Monthly Archives: October 2017

Catch up!

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Apologies for the silence, all. I got busy, tired and unable to push myself, so that last Sunday when we were waiting for Ophelia, I went to bed without any blog. Last week saw my little guy get all upset at School, (probably because his mother was mean to him at home) and the crazy lady finally send a cost for damages to her car. This is the final figure:

Damages Invoice

€1063 in total. Yes, really. 

An invoice for this, might I remind you;

Car

There’s a crowd called Chipsaway.ie, who will do repairs in driveways for next to nothing. If I hear from her again I’m sending them over to her, the woman is in my opinion asking for a crazy amount.

Monday:

We were all focused on this.

Image result for HURRicane ophelia ireland

You can see my house from here…

For us, it was an appallingly sharp wind, with long queues at the local shop. For three families, their loved ones will never come home, and that’s something I’m aware of. But it had, for us, the sense of a snow day; an unexpected day off with no barrier to relaxation. That sense of the rules being relaxed seemed to be on my shoulders for the rest of the week, as you’ll see.

Tuesday:

Big guy’s school is closed, so I stay home to keep him busy and away from small fires. I can’t make myself do physio. We make a small kite, go for a long walk and muck about with the Goldie Blox set, and before you know it the day is done. I’m supposed to do physio and exercise and nothing is done. I answer emails before going to bed, and make lists.  A lot of lists. I go to bed content.

 

Wednesday:

I have no meetings! No meetings, no physio, merely the exciting prospect of actually getting things done. However! You forget dear reader, that I am in fact honey to the flies that are my colleagues. By my reckoning, over an hour and a half are given over to chatting on Wednesday, and seeing as I now have to leave early to pick up big guy, I stomp back to my car frustrated and annoyed. Bother! Damn! Blast!

 

Thursday:

The house is filthy, the child uneducated, the clothes unwashed, the body unexercised, the accountant still uninformed, and all is wrong. At least I did my physio, which is just as well as my hips were beginning to hurt again.  I call it an accomplishment to put the bins out, and just go to bed.

 

Friday: 

I get through the Physio session, and get through the day. I’m sleepy tired; nothing too worrying, but I just want to stop the day. We get told of another storm, Storm Brian (and we all know what a delight Brians can be), and we decide to head to the shop for extra supplies.

And then I hit a bollard.

Yeah, I know.

I am making a left turn into the shop, and one of the bollards surrounding the road is already twisted and bent outwards. I slow to avoid a car coming the other way, and we hear the most awful scraping sound. I think I’m about to start screaming, but we park the car and have a look. It’s actually not that bad; there is a white scrap mark, but otherwise it’s okay. The other half tells me he’s done worse on the other car and not to worry. Still, I feel the motivation go, and I dearly wish for more resilience. Wish I could go for a run, or a swim, or see a friend or something. Baaaah!

 

Saturday:

I get through the physio, and I plan a day of excellent and robust activities. Then the next door neighbour kid calls in and there are now two little creatures making noise and a mess in my sitting room. The other half comes back from shopping with a report that the car now veers to the right; thankfully not politically. I go to my bed silent with the guilt. Have I cost us more money?

 

Sunday:

We get up, we play, dress, and go to Dunnes for jumpers and the like. He plays up like a madman, and I am drinking buckets of coffee all day.

I am going to do myself a favour. I am going to wrap up this blog tonight, because now it is 10pm, and I need to sleep and reboot. Night night all.

Game of Tonnes

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Monday

I get up and do my lovely extended physio, which now takes 20 minutes. It is getting easier, and I have a voice in my head that says it is because there was never anything wrong with me in the first place. Traffic is ridiculous, pointless; by the time I get to work I’m so near tears at the effort it takes me a while to get started, and then before you know it it’s time to pick up Big Guy again. How the hell can I improve on this?

 

Tuesday

I get to work in the usual panic, and then have to go on a walkabout meeting with someone from Estates. I want to set up a room in our building where students who are still nursing are able to nurse their babies and store their milk in privacy. We find a lovely room, attached to student officers’ rooms, and it might just work. We examine two other prospects, but they are either in use or in filthy condition, they won’t work. Estates aim to confirm my chosen room is vacant for use, but it looks good. I spend the rest of the day in hopeful planning, then pick up big guy and then home.

