We went to the ballet last week. Thursday.

Well, they said it was ballet, but I’m not sure. Probably more modern dance, with some pirouettes.

It was the Pet Shop Boys’ involvement that drew us there. They wrote the music, based on a Hans Christian Andersen short story that ran to just three pages, and handed it over to Javier De Frutos to choreograph while they toured.

The results were impressive. The music was unarguably Pet Shop Boys, and it must have had an influence on the dance, frequently punctuated by film, scene changes and a slightly wacky gameshow host.

It flew by. Three parts, three intervals and a talk by the composers and choreographer, it ran for more than two and a half hours but felt like less than an hour.

Quite possibly the best ‘ballet’ we’ve yet seen.

A day of taking pictures today, all day. I’d rather have been out in the sun, which was just glorious (too glorious, in fact, as it was very difficult to stop it shining in to my ad-hoc studio).

So, a day of lights and light tents, perspex sheets, foil hoods, a bag of flour and a bottle of Glenmorangie, the latter two items used to prop up the iPads.

The whisky made it through to the end of the day unopened.

If you’d asked me four months ago, before I knew that by now I’d be working for myself, from home, day-in day-out, what my regular freelance week might be like, I’d probably have said quite relaxed.

A day or so pitching for work, another couple of days doing it, and then maybe a couple of days of pottering around, playing with the chickens or heading out for a walk.

It’s not been like that at all. The fact I’ve been so bad at blogging in the last two and a half months is testament to that fact. Most of my working weeks have been six days long apiece. I’ve not yet had time to plant any new crops in the plot. I’ve been on maybe two walks the whole year, and both of them were at weekends.

But I wouldn’t change it.

I got into mags to write, and that’s almost all I’m doing right now. I’m very fortunate to have plenty of work coming in, and while I hunt for the happy medium I’m taking on some great commissions – jobs that give me an opportunity to properly research a subject, which I haven’t had time to do in as much depth as I would have liked for quite some time.

It would still be nice to find time for those walks, or to see the chickens from closer at hand than the study window, but while the weather isn’t so good, perhaps now is the time to make hay, so that when the sun shines it might already be bailed.

Saturday morning, we drove down to Sal’s. A family day out for mum’s birthday. Sal had invited us down, booked somewhere for lunch and then planned a trip out in the afternoon to Hall Place and a nearby garden centre.

Now Hall Place was quite a surprise. It’s an old house, built in the 1500s for a one-time London mayor. A sprawling building of bricks and flint, it’s very well preserved, and set in some lovely grounds on the banks of the River Cray. Ducks, geese, et al, et al, et al.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we arrived, everyone’s shadows lying sleepily across the grass. Sal and Dan threw bread to the ducks with Will as we walked slowly along one side of the river and back down the other, past impressively cut bushes and trees, trimmed to resemble lions, griffins and dragons.

We went back to Sal’s for cake (she’d made it, but it was so neatly done I had assumed she’d bought it, and headed home as the moon came up, the largest it had been for 20 years, they said, but I couldn’t see much of a difference myself.

Sunday, we woke up tired, but staying over at mum’s on Friday night before the journey to Kent meant we’d done none of our jobs, and so it was a day of busy-ness. Food shopping, bike repairs, digging in the garden… I potted three new plants to replace the clematis that we’d pulled out of one border and that had left my wrists and hands numb.

The day was so fine, though, and warm with it, so we headed out for a walk around Bicknacre and East Hanningfield. We’re much more familiar with West Hanningfield, and the reservoir, and to date its eastern equivalent has only ever been somewhere I’ve driven through on my way from Chelmsford to South Woodham Ferrers.

What a missed opportunity that turned out to be. It’s really quite quaint, with a green and a couple of pubs and a nice looking church by the side of the road. The return trek from there back to Bicknacre was a bit of a slog along the road, but the journey out had been a gentle yomp across the (admittedly still a bit muddy) fields.

We drove back by way of Danbury and Sandon, and through the National Trust woodland that borders Danbury’s southern fringes. I didn’t realise how nice they were, which is shameful when you consider I’ve lived around here for close to 30 years.

A repeat visit is called for, I think, when the gorse is in full flower and almost as high as the top of your head. Then, when the sky is a cloudless blue and all about you is yellow and green, will be the time to take pictures for desktop wallpaper, which will see you through the darkest months of winter.