If there’s one thing I really, really hate it’s bookkeeping. I’m lousy with figures. I’d go so far as to say that I’m number-blind. I read one number and write it down with digits transposed. I add up a column of figures and can’t get the same total twice. I have terrible trouble with my 7 and 9 times tables. My mental arithmetic is appalling. I forget what I’m doing halfway through the calculation.

I’d rather have root canal surgery than do bookkeeping. I’ve avoided figurework like the plague all of my adult life. I even turned down a job because they wanted to put me in the accounts department.

When I worked at Outward Bound, I had reciprocal arrangement with the bookkeeper there.  She did my invoices and I did her letters.  I hated numbers and she hated words.  It was a pairing made in heaven.

So - given all of the above - how come I’m sitting here, surrounded by our year’s figures and trying to put them into decent order to send off to the accountants?

How does stuff like that HAPPEN?