In about ten minutes, technology permitting, I’m going to switch off the computer, lock the office door and take a whole week off work without any sense of guilt or feeling that there must have been a vitally important task I missed.
There may be a vitally important task, of course. But I’m not going to feel guilty about it. In fact, I’m not going to worry about it at all. I knew being taken over by a bigger company would have an upside, and this, dear blog-followers, is it. I don’t have to work late or over holidays to meet deadlines unless I choose to take on an urgent freelance project. I don’t have to chase myself in circles and find diplomatic ways of putting a boot behind other people in order to ensure that books get to the printer on time; that’s someone else’s job now. And I don’t have to fire up the computer at least once a day lest I miss an urgent e-mail; nothing is that urgent any more.
There’s time to smell the flowers. Metaphorically speaking, of course; since the temperature has been way sub zero for weeks, our garden is a flower-free zone at the moment.
There’s also time to linger over my breakfast coffee and send 1950s Housewife’s Rule Number 47 crashing in shards to the floor – I can read a book in the morning! Does anyone know why, half a century ago, it was deemed positively slatternly to pick up anything less improving than a recipe book before lunch was cleared away? That particular piece of domestic tyranny always struck me as almost as stupid as the rule that said it was OK to ‘entertain’ a man in my college room at 11 am, but not at 11 pm. (Actually, it got even more stupid later in the century. My daughter once showed me a book of college rules that said it was OK to ‘entertain a gentleman’ overnight for one night, but not the same gentleman for two nights in a row, which seemed to translate as ‘promiscuity is more acceptable than a developing relationship’, but that’s a complete digression, and I beg you all to disregard it.)
Sorry. I’m burbling, aren’t I? Blame the weather; my brain is frozen in random thoughts mode.
OK. In 2011 I’ll get my act together. Being a person who makes lists*, I have a list of book trade related subjects about which I plan to shoot my mouth off at regular intervals, maybe with breaks for lighter moments.
Meanwhile, though, forgive me if I switch off, literally and metaphorically, for a few days. The rest of the UK will be in hibernation from Friday evening until January 4th, and in this cold weather that sounds like a great idea to me.
Happy holidays, everyone, whatever you celebrate.
* Last week’s list of memorable books of 2010 had two missing. They were:
9. The Vows of Silence – Susan Hill. Even if I wasn’t hopeless in love with her dishy, delicious, damaged cop Simon Serrailler, I would love this series for the pure quality of the writing.
10. The newest Tiffany Aching book by Terry Pratchett. The title escapes my deep-chilled brain for the moment. I know this sub-series is meant to be for kids, but nothing Pratchett writes is entirely for kids, especially when Discworld is involved. The man is quite simply a genius, and has access to knowledge of the universe which escapes most people. Whoever is up there arranging these things must have a very black sense of humour to have given Pratchett Alzheimer’s.
