Crescendo

The climax of my working year has passed, and I'll be drifting to the year end in considerably more comfort than I have been recently. The past week has been a little bit of an exhausted blur. For the third time, my expectation of exceeding 20 classroom hours in a week have been thwarted, but only just. I taught for 19.5 hours, losing 2.5 hours to cancellations, and another half-hour to a change of day. To be honest, I was thankful for those losses on the Friday, where a scheduled 7 hours shrank to 4.5 hours. I was rather ragged at the end of those 4.5 hours.

But that is work, and with it out of the way for the time being, it is about time that I focus on the month and a third till the new year. My goals are:

• to rekindle my walking in preparation for Trailwalker next year
• to finish Ideas, which I have finished but for the last 130 pages and read A Brief History of Nearly Everything
• to sharpen up my chess so that I'm at least moderately dangerous
• to tidy up the garden around Xin's house
• to manage my money well
• to get back into a healthy life routine, like I was before

Fortunately, harvest time is approaching steadily for the vege garden. Lettuce has already been harvested and some small heads of broccoli have also been taken. The peas and beans are flowering beautifully and just need a hard-working kiwi bee to pollinate them.

And after our house regains its sense of order and place, I want to get back into have guests over.