the Other Lane, the shortest day

Today is the winter solstice - but it's a long day at work for me.
The other lane indeed. I'm back on what I once thought of as 'the hamster wheel', but I'm glad to say it doesn't feel at all like a hamster wheel - despite me choosing to commute with the masses - sitting or standing on a crowded carriage with all the office 'bots, most of whom create themselves a little bubble by plugging in their own personal audio entertainment. This is the human zoo. I haven't seen so many new strangers so regularly ! Maybe I'll start to recognise people - even start to nod to familiar faces (avec ear buds) if I start to form a habit about which part of the train to travel on. I suppose it's important to make the most of the train experience - especially when I'm on one for a minimum of 1 hour a day. A good book perhaps? Taken in 10 x 30 minute chunks a week? I could drive, but why leave our one car idle in a car park nearly all day?
Hamster wheel? I don't think so. If the cap fits, wear it - but being on a hamster wheel is not my concept of what I'm doing. The work itself is fun, and I know it will sometimes be hard, but if I can come home and do my own stuff, forgetting about it until I get back there each morning - I'll be able to keep enjoying it - to keep having fun.
Meanwhile, she who can sometimes be obeyed, is not painting - it's very cold weather - and instead is entertaining des enfants during their school holidays. It's 4 degrees outside, and I probably should get back under the doona, since there's no sense in tapping away here until the sunrise! I need to be on a train well before that anyway. A bike ride perhaps - in the dark, with plenty of winter woolies on? Maybe not. Brrr!