Glimpsesofcolour

All right, so I haven’t blogged since the week before Christmas. All I have to say is, Christmas came, and it went, and it went well. I only got slightly irritated with my mother once, which must be a record. And as I said before Christmas, it doesn’t matter if you don’t get Christmas perfectly right, because another one will be along in five minutes. Or so it seems. Likewise with years – I can hardly believe that it is 2010, however one is going to pronounce that (I favour twenty-ten, myself – after all no one ever said ‘one thousand nine-hundred and ten’ a century ago, as far as I know).

Genius Brat went back to school today, with posh new clothes and shoes, and it seems to have gone well (he didn’t find his lost homework book but he did check out his teacher appointments for parents’ evening tomorrow, which he had lost with the homework book, and remembered to give back her Oyster card to his no 1 fan, who left it at our house before Christmas). Meanwhile I struggled to get out of bed and get down to work in what should be a very busy week. I didn’t do very well, getting out of bed at 10ish and going back there at 12ish for a couple more hours, although I did manage to read about half of the book for which I’m meant to be writing a foreword by Friday. I’m not getting very good sleep at the moment, as my jaw splint (which is supposed to open my airways and keep me breathing in my sleep) has gone back to the makers for repair. Hopefully it will be back soon.

Usual mix of success and failure, then. Also I have put on three pounds over Christmas, no doubt owing to consuming large amounts of chocolate. It’s all gone now, so the diet can start. Tomorrow. (Actually I ate a very frugal lunch today so feel quite good about that.).

PS Freecycle is offering ‘More baby hangers’. Are there so many people round here who want to hang babies? (on the Christmas tree perhaps…).

I have managed to do two useful things today. And only slept for half of the afternoon. This is an improvement on previous days when I did nothing useful at all and slept half the morning as well as half the afternoon. And the back pain is better every day, though I still think I should probably visit the osteopath. Oh well, sufficient unto the day….

Austriangrocery.com must have realized that they had sent me a voucher for 0.00 Euros, as they have now sent me one for 2.50 Euros (sorry, no idea how to do a euro symbol on my computer). I must say I am underwhelmed, as last time I ordered from them, the postage came to well over 10 Euros, so I don’t think a 2.50 voucher is going to get me far.

The rest of the last week or so can be summed up as sleep and snow, not necessarily in that order. Nothing much else to report.

A couple of nights ago, Genius Brat went downstairs for a midnight snack (as he does -  aged 14 and hollow legs), with the result that the cat was let out of the dining room and came and spent the night on our bed. As I was airing the bed in the morning, I found a hairball right in the middle of the mattress. Thank God it was dry and not sicky (sorry if that’s TMI). What next?

I haven’t left the house since Christmas Day. Neither has anyone else. This is bad.

Must drag son off to playbus this afternoon. At least we managed to get him up before 12.00 noon, which is a big improvement on the last few days when he has been sleeping till at least 3.00 pm and then staying awake at night till 5.00 am!

The man at the lightbox helpline was very helpful and immediately agreed that they should send me a replacement bulb free of charge. It arrived yesterday and I have installed it. The light is now beautifully bright, but for some reason it didn’t come on this morning even though I’m sure I set it right. However, having set myself the task of getting up earlier, I found I was more motivated to do so anyway. Perhaps I don’t need the bodyclock at all, just more motivation?

However I’ve not been sleeping at all well, so by the time I’d done an hour’s work and been to the osteopath, I was exhausted and instead of writing the piece that’s due in at 9.00 tomorrow, I went to bed and slept for about 2 hours. I must have needed it because when I woke up I was far more ready to do the work, and produced a satisfactory piece on the Pakistan situation, which gave me the opportunity to drop in the fact that I was at college with Benazir Bhutto (though she was known as Pinky Bhutto at that stage, a fact which annoyed me as that was my brother’s nickname for me, and I felt she had no right to it). I never actually got to know her, but I once took a phone call for her and went to knock on her door, which she opened in a fetching black slip. I somehow think this memory would not enhance her political standing.

Spent the evening at singing group, learning a difficult harmony to ‘Sometimes I feel like a motherless child’. Sang the beautiful tune all the way home with guy from church who gave me a lift. Which gave me a lift in more senses than one.

Have just learned that this week is apparently Energy Saving Week. That’s good – I’m certainly saving mine. Stayed in bed till 10.15 today..

… slept. And slept some more. And got up to have breakfast, and went back to sleep. And got up to bath and dress, and write this, and am contemplating sleeping some more. This seems to be happening rather too often recently. Must stay up, must stay up…

…not. I was supposed to be on the final mile of the Christian Aid Cut the Carbon march today, with two other people from church. But son threw a huge wobbly when we got him out of bed for school. He is currently sleeping it off, and I will have to stay home. And tomorrow we have to get him to school at 8.00 for a trip to Thorpe Park (it’s a technology outing, believe it or not). If he sleeps now, he won’t sleep tonight, then he won’t want to get up tomorrow morning… oh well, the prospect of Thorpe Park might just rouse him.

Dinner with family was OK, though (or maybe because?) I spoke v. sarcastically to my mother early on (hearing me ordering pizza, she exclaimed ‘Oh, you don’t want that do you?’, to which I replied icily ‘No, that’s why I’m ordering it’).

But couldn’t sleep last night, probably due to combination of wine and late tea, and consequently slept till 2.00 today. This is not a good idea, as it means I probably won’t sleep again tonight, and get into a disturbed cycle. It also makes me feel most peculiar. Yes, I know, I *am* most peculiar.