition to the cavalcade of kitchen cupboard communiqués just says, 'Tidy Up Please!'

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for condescending notices. I have a little chuckle to myself as I imagine someone sitting at a keyboard, furiously thumping in the words: 'DO NOT LEAVE THIS DOOR OPEN' or 'STANDING ON THE TOILET SEAT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN' or whatever other earth-shattering crime has gotten their goat this week. They always seem quite angry.

"Where the flip is the double-underline? Why can't Microsoft just..."
"You what?"
"The double-underline. How do you get this thing double-underlined?"
"Oh. I don't know. But do you really need it double-underlined?"

"Yes!"
"And just normal underlined won't do?"
"Of course not! This is really important! It's vital that people get the message and stop leaving their..."
"You could bold it?"
"Oh they won't understand that! They'll just ignore it in bold; bold's not strong enough, pah! No, I've got to underline it twice, put it in caps, make it stand out so people will finally take it seriously."
"Right."
"I suppose I could bold it as well though!"
"Yep, and maybe turn it red?"
"And turn it red. Of course! And make it a bigger font. That'll show 'em."

I don't know why I find it so amusing. Clearly the person who wrote it isn't amused - they're fed up of stacking the dishwasher every night.

My instinct though, as a kind-of technical communicator, is that readers have a natural inclination for rebellion against the strongly-worded notice. This actually makes it an increasingly less effective strategy, to backup a strongly-worded notice... with another strongly-worded notice. The law of diminishing returns means that each one has less effect than the last, despite the writer getting proportionally more infuriated.

The strongly-worded notice's impersonal differentiation of 'you' and 'us' splits our world into two groups of people: the people who want us to keep off the grass and the people (us, well me, anyway) who are sorely tempted to trample all over it. Whenever there's someone trying to segregate us, our instinct is not a positive one.

By making a sign, the angry keyboard warrior marks themselves in the 'obey us or else' club while pointing the finger at the world. It's an attempt to bundle us all together like the scoundrels we are, when we can't even be bothered washing up our coffee cups.

At a guess, I'd say that's why the previous signs didn't work.

THE DAY I SAT IN FRONT OF THE FAN

I just sat in front of the big fan for a while. It's so nice out there today, warm and pleasant, like every Spring day should be.

"Do you know what today is?" asked my Mum at lunchtime.

"14th of April," I replied.

"Get-Your-Legs-Out Day," she said. She's taken to finding out facts from Wikipedia and then challenging my Dad and I to see what we know about them. The other day we had to name ten books by Charles Dickens. I tried sneaking in The Origin of Species, but she was having none of it.

"Someone's made that up!" I protested, referring to 'Get-Your-Legs-Out-Day'. There was no way I was going back to work in shorts, although some of my colleagues would have no hesitation. In fact, one or two of them wear knee-length shorts in the depths of winter. That's software developers for you.

I found myself wandering back past the lake. The fountains were bursting with colour, catching the sun as they poured mellifluously back into the water. The sky was a perfect, cloudless blue and the air was warm with sunshine. All across the bank, there were people with rolled up trousers and shirts, sprawled over the grass. Sunlight glinted from the corners of their sunglasses and illuminated their pasty white limbs against the grass. My Mum was right, I thought.

The air from the fan was pounding into my hot face. I closed my eyes and tried to work out how fast it was spinning from the sound it made as the blades rotated. It was difficult to open them again. I was thinking about nifty ways to slice a hard-boiled egg when I remembered where I was and went back to my desk.

I might stay indoors tomorrow.

BIG

Apparently I've been pretending to be an adult for 7,000 days. That seems like a lot. I'm amazed I've kept up the effort this long, to be honest.

Sometimes I feel like blowing my cover and running round the park, whirling my jumper about over my head. It seems though, as soon as I think of that, someone asks me a grown-up question like "Should we initiate a meeting?" or "Did you cancel that loan?" or "How do you feel about bla bla bla?"... and I've got really good at coming up with grown-up sounding answers; really good.

I do wonder whether the other adults suspect. I mean sometimes, I see them looking at me a bit suspiciously, especially when I get a good idea and my eyes light up. They're on to me, I think and I add a reason to dampen my enthusiasm a bit, you know, so as not to appear too naive.

Then there's the day-dreaming. I peer out of the window, watching the clouds and wondering what it would be like to fly like Superman. I think of something silly, like knitted scarves for birds or foldable cars that you can put in your pocket, and I chuckle to myself.

"And what are you so happy about?" says someone, dragging my mind back to the office.