 

Wednesday

A voicemail tells me that the chosen room isn’t looking good; they were incorrect in the room number, leading them to give me incorrect information. The guy in question in charge of the room is polite when I ring him, but wants to know who told me it was free? I seem to have stumbled into a political issue, and I finish the conversation with the sense of going back to the drawing board, damn it.

Phsyio is today as well, and I arrive at 12 noon ready for the punishment. There’s a moment when I am lying face down, feeling the same resistance in mah old glutes, when I ask the nice young man, “So, Karl, was it the glamour that led you to become a Physiotherapist?” I’m joking, but the pain is leading me to sweat and close my eyes. Wow, but this is hard. I get another extended session to do at home, and I can do cycling sessions in the gym now. I’m actually a bit giddy at the idea.

 

Thursday

Super-duper important meeting at 10.30 am. I go, so far the other side of nervous I’m not nervous. I’m so blatantly unqualified for this I can only get through on bravado.

Don’t look down ya silly!

How did the meeting go? It moved in the right direction. But no firm result. I need to write up things and move things, and be political and talk to folk, but I can’t because the door keeps opening and students and colleagues have the nerve to expect things, and what do you know it is home time already. I leave campus with the sense of just shutting the door on a hurricane.

Come on ta fuck.

We got back home and had dinner with Big Guys Nana. She wants to go on a diet, and I want to go on a diet. My success at losing nearly 60lbs has led me to be complacent about my eating habits, and with no exercise means I’m gaining fast. I promised to do up a diet plan and get back to people. Then the other half and I headed off to a Parent Teachers Meeting. It was just a briefing on the children’s schedule, no individual chats at all. It did remind me how rarely I talk to the other half by ourselves with room to breathe, to be honest.  We go home afterwards just exhausted.

 

Friday

I GOT TO THE GYM!!!

I got there at lunchtime. I did twenty minutes on the bikes, and everyone was nervous and pouting and afraid to look human, whereas Mrs Doyle here was just having a blast. I will tell you though, that I was silly enough to not wash my make up off first, and that was a bad idea; I have an outbreak of spots and no one to blame but myself. But hurrah, exercise! And it didn’t hurt and everything was fine!

Work, emails, the usual. I was so happy!

 

Saturday

Took Big Guy to the library. He seemed unaware of just how bloody magical such a place is. Nevertheless, we got out Where the Wild Things are and that seemed to break through his disinterest.

I had a slice of bread mid-morning, to the derision of the other half. “Thought you were going on a diet?” Oh, it is on, best beloved. Watch me go.

We get through the day, then bath and bed, and as I am reading a story for Big Guy I switch off. I don’t mean I get fatigued, or sleepy. I mean the tank is empty in a way I can’t explain, and I need to lie down. I go down stairs and finish the coffee waiting for me, then back upstairs. I just put on my pjs and lie down, thinking that the coffee will surely keep me aw-

 

Sunday

Morning. It’s 6am, my brain convinced this is the time to wake up. I lie there, shockingly tired. I’m reminded of the time I gave blood but didn’t rest up afterwards like they all insist you should to, and as a result was dizzy and tired to the point of tears. I get up when Big Guy comes in at 7am, but I am short tempered to the point of abusive all day. There’s no other word for it. I just have nothing left in me. When the next door neighbour’s kid calls round I’m so relieved, the effort to entertain him is almost too much today. I put him to bed after dinner, and then write up this blog. I still have to look at my emails, plan the week and get myself cleaned up for tomorrow. I will use next week to do up the diet plan as well, but I will need to go easy on the exercise if I do. It’s almost zero carb and exercising on that is nearly impossible at the start.

Right. I’ve lots to do and miles to go before sleep. Away with ya now.

Temperatures, Tantrums and Tonics.

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Monday
Little man wakes up and is tired. Tired and not eating. Tired and not eating and not able to move from the couch. I take his temperature and he has 38.9 temp. Back to bed with him, working from home for me. My brother calls up from Kilkenny and delivers a huge amount of apples. I picture myself making apple pie and tarts in a pastel pinny. I can do this. I carry out my physio before bed, and wow I am in pain. Bed. Tomorrow I will be a model of efficiency, I promise.
Tuesday
Little man has a perfectly fine temperature, it’s as if the last day didn’t happen. We are all up, out and back to our usual routine without any problems. I get myself to work and get through everything by setting a timer against myself and just thrashing through it.

