done

Yesterday and today The Lizard and I are on our hind legs in front of twenty people in a light and airy presentation room in West Melbourne. This is the home of the independent schools of Victoria. It’s slightly snooty without trying to be. They can’t help themselves. This is where former private school principals come to die.

Two of them attend the two-day SKIPS presenter training though with no intention of ever presenting the program. They’re here to decide if The Lizard and I are up to their standard they require to get a future professional development gig with them. I think we pass: every evaluation rates The Lizard and me as five out of five. Only the catering scores higher.

Last night I sleep the sleep of the dead. I am so tired and the end of the longest, toughest six months work I can remember is so near. Maybe some time in the past I worked this hard, but at 61 with seven interstate trips in seven weeks I’m beyond tired. No amount of sleep refreshes me.

Still it goes on. At home I check my MM emails; requests to do this and that still sit in my inbox. Tomorrow I must make phone calls to regional venues, confirm dates, times, bookings, forward the findings to our MM admin officer or she’ll scalp me.

The one task I cannot face is my performance appraisal. I procrastinate, though procrastination suggests I have had time to do something but have not done it. Without sufficient time to do everything, this task I leave till last. I suspect that when I drive away on holiday two days from now it will remain in my inbox.

Forget all that: today is my last full day’s work this year, a year’s work I never guessed possible at Centrelink on 2 January, expecting only to cobble together a meagre income from my business and casual and part-time pickings as they arise. Instead I have an intense job, as demanding as the pay is good, and my business burgeons.

It is done. I am done. Almost completely done.

Rock on.