I had some unclaimed leave that I had to use or lose by the end of September (our annual leave year runs from 1 October-30 September, vaguely in line with the academic calendar), and I elected to use it to give myself two four-day weekends as September drew to a close. I've been doing this job long enough to know that October and November are an absolutely draining slog, and those September four-day weekends are the perfect way in which to gather strength to cope with the new academic year onslaught.

That said, today has mostly been all work, as tends to happen with me when I have a long weekend — I try to front-load all the housework and tedious life admin, so that as the weekend carries on, I have fewer and fewer demands on my time.

However, I did have a small sliver of time, after I got back from swimming at the pool, but before I started making hummus by hand in the food processor for lunch, when I just sat outside on the deck under the yellowing cherry tree, and drank coffee, and ate a slice of spiced pumpkin cake (made by one of my colleagues and transported home yesterday for the occasion), and read my book, and listened to the wind in the silver birch trees next door, and let life stand still for a moment. It was blissful.