"Oh, nothing in particular," I say, which is only sort-of true. Then they go back to their grown-up coffee and tap away at their grown-up keyboards like red-faced woodpeckers.

7,000 days is a long time: thousands of nights and thousands of mornings, hundreds and hundreds of sunsets, moonlit nights and rainy afternoons, writing proper words and acting down the telephone, playing the piano and telling people about how to sing.

You know what, sometimes I look around and I wonder whether everyone else is pretending too - even the cross ones, the grumpy ones, the loud ones and the clever ones; the pretty ones, the scheming ones and the kind ones and the nice ones, all pretending to be grown ups, just like I am.

Some of them are really good at it; really good.

SOCK MANIFESTO

Sunday night. Mum watches Poldark while flicking through her collection of old embarrassing photographs. She flicks over to Vera. My Dad is doing a one-thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, and I am swiping my dry clothes from the clothes-horse and folding them into neat piles.

I've come to a bit of a life decision. It's taken me a while to realise it, and it will certainly take me a while longer to put it into action. However, it could change everything for me, this moment, and I'm all for that, so long as it's a positive change.

I've decided to get all my socks to look the same.

Oh you know it makes sense. At the moment, my sock drawer is a multi-coloured swap-shop of singles and oddballs. I've got grey ones with a darker grey heel and toe, I've got black ones with blue thread, novelty Monty Python socks, sports socks, trainer socks, old socks with holes in, luminous socks (never going to wear them), threadbare white socks, socks I tried turning into puppets, walking socks, long socks, socks with L and R printed on them and socks which haven't seen a shoe or a foot this side of the twenty-first century.

It must be time to get rid of some old socks, mustn't it? And I'd like a world where all my socks are identical. That way, when it's washing day, I can grab a handful of socks from the laundry basket, throw them into the washing machine and then pair them up without having to worry about which goes with which. In fact, the maximum number of pairless singletons to squelch out of the washing machine will only ever be one - and he'll soon be matched up at the end of the next load. Lots of lovely socks, all the same. Perfect.

Another added bonus will be that it will no longer be possible to go out with odd socks on. I hate that - even if I'm hiding them away in shoes, there's an uncomfortable feeling, gnawing away at me all day that I'm somehow out of balance - especially if one sock is halfway up my shin and the other one is rolling underneath the other foot. Talk about off-kilter - it can ruin my day, that kind of thing. No, when all my socks are the same, it'll be an end to those skewiff days of discomfort.

And an end to those days when you have to wear ankle socks to work because you've run out of your normal ones! When I glance down at my bare ankles poking out between smart shoes and smart trousers, I feel a bit like a tramp who spent the night in Marks & Spencers and had to get dressed in just the few seconds available before the security guard came round to open up.

So, uniform socks it is then, is it? Boring? Predictable? Safe, comfortable! Function over fashion, simplicity over complexity, painless plainness over vexing variety, and crucially, no more missing socks on a Sunday night!

I shared my vision with the Intrepids while Vera wrapped up her case and my Dad turned the jigsaw box upside-down looking for a missing 'edge-piece'. My Mum, munching an After Eight, looked at me with that special kind of Mum-look that mums have. It's the kind of look that says, "I'll believe it when I see it."

"Well I bet Einstein didn't have to worry about matching up his socks!" I said, folding my arms.

"I don't think he wore socks at all," said my Dad, quite correctly.

Always one step ahead, that Einstein.

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE

For some reason, we always watch the boat race. My Dad likes Cambridge to win (I think he went there once and enjoyed the architecture) and I'm more of an Oxford man (I almost applied to go to Keble College). With these extremely tenuous connections, we sit down to watch it most years.

I like the way the aerial shots make the boats look like insects - water boatmen or pond skaters propelling themselves across the surface tension. In truth of course, the oars are being pulled through the river by gigantic young men with iron chests and legs the size of tree-trunks. In perfect symphony they stretch and pull, rolling their oars through the water, puffing and spitting while the lactic acid burns through their muscles.

I'd like to go one day and stand on Hammersmith Bridge, or maybe where the river bends round by the old Harrods warehouse. I'd like to see the crowd cheering as the flotilla goes by, spearheaded by those two warring factions - the eight light blues of Cambridge and the eight dark blues of Oxford. I'd like to hear the umpire's megaphone reverberate across the water and the sound of the crowd, I'd like to hear the splash of oars and the cries of the cox as those boats fly past. I'd like to feel the atmosphere, I think, to be a spectator at one of Britain's proudest and oldest rivalries, played out by top athletes representing their noble universities on our greatest waterway. I'd like to be part of that world... which is probably a subconscious admission (as if we needed one) that a great divide exists between Oxbridge and the rest of us.

