A rare, daytime posting from me today, though this doesn't mean that I am breaking my "no posting from work" rule. For the past couple of days, I've been working "funny hours" on site, supporting the implementation of my software which is used 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I'll start my shift at 4pm today.

Now, I'm certainly not advocating shift work here (Big will be in bed when I get home from work, which is not ideal by any stretch of the imagination), but what this has confirmed for me is that there is something fundamentally unnatural about waking up to the electronic bleating of an alarm clock and I think this is at the heart of my resentment towards the corporate life.

It is such a simple pleasure to be able to sleep until my body is ready to wake up. I can get up at my leisure, go for a run during daylight hours (rather than fitting it in after work and having a hurried meal on my return) and pick up some food for lunch on the way home. It's just so much more civilised - almost ironically, since it is in the name of civilisation that we lead this desperate existence we call "normality".

I guess this is the appeal of being self-employed and working from home (which, I think, is my current aim). The idea is that I will finally be able to achieve that balance which I've been seeking, unsuccessfully, for a very long time.