Sheesh. A Long time.

But it’s that time of year again. That time of year when my out-of-kilter circadian rhythm tells me it’s time to do things. I wrote a letter to my mother recently about this (I write letters now and again) and found myself laying down in ink (yes, a proper letter) something I’d known for a long time: I do my planning when I should doing the doing, and, er, run out of time to do the do.

My mother’s a bit more of a hippy than me, and pays more attention to things like Chinese years. I’m a dragon. No, really, I am. I lurk in my lair and come out now and again to breathe fire before retreating to the sanctity and darkness. And this is how each year works: the winter passes in long, dark days and nights and I don’t feel like doing much. Then, the rush of summer is soon upon me as I impatiently brush aside spring, and I’m blinking in the sunlight, full of energy and no particular place to go. Before we’ve got going, we’re into the lament of autumn and the inevitable trudge back into darkness. The candle blew out and I didn’t get to make a wish.

So, right now I’m full of future plans: me, family, home and work. But they’re all summer activities, and it’ll soon be over. But rather than try to fight this rhythm, I’ve decided to embrace it. If I can’t think straight enough to plan through winter, I’ll enjoy sowing the seed and allowing it time to germinate, ready for the fresh burst of springtime and the lazy warmth of future summer days.

The first project is the house: time to be a grown up and have some money spent on it. Someone else’s money, no doubt, but what the hell. Now’s the time to plan it, and if I don’t think too much about the rhythm, maybe I’ll miss packing up too early and see it through. All the way through to a new summer….