A Bit More Travelling

Wiped out. Away from home for two days and a night and it feels like weeks. Would feel more energetic had I not shared a room last night with The Snore Monster and The Contortionist. Family rooms should be heavily discounted to take into account that you shouldn't have to pay that much to be kept awake most of the night. It didn't help that everytime TSM gurgled, grunted and emitted other alarming nocturnal sounds I was instantly primed, lest the sounds augered the return of The Dreaded Upchuck Episodes. Not on someone else's carpets...

My unswitched-off brain did the Chucking Ideas Around In My Head Allnighter - where would I be now if I'd done x instead of y then, and said this instead of that another time. It hit me that I'd allowed myself to have a pretty shit time on each Significant Birthday - a stingy, emotionally-challenged, ex-boyfriend and ending up buying my own bottle of cider on my 21st, shopping on my own on my 30th while my then husband spent the afternoon in an amusement arcade - divorce followed fairly swiftly - and getting off my face on pints somewhere in Holland on my 40th with a bunch of people I hardly knew. Don't get me wrong - other birthdays go brilliantly; its just those 3 were weird. Decided I'd better make sure the next Decade-Marking one will be amazing.... ;) I'd write a novel, except that I have a floor to lay.

Anyway, apart from nocturnal non-sleep and birthday revisits, we had a good day with my dad. Apart from him having a very particular way of filling up the kettle. Clearly, I did it the wrong way. And him not believing that I could change a washer in his cistern. Turns out there's been something wrong with the toilet for a few months now; he can't change the washer himself at the moment as he's done something to his thumb, won't call a plumber in, and won't let his family do it either. Next time I'll take some tools and just get on with it. The same goes for a second banister to go up his stairs - I once offered to sort it out for him and he told me no, I want it done properly. Only he won't get anyone in to do it properly. Hmmmm.... see where this is going? I once arranged for him to be assessed for some social care, or whatever they call it, after he'd had an operation a few years ago. He didn't like the way they suggested putting the banister on, and he sent the woman away because she didn't seem to be dressed for cleaning his house. She was probably only the bl**dy assessment person....

Friday?

Ok, a lame title for a post, but it sort of sums up a week that's zig-zagged to its Traditional End, as in the Great British BlowYerWagePacketDownT'Pub in a 60s kitchen-sink-drama-film sort of way. Yes, probably that film with Rachel Roberts in.

With a week that didn't really start til Wednesday, is it any surprise that I was a bit gobsmacked to find it was Friday, already?

Its not that I've been hibernating til Wednesday, or been on a far-flung jaunt to a time-zone challenged somewhere. Just that the 12 year old and I have been jammy enough to be still on our Easter holidays til Wednesday, which is when hurtling around at crackingly early times of the morning kicked in again. And any first-day-back-to-school-and-World-of-Work always feels like a Monday. Hence, 3 days in and its Friday. Already. Heck. Brilliant.

The day before that I had a birthday. Which was a delightful more-chocolate-than-usual fuelled 24 hours, and I pretended to be sophisticated by adding brandy to my coffee all night. Though I would go for amaretto next time.

Wednesday  (which I seem to be name-checking a lot, but more in a failing point-in-time reference than for any other reason) was spent trawling the many charity shops in a nearby little town, having capuccinos with big fat cookies, and scoring £14 worth of cardis, tops, picture frames, and a 1973 book on lacemaking and crochet which is going on ebay.

From then on it seemed any time I wasn't at work I was shopping, for two birthdays. There was sensible present buying - jewellery, hand cream - for a work friend, and then there was silly stuff like glittery beach bags, garden gadgets and a fruitless trawl of more charity shops and the vintage market for bits for my mum*. By this time my head was spinning with the sight of reduced-to-£2 Primark cushions emblazoned with Attack of The 60 Foot Killer Diva, and all manner of kitchenalia, old pictures, and more jewellery so I retreated home. To eat nearly a whole packet of flaky pastry cheese twists and move only the fingers I'm using to type this.



*Which is what I always end up doing before working out what main, proper-money, thing to get her. This can be hard work, given that she recently bought me an itchy blanket-fabric cocktail dress and a blouse with whacking great pockets on the front that even Yootha Joyce would have cast to the back of the wardrobe. But she knows to include the receipts...