The name's Happy. Demob Happy.

It's that feeling you get when you know a change is gonna come. Going on holiday is the mild form of demob happy. You know you'll be back in a week or two, so it's not like you can simply let everything collapse or crumble into dust. Seven or fourteen days in the future, you'll need to come back and resume whatever it was you were doing before your holiday. Leave yourself with a hideous mess to resolve and it'll sour those first few hours and days back at the office, desk or wherever it is you work.

Leaving a job, now that's when demob happy kicks in like crazy. Why bother making the effort when you know you're never come back to this job, place, country? Post and emails piling up? Let it. You've commissioned work you know will be a nightmarish living hell to deal with? What the hell, it's your successor's problem soon. Accidentally left a hot iron on the carpet the day before you move out? Hey, it's time to rearrange the future and give the place a fresh new look.

Yes, you guessed it, holiday is just a day away. In fact it's off to the airport hotel tonight, as the flight leaves at a brutal six in the morning tomorrow. That mean's checking in by 4.30am. Why do airlines and tour operators do that? Why make everyone start their holiday at four in the morning? You know everyone at the airport and on the flight is going to be cranky as hell, waaaaay out of their comfort zone. Plus Glasgow Airport is a strange place that time of the morning. It's the only airport where you can see people drinking pints of beer while watching the sunrise.

No shortage of things to do today. Got to deliver my last piece of paid work by lunchtime. Got to put out the garbage and tidy the house - well, at least a little. Finish packing. [Shockingly, I've begun packing, when normally I leave that to ten minutes before leaving the house.] Got to find my driver's licence. Tidy the office so I've got a clean slate physically as well as metaphorically when I get back. Haven't been able to cut the grass and it's raining so that's problematic.

But most of all I'm feeling happy. Aside from the article I'm finishing this morning, I've achieved all my work and study goals for the pre-holiday period. When I get back, there's work to find and stories to write, a final project to devise and develop for my screenwriting MA course. But for now, for this moment, things aren't too bad. So, I'm feeling happy. Demob happy.