Opinion: The downfalls of working from home for one Falkirk woman

One of my mother’s favourite (of many) sayings which she can produce for every occasion is “never put off till tomorrow what you can do today”.

And, with that in mind, I must confess that although this column is not what I would ever say is an afterthought, it is definitely something I could do a bit earlier in the week.

Which is my excuse for the non-appearance of last week’s column.

What do you mean, you didn’t notice it was missing!

It’s not that I don’t give a lot of thought to writing it – some weeks it’s on my mind from a Thursday morning as I wonder what latest episode from the life of Kate Livingstone shall I regale you all with or perhaps it should be more a case of ‘Thought for the week’ as I let rip about something that is happening.

But like so many tasks, I do tend to put it off until the last minute.

And that, dear reader, was my downfall last week.

That and some technical difficulties which left me wailing down the phone to The Falkirk Herald team about my struggles to write and send over my column.

I’m blaming the conversation that I had with daughter Emma the previous weekend – isn’t is so nice to at last be able to see, if not hug or loved ones?

There we were sitting in my garden, the regulatory two metres apart, and I was telling her how trouble-free working from home had been.

“Lucky you,” she moaned. “You don’t have two children to look after, home school them and be expected to carry out the same amount of work as before.

“Do you know I was on a video hangout with colleagues from all over the country, including our new boss, when they all started to laugh.

“What I couldn’t see was that Sophie was behind me with her Elsa from Frozen costume on, some lurid face paints and she was doing some sort of dance routine.

“At least I know our new boss has a sense of humour – she said her husband had once been in the background of a hangout getting stripped off to go into the shower but luckily she managed to quickly switch the camera of!”

Pointing out that living alone definitely had its advantages, I went on to say that I was actually getting quite used to being in my little unofficial office in the corner of my dining room.

“It’s all been a lot simpler than I could ever have imagined. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s been hassle free.”

Alas, it appeared that I had spoken too soon.

Halfway through writing my column I lost my WiFi connection.

Now it was 11.30pm on the Tuesday night so I decided that I’d sleep on it and one, hopefully, it would be restored by the next day, and two, some sleep would give me some more inspirational words.

But it wasn’t to be the case.

Things were no better next day and after what seemed like an age hanging on the phone to my provider I was told that they couldn’t help as the broadband was fine and the WiFi was intermittent because of “current circumstances” – whatever that means!

So I had to make a grovelling phone call to say that Kate would have to be posted missing for that week and hopefully it would all be better for next week.

Which is why I’m writing this on Friday evening! Have a good week everyone.