So as of the start of this year, I have a new boss. Me.

My office is a desk in the spare room; I’ve swapped the grey view of London rooftops for the chickens in the garden and, beyond them, the allotments.

It’s quiet. Very quiet. I got a call on Friday from a journalism student (full marks for tracking me down at home) and took the time to answer her questions on the grounds that her conversation was more stimulating that miaowing any longer at the cat.

Apart from a freelance break between college and my first full-time mag job, this is the first time in 26 years that I’ve not had a season ticket for the train (I rode the trains to school) and that’s a bit strange. Rich still had to endure the inevitable delays on the first morning back as the Christmas engineering works over-ran AGAIN.

I have found, though, at the end of this first week, that I’ve not been good about sectionalising my hours. I’ve been working from roughly half seven in the morning until seven in the evening, and that can’t be good.

For the moment, though, I’m finding the work very interesting. I hadn’t realised how much of each day used to be spent reading and correcting proofs, looking at the budget and completing the day-to-day magazine admin that was a part of being an editor, and that feels quite liberating.

If anything, though, this merging of home and work hours hasn’t been good for keeping up with personal email, reading blog and the like. That, I think, is something that needs work.

Early days, though…