Some old friends are coming for a late lunch. I've chosen some wine and there's beer in the fridge, but one of them's driving and the other behaves themselves on school nights. That's ok. I behave myself on school nights too these days. Most of the time.

There are some things to chop sat on the island in the kitchen. Mushrooms and courgettes. I've not got out the onions yet, but I'll chop a couple of those too, for good measure. One onion to go with the chicken and one to go with the mushrooms. Outside it's a cool, autumnal grey. The piles of fallen leaves look tired.

I put this morning's extra hour to good use. I filled in my absentee ballot for the midterm elections in Florida, caught up with some paperwork and found an extra £6 I didn't know I had. Enough for a pint, at least. Well, in some places anyway.

What I didn't do was work on the book. Instead I'm writing a little blog post, assessing the brief bit of the day that's gone by, planning in my head what's yet to come. It's part procrastination, but only part. A bit of it is stretching. Getting my fingers used to the keyboard again, and writing for myself rather than the day job. There are no perfect writing conditions, but there are a few things you can do to make it easier on yourself.

I changed the clock in the car and the one in my bedroom. I can never remember how to do the oven. I'm a daylight savings time agnostic. I always appreciate the extra hour and loathe the one stolen, but don't feel either way whether it should be maintained or abolished. It amuses me how arbitrary it is. It makes me yearn to set the calendar back a week or two, to get some extra time that doesn't slip away so quick. Why fuck around with one measly hour? Why stop with a week? Let's turn the calendars back a year or so. I'm sure I could fix a lot with an extra year. That's what I tell myself, anyway.