It was hard to describe the emotions that threatened to overwhelm On the Pulse on Monday morning. 

The Times office opened for the first time since Christmas, and when the mail was collected, there were Christmas cards for the journalists from the Member for Northern Tablelands, Adam Marshall.

It was a bit like getting free tickets to a movie a fortnight after it stopped showing at the cinema. Oh, the sentiments expressed in the cards were touching, and may well have brought a tear to the eye and feelings of Christmas cheer, had they arrived prior to the event. 

But afterwards? Well, put it this way, all the flamin’ Christmas cheer had been downed by that stage, and On the Pulse had miraculously survived that food fraught, chocolate infested, alcohol sodden, lolly laden, peanut pestered, soft drink splashed and antacid punctuated annual splurge of indulgence that goes hand-in-hand with waiting for Santa. There is a reason it is an annual event. 

Carrying a few extra kilos and not too worried about missing a couple of meals a day, On the Pulse was in recovery mode when ‘they’ arrived.

Admittedly OTP is not certain when they arrived in the Times post office box, considering the office was closed from Monday, December 22.

But when the cards finally arrived, they landed on the newsroom desks with a faint ‘tra-la-la-la’ that lifted eyebrows and sent shivers up the On the Pulse spine. 

Recent memories of massive excess induced a guilty queasiness, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, the memory of the New Year’s Eve madness returned too. Christmas flashed before On the Pulse’s eyes, especially (shudder) that third helping of Christmas pud that turned out to be a bad idea on Christmas Day. 

Leap to it

On the Pulse was caught unawares on Tuesday morning when it heard the good news about the 2015 Leap Second.

To be honest, we felt a little silly. The addition was known last year, so we should have pencilled it on the calendar. That precious blink of time comes about because our Earth is just a little bit slack on the old axis.

To let the planet catch up with our atomic clocks, an extra second will be added to our lives on June 30 and OTP has to say, what a boon! The last time we had such a cherished extra flash of time was 2012 .

On that well-remembered day, OTP took a breath, reached for a cup of coffee and thought about a loved one. This year, all bets are off.

A word of caution: spend your Leap Second well and don’t squander it. When the next one comes around has not yet been determined.