There was a fine rain today - the stuff you can barely see unless you squint at the trees. It was bright and overcast too this morning, making this feel very much like 'holiday rain'.
That's what happens if you grow up holidaying in the UK: your childhood memories are drizzly traipses through glistening, wet, seaside towns, interspersed with uncomfortable beaches and windy cliffs, and the odd steamed-up cafe. It's more charming and delightful than it sounds.
And it's certainly more charming than being squished up indoors for a hundred days and more.
I think I'm going to have sort out my working space. I've been getting cramp and indigestion from this sedentary life, and without meaningful exercise it feels a bit like my body's forgotten how to stretch out. Worse still, my brain has tricked itself into believing that the solution to all this, is cake. And it clearly isn't.
I thought about adjusting my office chair, something I perhaps should have done a while ago. The trouble is that I'm unqualified to know how to use it.
On the first yank, I dropped six inches with a hydraulic whooshing sound and a thud. I couldn't pump it back up again. My second attempt locked the whole thing rigid, which meant for a while I was sitting like a child at a desk that's too big, rocking backwards and forwards as though possessed by something malevolent.
Spinning around didn't seem to do anything. I had a vague idea that a few counterclockwise rotations would 'up-screw' the chair back to its normal height, but all that actually happened was that I got dizzy. In the end, I grabbed another lever, took my weight off the seat and watched as the chair rose slowly to its previous height. At which point, I realised I needed a little sit-down. And the chair collapsed again.
I went out in the rain in the end. I listened to the sopping leaves and felt the damp in the air. It felt autumnal somehow, like those first few nights of university after a long, hot summer. That was of course, an illusion; it's still July. And I'm 42 years old - if anything, a kind of extra mature student, and not quite fresh-faced in a cathedral city.
Imagine! Another degree! Maybe I could take it in office-chair configuration. Though I doubt I'm clever enough.
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