... or the long dark teatime of the soul.

Sally has always had this dislike of Sunday evenings. At around 6pm she and we are struck by a tsunami of ennui. A creeping dread of the day to follow. A feeling of hopelessness and turgidity. There's no point in doing anything. It's Monday tomorrow. Why bother. It can only get worse.

She dates this back to when she went to boarding school and she used to have to truck northward to the big city to start her academic week. I just feel like that anyway.

The unfortunate thing is that it's been about three day's worth of this feeling for me. I have successfully managed not to think about work all during the holidays but little snippets of work related thought would burst into my forebrain like reverse fireworks (the opposite of illuminating and exciting). And so since Friday I have felt that I was going back to work tomorrow.

This isn't the end of the world, you understand, but going back to getting up early and dragging myself out of the house in the dark; trying not to disturb the rest of the clan; sitting in traffic for an hour and a half; all of this I could do without.

To counter this there is the usual disconnected optimism. As always when I am on holiday (abroad usually) I fell that I have the power to overcome everything. Not being confronted with the daily grind I feel that I can overcome it and resolutions can be made and kept and it's all so easy.

But by Wednesday (piano lessons apart) it'll be as it was. After all, nothing has changed in any real way.

And those resolutions in full...

• Get out of breath once a day.
• Do three of those five minute jobs every week.
• Do one of those two hour jobs every week.
• Redesign web site (lame, but I've been meaning to do it for a long time).
• Keep up with the news (and form opinions that are your own).
• Cook a two course meal once a week (it's not much, but I live with a chef and it's hard to get control of the kitchen).
• Play more music.
• Read more books.

Oh there were more, I'm sure, but committing them to bytes is highlighting the futility of it all.

There are other things that need considering. What's my backup employment plan should the worst happen and I get made redundant? How are we going to pay for our respective parent's extended health care? Where's Anna going to go to school in 2004? Arrgh!

It was a recent realisation for me that, really, you can't just file it and forget it about this sort of stuff. Sure you can be like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly and always decide on black trousers and tweed sports jacket, but things change and very few decisions you make are absolute and final. Sooner or later you'll have to revisit them.

Anyway, Epiphany is not 'till tomorrow, but it's a nice word and a good title. Despite the fact that I haven't had one.