I’m not one for taking days off very often and I suspect this results in me having more off days than I would like. An off day consists of waking up after a terrible night’s sleep (last night I was dreaming of the Protestant Reformation…) and realising the best thing you could do would be to go back to bed and try again tomorrow.

Unfortunately I rarely listen to myself and instead push forward with an unproductive day where everything feels laboured and unpleasant. You see that’s the other thing about self-employment. It has a tendency to stop malingering in its tracks. Gone are the duvet days where one sheepishly texts the boss telling them that you’ve got some terrible illness. Gone also though are the days off that you could really do with – the days when no amount of pushing will produce a page of work because you just aren’t well enough to do it. Sick pay, rather like holiday pay, was a curious concept to me.

If I’m feeling that terrible though, you say, how come I’m blogging? Well,  I’m gearing myself up for the students arriving (don’t worry, I’m not contagious). Also, coaxing oneself into completing a small task makes you realise that you probably aren’t that ill anyway and you really were just malingering in the first place.

I don’t know if today’s off day should have been a day off. I’ll just work through it and see what happens.

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• One in five staff admit to taking sickies (bbc.co.uk)