Lunch's Contrast

Lunch is a pocket of life in a day dominated by work.

Today started bright and brilliant, I started sleepy and slow, work started relentless and rapid.

Work was at eight, I wasn’t ready for it until at least tomorrow.

I was working from home, so I tried to ignore the working and focus on the home. Work came with fury and force before the clock struck nine.

There were all sorts of calls about all sorts of things. They dragged my mind here, there and everywhere. I worked through the work, appeared human on the calls and solved what needed to be solved. Colleagues needed help, tasks needed doing, appointments needed scheduling and the boss needed priority. Scatter brained.

Lunch had arrived. I came downstairs, the back door was open and a gentle pre-spring breeze washed over me. It had that fresh feel about it. You know, the one that makes you feel clean and new. The birds chirped in the trees, Pippa organised the garden furniture to catch the sun just right, and a sausage sandwich sat on the side ready for me. The sky was blue, it just floated there, relaxing with us under it. We talked about holidays to all kinds of places. Italy maybe. Italy would be nice.

I wandered our small garden for a bit. I nosied at the plants, pretending to know what they were. Pulled a few weeds. Listened to the sounds of nature.

A gnawing anxious feeling came over me as I stood in the sun. Like an alarm clock set inside my own brain. Work was grasping desperately at me to return. So I did.

There was this bloke that dominated the afternoon. He wanted help with something. Urgently. To help him with that something, something else needed sorting, and you see, to sort that thing there was this other thing needed sorting. The problem with that last thing that needed sorting, as it turned out, was something else needed sorting before that could be sorted. I tried to sort all of the things, all at the same time. Scatter brained.