Today was my first day back after 9 days off. Nine days of rest and relaxation. 9 days of me time - well 8 if you take out Christmas. 9 days of lets face it - not a lot. Needless to say it was a bit of a challenge heading back in today.

The day began at five on the dot. There is no good reason for this. All I know is that I have been waking at 5am every day for a week now. Some days I get up and get going, but today, when I checked my phone and was confronted with 5am, I just couldn’t. The first day back probably needed some more sleep, and the alarm wasn’t due to go off until 6:45 so back to the land of kip it was. You know when you nap and you wake disoriented and not sure if you have been asleep for an hour or 10 minutes? Well I woke. The clock said 7 and I was surprised, disoriented and surprised that i had slept for another 2 hours - it didn’t feel like that. Turns out I didn’t. Mark had inadvertently forwarded the clock time by one hour and it was now 6, not 7, it took the checking of 2 phones to convince us that we weren’t imagining it. Always check the facts people.

There was nothing for it, there was no going back to sleep, not if I was going to get to work on time. In a daze I get up and thankfully the shower clears the fog from my head. Get ready, get to work. Feel completely disoriented. struggle to remember passwords, struggle to remember much at all. It took a good hour before I was getting back into full swing. I had been off for a week, why was this so hard? Where was my stapler? I got through it of course, with the help of the amazing people that surround me. Focused (after 8.30), in the zone and remembering to have lunch at 3.30, I managed to get so much done today that I surprised myself. It was a good day.

I came home ready to prepare a delicious meal (currently running recipes from the Smith & Daughters recipe book and loving them all. I made garlic aioli tonight - and it worked! The fact that it was vegan and you would never have known was the icing on the cake. I mean - I’m an omnivore and I couldn’t tell. I AM A GOD!! Many thanks to Shannon for her incredible recipe.

Feeling good and having eaten way too much delicious food over the last 3 days. I sit to write and edit photo’s. And here I am, at 9:53pm. Feeling sated in so many ways, I am ready for bed. Good night my friends. See you on the ‘morrow and please for the sake of world peace - please return my stapler.