Displacement activity

This morning I went into work to handle some intellectual-type tasks, including assembling reference lists and editing manuscripts. I used to do this all the time, but mostly from home. Can I concentrate on such tasks at work? No! I need a fag burning in the ashtray and some strong coffee alongside, sipping at both while I follow a train of thought. At work I go downstairs and outside to the weed garden for smoke breaks, which take up at least as much time as sitting at the desk if I'm thinking.

The self-seeded weed garden is doing splendidly, at least until the gardeners are called in to wipe it out again. There we have lots of California poppies, bindweed (convolvulus), some sort of solenaceae (possibly nightshade) and four foxglove spikes whose growth I been following closely. I thought they were toadflax (a relative) at first, but now they're blooming I know better. Both bumble and honeybees have been enjoying the poppies and it's very easy to get lost watching them buzz around filling their saddlebags with yellow pollen. There's a loose stone slab out on the patio which I have to lift regularly to monitor invertebrates too, and this morning after rain there was a particularly active little purple annelid and the usual slaters (woodlice) to watch doing their invertebrate thing.

So this morning I took in a Pakistani honey mango for my co-worker from the box bought yesterday, farted around, smoked in the garden and lanced a couple of burn blisters that were giving me gyp before giving up and coming home to smoke, type and produce the product. It's work, Jim, but not as we know it!