Not that I'm really complaining. Keble College, Oxford, would have been a nightmare of snooty proportions and every time I've found myself in Cambridge since, I've thanked my lucky stars that I chose Bath as my university. Of course, in Cambridge, you can't go thanking your lucky stars for long before you run the risk of colliding with a bicycle. It's not the place for looking up, it's the place for looking sideways and forwards, which says it all, really.

Oxford won. They stood squarely on the bank, sunglasses and wellingtons, smiles and square jaws, beaming into the cameras. The commentators rambled on about how great it feels to win and how awful it feels to lose. I looked across at my Dad.

He was snoring.

THE RADIONAUTS

I went to a radio meeting the other day. There are quite a few people in Reading who are interested in setting up a community radio station, and I went along to see what it was all about.

"It's 90% community..." said the Wizard, stroking his long grey beard, "... and 10% radio."

He rolled the R and stretched the O of 'rrradioo' in his lilting Edinburgh accent. It had the effect of making the word seem somehow ancient and magical.

90% community eh? Sounds good - bringing people together. I had my Idea Journal with me so I quickly scribbled a question:

"Is this a way to change our town?"

Meanwhile, the rest of the radionauts in the room were unashamedly daydreaming - many of them about their own shows - at least that's how it seemed. We were soon discussing genres and passions and then someone said, apropos of nothing:

"Of course, I've always wanted my own rock show,"

The Wizard gave a tiny almost imperceptible sigh. 90% community, 10% radio.

I quickly realised that whoever takes on programme scheduling will need to be made of steel. I wasn't about to put my hand up for anything - not least because I simply don't have time to get involved in a project this big. Plus I wanted to make absolutely sure that I was involved in a community project rather than a vehicle for people who fancy themselves as DJs.

"And what about you?" asked one of them, gesturing towards me. "You look like a country music fan, if ever I saw one."

This will be fun, this.

BABYSITTING THE NIBLINGS

I wrote a whole post earlier and then deleted it because it failed the THINK test. It’s good, the THINK test. You have to ask yourself whether what you’re writing is True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary and Kind. If it fails, if you can say that it’s the opposite of at least one of those things, it’s best not to write it.

I appreciate little guardrails like this. My own thoughtlessness leads me astray sometimes and it’s good to have a system that keeps you on track when you can’t manage it. These systems are the rumble strips, the things which shake us awake as we drift off at the wheel. Without them, danger waits for us at the side of the road.

Speaking of danger, I’m babysitting the niblings tonight. It's a bit like lion-taming; you walk in with utter confidence and assert your authority from the outset - otherwise, you're history. Actually, as I sat cross-legged on my sister’s carpet, running an Uncle Matthew Quiz, I realised that this was the closest I’d come to managing a primary school class in a while, albeit a class of just three. It reminded me of ten years ago, when I was running Year 4 keyboard lessons.

“Mercedes, come away from the window. Right, now then Jacob, no that’s a rainstick, not a grenade launcher. Put it down. Page 4 please. Mercedes, I said come away from that window. No, we can’t use the DJ button. Hot Cross Buns please - E, D, C, E, D, C, E, E, E, E…. Mercedes! No Jacob, put that down...”

“D.D.D…DJ!”

It doesn’t feel like ten years ago, all that. In a lot of ways it was the most fun job I’d ever had. In the end though the piano students’ parents (the ones who really cared about it) all decided I wasn’t taking them quickly enough through the lessons and collectively pulled their children out, opting for what they described in their letters as ‘a proper teacher’.

I thought I’d fare OK with a quiz tonight.

“Where does pizza come from?”
“Iceland!”
“Nope… next qu…”
“No! No, it does! That’s where we get it from!”
“No but I mean, which country…”
“It does Uncle Matthew - Iceland is a country…”
“Yes but…”

They're all asleep now, the niblings. I read two stories - something called Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which is an American pre-teen book with half-an-eye on the nostalgia of parents, and a Lego movie counting book, which is sneakily teaching my nephew maths without him realising it. Odds and evens tonight.

Then, under their reversible soldier duvets they went, out came a couple of prayers for just about everyone that they know (delaying tactics) and then pop went the lights and their day came to an end.

So it is that I'm in a living room, cluttered with stuff. A clock ticks and my stomach rumbles. I'm not sure I could live in a room with so much stuff and so little noise - the other way round would be much better, don't you think?

CIRCLES ROUND THE LAKE

I went for a walk around Hosehill Lake tonight, trying to figure a few things out. My head is still a bit woozy; earlier, when I bent down to tie my shoelaces, I felt the blood pounding and I was a bit dizzy. I'm better than I was though.

