Back

This morning I woke up with my back crimped in agony, either the result of carrying the television down the street last night, or (more likely) spending all afternoon and most of the evening slouched on the sofa. Bad posture makes martyrs of us all.

The trouble is, if your back hurts it's hard to be active, and if you're not active, your back will continue to hurt. So I sat on the sofa, trying to be more upright, and ate chocolate while deleting bad photographs from my computer.

This was emotionally wearing. I thought I was pretty good at taking pictures a few years ago, but I kept finding absolute crap: badly composed, out of focus, underexposed junk. Happily, when I switched on my "I like this" filter in Lightroom, I saw all the photos I'd taken that I had thought were good, and as a demonstration that my tastes haven't changed that much, I was quite pleased with most of them. Although many could be better, there's also many I've forgotten I took, and it's nice to be reminded of all the places I've been in the last three years.

What isn't so nice is to see my hair, which I didn't realise looks like (and has looked like) a grease-encrusted wire brush stuck to the top of a scarecrow. For the last three years. One or two I could accept as random bad hair days, but when my hair looks consistently awful (and my fiancee's looks consistently radiant and lovely) I begin to have worrying feelings about how slovenly I am. Perhaps it was a bad idea to leave six months between haircuts. Then again, I'm pretty sure I've washed my hair more than once in the last three years.

On the positive side, I've still got a fiancee despite my awful hair and a beard that at times has looked insane; I must have some good qualities, even if I do my best to hide them.