Boop…beep…boop…beep

In the afternoon I have to attend a financial workshop that is attended by some of the great and the good of my esteemed workplace. We eventually discover that none of us understand anything about financial details, and that the creators of said workshop need to go back to the drawing board. I leave early to collect big guy, who has had a normal day. We go home and do his Maths homework, then dinner and bath for him. For some reason I open my laptop and play uninteresting computer games until ten thirty pm, then I have to get up and do chores and physio for another hour before bed. Why on earth do I do that to myself? I have physiotherapy tomorrow as well..
Wednesday.
The morning goes well enough (up, dressed, school run, get through work). I have a lunch planned at 12 noon and I am in the cafe in good time. No one else is there, and when I check my emails I see no firm arrangement was made. Am I going mad? I was honestly certain it was on today. I head over to the physio session at 1 pm, and the only word for it is ‘Ow’.
The only way to get through it is to get through it. I make myself just remember how much I want to go running soon. There was one moment when Karl, the resident sadist, said ‘There’s a lot of soft tissue damage to your muscles, Claire.’  ‘Let’s be honest Karl, there’s really only soft tissue around there anyway.’  I don’t know if you’ve had anyone laugh while prodding you in embarrassing areas, but ooh, gosh, I can’t recommend it enough.
I realise when I go back to work that there is an exam meeting the next day at 9.30 am. This is another example of my foggy thinking, like my non-existing meeting at 12 noon. I put my head down and get through the five programme reports that have to be generated and reviewed, before fleeing to pick up beloved son at 3.30 pm. I am not panicking.
All is good with him at School, but in the car park we encounter a crazy lady. My car door touches her car door, and she. Freaks. Out. We’re talking hands on either side of her head, and she nearly starts screaming. ‘It’s a company car!’ she yells at me, and she insists on taking my insurance details. I raise a badly plucked eyebrow at all this. Normally I am Ms Empathy, but the field where I grow my fucks is all barren right now.
I’m all ‘there there’, and just get on with it. At one point I look down and her girl is looking up at me, looking as if I’ve kicked an elf. I get my kid into my car, and we head away. I look at her as I go and they are in their own car, staring at me.
Car

The offending mark. Feel free to magnify. 

That evening, the little guy opens his mouth over dinner and throws up everywhere. I wash him up and put him straight to bed, then go through the usual nighttime routine; Coffee, tidy up, wash the table, sweep the floor, make lunches for the next day, prepare  breakfast, clothes out, shower, hit up MyFitnessPal and then journal my delightful day. My brain is more dead than Trump’s credibility.
Thursday
I am up and ready for this wonderful day. I go through the old, rather than the new physio session. The early morning meeting that I was all worried about goes well, mainly because I am so good at hiding my sheer inability at coping with life. The un-arranged meeting from yesterday happens today, and it goes well too. I get through the rest of the small stuff in the afternoon but honestly my brain is on ‘Lint-Time’.
I pick up the big guy and there is no sign of crazy lady.
However. Over dinner I get an email saying that she is going to a recognised dealer to fix her car and to send her my address for the bill. I tell her, no, I am not paying for anything, I’m entitled to seek up to three quotes and she is to get a quote only. She tells me it has to be this dealer, but she’ll only get a quote if I insist. Yeah, I insist. I go to bed worried and don’t do my physio. Bold Claire.
Friday
Awake at 4am by the child, and I’m unable to get to sleep. I get all worried. But I am up at 6am and I get all of us up and out okay, the other half is okay for being woken so early.  I get myself and big guy to school okay, no sign of crazy lady. I get to my work, and I get through things mainly because of coffee.
Exam results have to be confirmed and amended where needed. Done.
It’s the end of the financial year, and items have to be receipted and confirmed. Done.
Students want to call in and confirm their subject choices are all good and confirmed, done and done.
I pick up the big guy and we go home to practise the letter S for his handwriting. Then it is time for dinner and his bath. When I come down, everything is cleaned away and sparkin’, thanks me darling. I go to my grateful bed after physio, and with no emails delivering bad news.
Saturday
Marched for repeal of the 8th, and I hope you did too.
Sunday
Ate all around me, and got ready for the week. Still no emails demanding money. I am close to burning sage to warn off bad juju here. Pick up big guy and we did the letter S. Then dinner, coffee, all cleaned when I come down. Bed and sleep. No email. I come across this image on Facebook and start laughing hysterically. Me and my brain call it a night, and go to bed.