There was nobody there enjoying the sunset - just me, the ducks, the geese and the midges. The sun sank ever lower behind the gold-painted trees and the glistening water. A cold breeze swept through the tall reeds, reminding me that it was still April and not a balmy evening in July.

I've started to think of my life like a venn diagram. It's three interlocked circles, probably of different sizes, with varying amounts of overlap between them. I seem to want to keep them disconnected - I assume as a way to control the influence of one into the other. It's probably quite normal, I suppose. After all, nobody wants their Mum to bring their packed-lunch into the office. Similarly, it would be a touch awkward if my manager met my pastor - not that it should be, of course! I want to live a kind of holistic life, where the circles could happily overlap without that uncomfortable feeling of loss of control.

Speaking of the work circle, it's back to it tomorrow. I hope I can remember what it is that I do. I left myself some post-it notes, pinned to my monitor, but the Me of Thursday was in a bit of a rush to get out and might not have wholly been thinking of the Me of Tomorrow.

A couple of ducks flew up from a bush and squawked off across the lake. I'm always disturbing animals in the midst of... well, there's a lot of it going on in the Spring-time isn't there? That got me wondering why we humans don't seem to have a natural mating pattern. It seems like more of an all-year round pursuit for some people. I didn't think about that for too long.

One advantage to compartmentalising life into these three imaginary circles is that it makes it easier to think about one without it getting confused with either of the others. It's a sort of filing system I guess - a way of neatly focusing on what I'm supposed to be doing at a particular moment. Of course, it's also true that each of the circles thinks it's bigger than the other two. I think it's possible that the circles change shape, growing and shrinking at different points throughout the week.

I wandered back through the tree tunnel and past the birdwatchers' observation deck. There was nobody there. The sunlight was fading and it was time to get back to the car and home.

A POT OF KENYAN

It was Kenyan in the end. We have loose-leaf but for simplicity and speed, I carefully opened the foil bag that had been doubled over in the tea-caddy, and pinched a tea bag. Remarkable inventions, tea bags: thousands of holes, tiny perforations which let the water infuse the tea and the tea infuse the water. I held it to my nostrils and had a sniff.

A lot of branded tea is made from the Kenyan leaf. It's got a bright, perky kind of taste that sort of characterises the British cup - from the stuff builders dunk into their steaming mugs to the delicate Earl Grey of the Queen's own teapot. I decided it would be the best way to reintroduce myself after 47 days.

I filled the kettle and flicked it on, then reached up into the cupboard for my big green teacup. I gave it a rinse while the kettle was boiling. Then, I scanned the window sill for a teapot. I grew up with teapots - not in a Mowgli kind of way, you understand - I just mean I can always remember them. My Grandma had an earthenware one which looked like it had been blackened by the fire; in our kitchen, the teapots were always a bit more floral - white porcelain, usually with trailing roses and lavender leaves. We had Sunday afternoons with crumpets, Mr Kipling's french fancies and a pot of hot tea, which for some reason had its own knitted jumper - a 'tea cosy' if you will.

I selected the two-cup-teapot and took off the lid. They say you shouldn't wash a teapot - the stains of old tea improve the flavour. I'm not sure I can go along with that. It might taste delicious but I like making it to the end of the cup without drinking mould and keeling over. I rinsed out the pot with cold water first and waited for the kettle to boil.

The debate that won't go away of course, is whether the milk goes in before the tea or after it. I'm not getting into that again - at least not without a pair of boxing gloves. With a pot of tea, we've always put the milk in the cup first, to stop it getting stained with tea and to ensure that the milk diffuses through the brew. I fetched the milk from the fridge and waited.

Eventually the kettle bubbled with steam and clicked itself off. I warmed the pot, rinsing round a little boiling water and then flicked on the switch again for a moment. I dropped the tea bag neatly into the middle of the pot and then filled it to the top with boiling water. On went the lid. I left the teapot on a pot stand for a moment while I splashed the milk into the cup.

After a few minutes, I swished the teapot round and then poured it in one fluid motion, into the big green cup. I love the sound it makes, sort of happily bubbling and gurgling, swirling the milk into an ever stronger, deeper colour.

The Intrepids were out and had left Classic FM on again, so I switched it off and sat drinking Kenyan tea and listening to the birds chirping in the garden.

DAY OF SILENCE

It feels like my left eye is pounding its way out of the socket. Thump, thump, thump, like an aching pulse deep inside my head. When I get up, my whole head feels heavy and the room spins with disorientation. This afternoon, I fumbled two Nurofen out of their packet and gulped them down with half a glass of water.

