Quit your day job. Go on. I dare you.

Since the skiing finished I’ve been working pretty hard to get back on top of all my client work. I finally got there yesterday. All loose ends tied up as much as they can be, and I was exhausted. The idea of sitting in front of the computer all day appalled me, but it’s been rainingtorrentially here in Chamonix for almost a week now, and there’s not much to do here when the weather’s bad. So Sarah and I came up with a great idea, and drove over to Switzerland to go to the Spa at Lavey les Bains.

It was just what I needed. Geo-thermally heated water feeding a big pool system. 3 hours of lazing about in the jacuzzis, saunas and pools. There was even a sensory deprivation room - A darkened room with comfortable seats where you just hang out and listen to whale music. Perfect.

Spas. My new favourite thing, and apparently there are quite a few of them up here in the Alps. It’s my mother’s idea of heaven. I can’t wait for her to visit again so I can take her to one.

15th October. My birthday. I’m 32. whup-di-do. I can’t be arsed this year, so aside from going out for a bit of dinner in Brighton when I get back tonight I’m just going to gloss over the whole event. But hey, if I’m going to be all Eeyore about the whole thing, I’ll leave you with an extract from A.A. Milne. In which Eeyore has a birthday gets two presents….

EEYORE, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and looked at himself in the water.
“Pathetic,” he said. s’ That’s what it is. Pathetic.”
He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, splashed across it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he looked at himself in the water again.
“As I thought,” he said. “No better from this side. But nobody minds. Nobody cares. Pathetic, that’s what it is.”
There was a crackling noise in the bracken behind him, and out came Pooh.
“Good morning, Eeyore,” said Pooh.
“Good morning, Pooh Bear,” said Eeyore gloomily. “If it is a good morning,” he said. “Which I doubt,” said he.
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can’t all, and some of us don’t. That’s all there is to it.”
“Can’t all what?” said Pooh, rubbing his nose.
“Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush.”
“Oh!” said Pooh. He thought for a long time, and then asked, “What mulberry bush is that?”
“Bon-hommy,” went on Eeyore gloomily. “French word meaning bonhommy,” he explained. “I’m not complaining, but There It Is.”
Pooh sat down on a large stone, and tried to think this out. It sounded to him like a riddle, and he was never much good at riddles, being a Bear of Very Little Brain. So he sang Cottleston Pie instead:

Cottleslon, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.
A fly can’t bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
“Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.”

Near the office where I’m working there’s a big high school. Every lunch time hundreds of kids pile out and besiege the chip shops, newsagents and generally hang about the alleyways. It’s central London, and the kids look tough. To be honest they make me a bit nervous. I don’t understand a word they say or how they dress or what they’re doing. They’re half my age and live in a completly different world.

 Then tonight I watched a bit of Waterloo Road, a BBC drama about schools. I got a glimpse into that world and saw it through both the eyes of the teachers and the kids. Suddenly I’m thinking how great it would be to be in touch with people half my own age. How real it would be and how fulfilling.

 Obviously I’m watching too much telly. And also starting to entertain the odd hair-brained scheme again. Must focus.