This is by no means an original thought by me. In fact this photo was shot from an exhibit on Plymouth Station where the children of the Tamar Valley have made up a collage of thoughts and drawings. This is one small section of it and I’m afraid I can’t accredit it to the child that was responsible because the sections are not identified individually.

Despite this, the message struck a chord for me. This is how I see myself. In fact, I am convinced that my soul is left standing by the side of my bed, leaning against the wall, tapping his feet and whistling awaiting my return at the end of the day. I am moving around my world so fast, I can see no way that my soul can keep up with me.

If there is a good reason for behaving so madly after finding out with the harshest of lessons that I’m not in any sense superhuman then this is it.

Being a student is hard (no really it is). I’m putting in full-time-job hours at college or doing college work so it’s hard time-wise. I’m also working 2.5 days a week to earn money to save us from the workhouse. So, all-in-all I’m working all day 7 days a week at the moment – no wonder my soul is left leaning against the bedroom wall.

Should I be doing this? Almost certainly not, but I am just about to lose one of my two jobs and the other I will lose around a fortnight later. So, in the 5-6 weeks before Christmas, the most expensive time of the year, things are going to become very tough.

So, I plough on and try to eke out what we’re spending so that when the chips go down, we don’t sink…….now there are enough mixed metaphors in there to last me a lifetime (whoops, there goes another one)!

Keep on running Linda.