In most of my everyday life, my time-keeping is pretty good. I’m not often late (useless bloody public flipping transport notwithstanding). I can organise a schedule of time-sensitive tasks (never missed an episode of Doctor Who). Much as I love the Douglas Adams quote about deadlines – “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” – I’m actually quite good at keeping to them.

So how is it that when I go on holiday, I can’t manage to do ANYTHING in a timely fashion? I go to bed progressively later for one thing. Last night, I discovered the Guardian published the daily cryptic crossword at midnight which meant I could have a “quick go” before I went to bed. Which was why I staggered into my pit at 3 a.m.

This wouldn’t be so bad if my body clock wasn’t set in stone at the other end of the daily routine. I’m awake and needing to be up and about by 8:30 at the absolute latest. Try as I might, all the years of having to get up and out and off to work mean I can no longer do the all day lie-in of my student past. I do sometimes find myself asleep on the sofa during the afternoon, though.

The upshot of all that is that so far all my post-a-day blog posts have been rattled off at 11:30 p.m. in a mad panic. I reckon that as long as I START one each day, it doesn’t matter if it’s not published until after midnight. Frou-Frou is apalled by that and thinks it all has to be done and dusted by 23:59 and not a second later. To avoid any smugness on her part were I to not complete the month, I’m having to stick to her schedule.

This is forcing me to limit my usual re-writing and refining and tidying up which is probably a good thing. My perfectionist nature combines with my lack of self-confidence to create a big, old mess of procrastination where nothing ever gets quite finished in case it’s not good enough. So apologies if anything this month is poor or it gets progressively worse – it’s just a matter of time.