Through Frosted Fields.

There is a savage beauty to the landscape in late autumn when the north wind bites and the bitter cold bedecks the fields with a sharp frost. So cold this morning I couldn't even get my car key in the lock to go to work. At my old flat I was able to keep my car undercover but at the same time I forever worried about kids sheltering from the rain and wind to smoke their spliffs and awful weed. That anxiety that they might damage it or do something malicious added to that overall sense of fear.

Driving in through those frosted fields lit up my journey. I like days like today. When I got there we only had half the team owing to leave and illness so we were up against it somewhat but by close of play we had got a lot done.

We are approaching the final bend of the track on what has been a gruelling term. I've stood up well in the main but still struggle to deal with the constant fear and expectation that I can never really match. Another person is leaving although she's an outsider who works with us. But she is my friend and I will miss her. She messaged in glowing terms yesterday recalling the day as a trainee nurse she heard me speak and give them all a real perspective that can never be gleaned from a text book. Funny that several years ago that programme twice tried to recruit me to an academic post. Oh what might have been? But we are judged on what we do not what we might have done.

Once the days was over I drove home in heavy traffic. Enough was enough. Heating went on, the kitchen hosted my efforts at making cottage pie and I am listening to Handel. A little reading after this. I feel okay. Not done my mood diary for a few weeks, should I go back to it? I see my psychiatrist in a couple of weeks. Be nice to see him after he was off sick for sometime. He too heard one of my lectures and told me it was the best and most memorable of his MSc. All those gigs have dried up now but maybe one day.

Take care out there in the cold, easy to slip over on the ice. Until I next appear, farewell.

I Heard a Voice.