Preparing for the killer hedgehogs

I'm sitting at home in my chaotic front room looking at a photo of myself composed out of words - all the lovely words that work colleagues have sent me as a farewell, painstakingly arranged into a picture on my goodbye card. I'm particularly interested in a list of headlines about the Outer Hebrides, listing all kinds of woes from alcohol dependency to killer hedgehogs.

It's a beautiful day today, I am only slightly hung over from the celebrations last night, and I have been admiring my leaving presents - a very sensitively-chosen set they are, too. Presiding over the heap is the most comfortable camping chair I've ever sat in. I've put it up in my front room and have been sitting in it this morning: perhaps time to get the hang of this relaxing thing. Other van accoutrements are a stainless steel flask (good: the last one I had was glass, and I slipped on some rocks in Pittenweem and landed on it. Crash), a nice tea-towel, a beautiful red hob kettle, and a very cute little green colander. All chosen, I think, by Iain, Beth, and Andrew (bless them).

I finally got, perhaps, at my leaving do out in the car park, with champagne, presents, and speeches, that (a) I'm finally actually doing this, gulp, and (b) that people at work think I'm quite nice. I left with an overwhelming impression of just how lovely people are, what a nice bunch, and what a nice place to work. That's a good feeling to be going with. A bit of a lump in the throat. And then this morning, I find myself looking out of the kitchen window, wondering just how we could push this idea of using punctuation in the name of a well-known chocolate snack bar, and pulling myself up short: it's not 'we' any more, and it's not my business. All I need to do is eat them, like any normal member of the public, and not worry about how they're punctuated. It's going to be tough.

I am in rumination mode, at the moment, which involves not getting dressed or starting anything. I used to beat myself up about this, but now I realise it's an essential prerequisite phase to doing anything big. I need to walk about the house, nap, snack, drink coffee and smoke, but behind the scenes the brain (or the heart? who knows) is Getting Ready for the Big One. You need to leave it to do its job, and forget about trying to do anything.

The first hurdle has been discovering that the money to pay for BWV hasn't arrived in my account. And Transact, who is sending it, sent it out into the ether on May 2, so it's hovering somewhere over the Gherkin in London, I imagine, in a binary cloud, or playing with itself on the stock market. But it hasn't made it to my current account, and LTSB's clearance system has apparently not been able to communicate anything to anyone for a day and a half. So I've no way of looking up the pipeline to see if the money is going to land. However, Rosie in the loans department at LTSB has suggested an enormous overdraft in case the money doesn't show in time, and has, bless her, arranged it for me. I told her about what I was going to do with it - and about the Hebrides, because she was in a call centre in Scotland (sounded like Fife, to me) - and she was politely interested, but in the back of her mind she was thinking, every second this woman goes on about her holidays, my call stats are going down. And I thought as I put the phone down: only left work yesterday, and I'm already turning into a batty old lady who rings up call centres to tell them about her cats.

So the BWV is back on, and I can start thinking of the important things, like remembering to take my blanket with a bear on it and the dog's bowl. And which wellies.

I'll get back to you soon, but I feel another cup of coffee coming on. And perhaps a bath. For which I feel a small community of close friends and pets will be grateful.