It's been like this for a day and a half now. I was helping out at the art exhibition yesterday, welcoming people at the door when a gust of cold wind blew into the lobby. I felt a pain in my shoulder and then, almost immediately, the dreadful silent headache, like cold-eye, crept in. I went home, shut myself away in my room and tried to go to sleep.

Migraines aside, today is Easter Saturday - perhaps the most profound day in the calendar. Andy Stanley (one of my favourite communicators) tweeted a beautiful little summary of it:

"Darkness fell, His friends scattered, hope seemed lost - but heaven just started counting to three."

I love this day of silence, this moment of anticipation when the story is still unresolved. The disciples don't know what to do, all hope seems to have disappeared and has been buried in the tomb; the very air swirls with uncertainty. But there is a plan, and Sunday is coming.

With the help of the painkillers and a quick shower, I managed to get myself moving and up in time for the concert I was supposed to be sort of organising. Do you know what, despite the fact that I didn't know what in the world I was doing, it actually went alright. Things do sometimes come together, even when I am terrified of forgetting the words of my own song. I heard my voice quiver towards the end of the first verse, but I hoped that people would think that was, um, texture... or maybe emotion or something... rather than me grappling for the next line.

So, I got home and  collapsed into bed with my head throbbing and my eyes itchy with tiredness. It has occurred to me that I might be spending too much time in front of screens. A while ago I started Screen-Free-Sundays, switching off phone, tablet and laptop altogether in favour of more natural viewing. I had got to the stage when closing my eyes at night, produced a multicoloured pattern inside my eyelids that wouldn't go away. I think sometimes your body can preach a message to you quite silently and effectively. Maybe it's time for Screen-Free-Sundays to return. Or maybe more days of silence.

HOME HUNTING PART 3: GREEN LIGHT

I couldn't sleep at all last night. At 4am I was considering just staying awake. It was shortly afterwards that I drifted into a slumber, only to be woken an hour and half later by the alarm clock, buzzing into my brain.

"I can't imagine you grumpy," said someone the other day. I'm quite glad nobody has to see me at 5:30 in the morning after a restless night.

I had to get to work early today so that I'd have enough time to take a longer lunch-break. I had arranged an appointment with a mortgage advisor to find out what I might be able to afford - the first step in the race for the merry-go-round. Armed with a small file of printed bank statements and payslips, I calmly explained my situation.

I'm starting to feel a bit more comfortable about it now, I think. About two years ago, I'd had a similar chat which hadn't gone so well. The lady at the bank had asked me all sorts of personal questions, including whether I'd considered that I might get cancer ('well one in three do, you know') and how able I thought I'd be to pay the mortgage if I became disabled. I understand why she was asking but it was a bit of a shock back then, and she didn't do it very nicely. There was none of that this time.

In fact, I'm feeling a bit lighter. The green light is on; the next stage on the journey is to get on with the house hunting, keeping my eyes open for that miracle I'm looking for.

How do you spot a miracle? When I was young, some 'considerate' people told me that I ought to make a list of the qualities I was looking for in a wife.

"Write it down," they said, "And... be specific!"

I was too young and too shy to tell them that I was horrified by this idea. I thought it would constrict me to a single ideal, which I would clearly never find, all the time, rejecting possibilities who didn't match the check boxes. I also thought it was a horrible way to objectify such a beautiful process, reducing it down to a list. I never did it. Make of that what you will.

However, I think looking for a miracle with a house is a slightly different affair. I'm hoping that somewhere will click, like home from home from the very first moments inside the door. Additionally, I know what I need to look for. Also, for it to be a miracle it probably ought to be just about impossible.

So, I'm looking for a somehow-impossible two-bedroomed house or maisonette with enough room to keep a cat, a sunlit garden and a spot for the piano.

I wonder what my life will look like in 5 years' time?

MINESWEEPER

Yesterday felt like navigating a minefield. I think there are two ways to get through: you can either tiptoe carefully, planning every step while the sweat beads across your forehead, or you can just pelt it and hope for the best.

I'm more of a tiptoer, I think. I'd rather not get blown up in a tirade of angry conversations.

I got to the end feeling relieved and exhausted, having managed to successfully organise something without too many people wanting to throttle me.

There is time yet I suppose.

Do you remember that game, Minesweeper? There was always a point at which you had to guess where the bombs were; it wasn't possible to work it out, you had to just pick a square and hope it wasn't a mine. I remember a sort of crushing despair at getting it wrong.

I guess that's why I'm a tiptoer.