While wearily awaiting topic inspiration for today’s blog, I’m currently overwhelmed by a feeling of lethargy. Returning to slumber, instead of rising from my pit when first waking at around 7.45am, I inadvertently snoozed until 10am. This additional sleep somehow rendering me bereft of gusto, along with manifesting emotions of disenchantment at wasting two hours of my Tuesday.

Even my habitual breakfast of marmite on toast, accompanied by a builders strength cuppa char, has yet to inject the verve required to remove current notions of merely writing off Tuesday 19th May and returning to bed.

It’s now 11.08am and thus far all I’ve achieved is making/eating a light breakfast, ordering some grass seed online to repair a badly scarred lawn, along with penning the first 120 words of this journal.

Ordinarily, at this juncture of the day, I’d have already started editing the initial draft of a 500+ worded narrative, with a view to publishing on my website writesaidfred.org by midday.

To many, it’ll appear I’m overreacting to this morning’s tardiness, especially when you measure the episode against the dreadful events facing the globe’s populace under COVID’s dark watch.

Quite clearly, my late rise is minuscule fare compared to the worldwide coronavirus carnage playing out in front of us. Particularly when my extra two hours in bed doesn’t on the face of it impact my life one iota. After all, apart from a scheduled toilet break at 1.30pm and a beard comb at 2.35pm, today’s calendar is bereft of appointments.

My chagrin, though, manifests from what I deem as a lack of self-discipline on my part. Although, not afflicted by OCD, I need to try maintain a structure to my day. By that I’m referring to, while without current employment, treating writing and gardening as my occupations.

It’d matter not one jot if I remained in bed all day. As things stand, I’ve no work meetings, no delegated objectives or deadlines to achieve. However, when the scenario of me returning onto the employment market arrives, I want to be sure I’ve the self-discipline and mental wherewithal to make that transition as seamless as possible.

To my mind, becoming accustomed to oversleeping would make any transformation back into the workplace significantly more difficult…… Unless, of course, my new career path was in a sleep research facility. In which case I’d expect to fly through the corporate ranks at breakneck speed.

Anyhow, I’m looking forward to the arrival of the grass seed I’ve just purchased. When the courier drops the box onto my doorstep, I’ll think of it as a sort of horticultural cavalry. Assistance speeding on horseback over the horizon to save a moribund Strachan lawn.

Sitting here witnessing the scorched earth which in its horticultural heyday was a lush emerald area of grass, I’m attempting to craft the idiom ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained!’ into an updated adage that could be used as a COVID idiot mission statement. The best I can manage thus far is ‘Nowhere ventured, nothing gained’, which doesn’t quite scan as I’d like…… I’ll proceed with that project and leave you to your day!

Take care!…. Stay safe!…… And lots of other COVID cliches I’m currently unable to recollect.