As the January tax deadline approaches all the interesting bits of work – you know, the ones that get you up and ready in the morning – go out the window as the grind of tax returns and accounts to prepare tax returns begin to take over your life…

Which is all very well and happens year after year, but

having had a good couple of months for twiddly bits the diary’s continued to get filled and you start to wonder when you’re actually going to have time to actually DO the damned stuff.

Ho hum.

Mind you. A look back at 2016’s diary shows I was just as busy NOT doing tax return “stuff” then. Albeit different not tax stuff…

Actually half the bother is the continuing man flu saga. It’s sooo difficult raising energy levels above zero when you’re coughing and spluttering and your sleep patterns are buggered and half time overheating and half time freezing and the cough beats hell out of the muscles in your stomach, chest and back. Other than that? I’m fine.

Which leaves you wondering what’s the best approach to networking when you’re run down.

I must admit I tend to wear the illness and, self-deprecating chap I am, aim to get sympathy from my listeners by pretending not to want said sympathy. Works well most of the time. Mothered by 50% of the human race and looks of understanding and camaraderie from the other 50% then the topic of conversation normally passes to where the daughter has disappeared to this time and it’s business as usual!

I’ve just realised I’ve nothing to whinge about regarding software this week. Unusual and that means my work’s cut out replacing those 200 words – usually a banker in the blog of life – with something else. Hmmm. Actually I did use the old version of a piece of accounting software to avoid the issues I’ve been having with the new version but that’s just good working practice until the sods cease supporting that version and you do have to change. But it has smoothed over the potential pain for another year.

I’m going to have to put this to one side in a minute – osteopath this time – and continue sometime later. Can’t remember whether I mentioned it but the “original” last time I forgot to go. How daft is that? It aches nearly all the time so you’d think that missing an appointment would be total anathema. But I did. Could have cost me the missed session but luckily it didn’t, for which I am very grateful.

So this time: Confirmation bias in action. My appointment is usually 16.00. So that’s when I got there, except that it wasn’t – it was 15.30… Phone says 15.30, laptop says 15.30 but I was expecting 16.00 and that’s when I arrived. Sigh. 10.30 tomorrow instead.

It’s actions like that that seriously undermine your own confidence. Good day today – until then. Not even really an issue now, appointment moved slightly to the right but:

• I feel sorry for mucking her around, and
• that’s an hour of a very busy life I’ve lost forever. Doh.

Embarrassment. Plain and simple. Don’t like being wrong. No one to blame but myself.

And I’ll have to admit it to Lorraine when she gets in. Cringe.

She tells me to let you know she went to the dentist a day early recently…