Okay, so you’re late for work. You jump under the shower and drink your tea at the same time. You pour yourself into a clean pair of jeans, but the zip will not close. That’s all you need! Yesterday’s ones will have to do, so you climb into them and snatch a clean top that you know is usually a bit big. No time for coffee, let alone breakfast, ’cause you forgot to fill up with petrol last night. You jump the robot and scream into the corner BP. While the petrol jockey is filling up, you dash into the mini-Pick and Pay and grab a coffee and a chocolate muffin.

Now to get through the school traffic and onto the airport road by 7.15. If you don’t you’ll never make it to the first lecture. And no you are not one of the students! You change lanes frantically and toot at the little old lady in the Toyota. She shouldn’t be on the road and you scream them at her, in your rearview mirror. 7.20 and you’re turning onto the highway. You’ll have to put foot so that you make up time along the way. There’s a truck up ahead. That’s going to be bad news. And it is.

By the time you’ve persuaded the CPUT guard that you do actually work there and you need to get in as quickly as possible, (without your staff card, as that’s lying on your bedside table) it’s 8.15 and you still need to make it to your office before the lecture begins.

The students are waiting outside the locked venue and you fumble with the key. One of the kind young men steps forward to help you and they all stream in without a single complaint. Your first lecture of the day is about to start and you take a deep breath before you begin.

By lunchtime, you are starving and you have a throbbing headache, so you get yourself a cold coke and a slab of Cadbury’s milk chocolate. The next couple of lectures whizz by and by 4 o’clock you are in your car and racing to get home to feed Rufus. You also need to walk him and find something for supper. Your pile of marking is sliding off the front seat and you wonder if you’ll be able to finish it all by midnight.

As your knuckles whiten on the steering wheel, you begin to feel a little unwell. Maybe a bit of exercise would be good. You probably should use that Virgin Active membership that you’re paying for every month. But when? You just don’t have the time! Oh well, a big glass of wine should jerk your body into shape for the long night.

Your new colleague keeps going on and on about, “listening to your body.”  You don’t know what the hell she’s talking about. I mean, what’s there to listen to? She’s into all this new age stuff. Now she’s even given you some rose quartz to put on your computer. Please! How’s that going to help? As you turn into your driveway, you remember that you’ve run out of Disprin. And that really would help…