Well, that was a time

Been a bit quiet here of late, I know. There are reasons (not, I hasten to add, particularly bad ones, merely reasons) beyond the usual ennui, and, for once, I've decided to write about them. As for once I genuinely was being kept away by circumstance, as opposed to my own laziness 

I'm normally reluctant to reflect too much on my own life and the meaning I derived from it or, God forbid, the lessons I've learned. It's the most tedious sort of solipsism,and, to my mind, requires one to think one is the centre of the known Universe. Which, thankfully, despite my manifold other faults, I don't.

It's why I've never got a job as a columnist.

But it is probably worth blogging about the reasons I've been quiet on here, and *spit* what I've learned from it, if only as an exercise in driving the truth into my own thick skull.

I see that my last post here was the 30th of September, that tracks, because, I had quite the October and, to my surprise (this is the lesson bit) I'm only just starting to get going again now (just in time for the Christmas rush. Brilliant).

Essentially, what happened was, all my full-timers went on holiday in October, on consecutive weeks. Nothing wrong with that, in fact I'm normally on at them to take some. The poor planning on my part was assuming I'd be fine. Done it before, no worries.

I'm the only one here that can work front and back of house, and we're a small team. If someone's on holiday, I'm covering. So I'd known going into October that I was essentially working every day in the month (bar a day off for the eldest's birthday). Can't say I was thrilled, but I assumed I'd be okay. Not my first rodeo, as people say (at their second or third rodeo, presumably). I have always prided myself on my ability to endure, I haven't got a great deal else going for me, but I can cope and tough things out to a reasonable degree (there is another, undoubtedly more interesting blog to be written about this particular psychopathy, I'd imagine, I'm not saying having this as part of my self-image is a good idea). I'd be fine

And I was, for the most part, a few more aches and pains perhaps, but I got though it reasonably enough. But only at the expense of absolutely everything else. Which is, perhaps, not the ideal way to live one's life. I couldn't pull my weight with housework, the writing went by the board, I didn't have the energy to exercise.

All a bit self-pitying, this, isn't it? It isn't meant to be. This is a job I chose, it'd be easier to wander off and get a head chef's job at some chain pub that pretends to be gastro, work a 40 hour week and get paid obscenely, but nope, got to do things my way. I knew fine well what I was doing, and did it anyway.

Rather than self-pitying, what this is meant to be is instructive. It's supposed to be reflective, and it's supposed to be me telling me that I'm not as young as I was, and while I'm in better nick than at any time since we had kids, it does take me longer to recover these days, and there's nothing wrong with that.

So yes, I'm learning lessons, and, much as it saddens me to admit it, my indestructible days are most probably behind me. Shame I had to absolutely run myself into the ground to learn that one, but still, the end justifies the means, or so I'm lead to believe. At any road, I've allowed myself to be talked into hiring another chef, so hopefully your normal semi-regular service should resume, and won't that be fun for you all?

At the risk of getting too syrupy, I've also learned that my priorities, which I've always talked a good game about having changed, actually have. I miss creating, I miss connecting with people and, for probably the first time in my life, I'm starting to think about a post-work existence (I appreciate that this is an insanely privileged thing to say). So anyway, reasons, not necessarily bad ones.