List

I had a list as long as my arm today of things I needed to do. I can feel Autumn approaching and I like to knuckle down to work in the run up to Christmas without various admin tasks hanging over my shoulder. So, after a morning of emailing and booking a trip to the trenches in Northern France, the boxes of receipts came out and the misery of the yearly tax audit began. 

The living room is now covered in little piles of paper. I don't even know what I'm putting in each pile yet. These things slowly sort themselves out, although it feels like a never-ending task at the moment. The problem with receipts is that they have a way of folding themselves around one another. They're crafty, shiny little things. You think you're picking a single one out of the pile but it fans out to reveal a week's worth of wallet padding and life becomes hugely depressing as you realise each one needs to be catalogued.

Then of course comes the big question. What can I legitimately claim for? And it's at these times I find myself sympathising with MPs. If I was on a film shoot and found myself buying a Twix to raise blood sugar levels, why on earth shouldn't I claim for it? 

At the moment I'm trying to figure out if I can claim for osteopathy; the need for which earlier in the year was undoubtedly a result of my job. Hmm.

I've just revisited the list I wrote at the start of the day and discovered that I've ticked everything off, which has given me a sense of great achievement. The only thing I appear to have forgotten to do is eat, which at 10.15pm is not good news. There's no food in the house, so I've improvised a pasta source out of hummus, tomato purée and a third of a bottle of wine which Fiona started when she was round a few weeks ago. Tragic!