I was very proud of myself, going to bed late after last night’s film and the inevitable faffing around involved in coming home, arriving home and stumbling in the vague direction of the bed and still managing to get up at a reasonably early hour this morning. Perhaps it’s because I set the alarm slightly later so the wake-up was easier.

So, what an irritation it was to arrive at the station and find the barriers firmly shut and a seathing mass of irritated commuters backed up, swaying back and forth in the ticket hall while an hour-late train was still indicated as the next one expected to arrive. I stood around with them all for a while, then went out for a 45 minute walk, but on coming back and finding the same people with the same downcast looks still on their faces I headed for home, called into the office and got them to email copy for me to edit.

Checked on the web, which blamed the lack of trains on vandalism outside Colchester in the dead of last night.

Ironic, really, that I should have train trouble, as I’d heard Steve’s Challenge on the radio describing what it felt like when his train ran over a suicidal commuter in east London last night (bumping and grinding, apparently, which sounds more like some kind of dance). It’s fairly common at that time of night. I was travelling back home with him after an edition of The Lab one night when the same happened - albeit not to our train but the one in front - and held us up for hours. I’d abandoned the train for a while, eventually, and headed off to find us chocolate and crisps after we’d been an hour at Gidea Park.

So, today was a day spent at home, listening to loud music while the rest of the building was empty, taking advantage of the fact I was freed from the terrible office drinks machine by drinking endless cups of tea and coffee, and enjoying the fact that I had a view filled with sun right ahead of me, directly beyond my monitor. It didn’t make keeping my mind on my work easy.

I did a lot of phoning and messaging backwards and forwards to the office, though, and ended up getting a lot done - as is always the case when working from home - and eventually switched off some time around half seven to head off to the gym with Kevin.

I had been feeling guilty about the fact that Berlin, cat sitting, lack of car and nights spent at mum’s had kept me away from the gym since the last time we had gone together, so was fairly relieved when Kevin confessed the same, on account of a heavy workload.

Of course, that meant we had a lot of catching up to do, so spent considerable time sitting on the sit-up mats chatting. We did a long uphill run, though, and rowed for two minutes longer than we usually do, and did some time on the weights, then ended up in the sauna, still chatting, until we were so hot we could bear it no longer.

The whole rowing / running scenario was particularly unpleasant on account of having eaten half a catering carton full of raisins that gave me a stingy bout of indigestion.

It felt good to be back overall, though, but we should have worked harder.

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