Apparently there was a brown out in Chorlton today. This is where the electricity system is overloaded with demand and lights begin to dim. I was at work so didn't notice it myself but the twitterverse was all crazy with it - there was one tweet - I think they had an electrical fault. The person who tweeted this is probably closer to overload than the electricity system. Modern society keeps us all close to overload.

I spend my time doing things - too many things. In some respects, I am close to overload.

I was going to write something yesterday about how I do too much, but got distracted by other things - things to do. Today, although I can think of loads of other stuff to write about, I have decided this will be my message to myself - things to do - avoid things to do.

My day was, as it always is, a busy one. I got up early, made a lunchbox, cooked breakfast, got kids dressed, took Eve to nursery, went to work, edited a talk, gave a talk, worked on some lecture notes, had a meeting about things which aren't worthy of mentioning, saw some students, came home, went shopping in the snow with Olias in a rucksack and a Eve on a balance bike, collected Isis from school with the other kids, came home, played with kids, cooked dinner, ate dinner, washed up, gave the kids a bath, put Eve to bed, put Olias to bed, Eve got up and I had to hold Olias while I put her back to bed and sang her a song, put Olias back to bed, tidied up the kitchen - and now I am writing this.

In many respects, today was quite an easy day. It's Wednesday, so I don't have any lecturing - tomorrow I start lecuring at 9 and finish at 5 - and I've no marking or lecture notes to write today.

I did other things today, lots of things, little things.

When the electrical system has real problems you get black outs - it crashes.

I'm not yet at the black out stage but occasionally I do nod off. I actually fell asleep while reading a book to Isis and Eve while they were sitting on my lap. That is not an easy thing to do. They woke me up saying "Why have you stopped reading." Being asleep isn't the best excuse.

This wasn't a black out - more of a brown out, my lights went dim, for a short while there wasn't enough power in the grid to keep all the lights at full blast.

Am I close to failure? Are we all close to crashing? Are we all going to give it up and drop?

I don't think so - I think I still have quite a bit of juice left.

But to be unburdened by things to do - that would be nice - to quote the Buddha - this would be the sublime abiding.

A day off would probably do.