I haven't lost my mind, its all backed up on disc somewhere

Monday 1

My dad’s always been a gardener, even before he was a ‘professional’ gardener he was a ‘domestic’ one who lavished love and affection on his onions and cabbages.  When we lived on the ground floor of a block of maisonettes, back in Ye Olden Days, ours was the only garden that stood out because it was well tended with a riot of flowers and plants – all the others were overgrown and rubbish-strewn. 

Dad’s always been sensitive to the seasons, being a gardener and all.  One piece of advice he always gives to me at this time of year is: “Don’t plan to do anything in January or February, just get through it”.

Of course, I’ve always been too busy before to heed his advice before as I hauled my knackered posterior out of bed each morning to catch an early bus into the city centre.  Seasons don’t matter much when you’re running around like a headless chicken trying to fit everything in.

But now I work at home, and the pace has slowed (almost to a standstill… I’m not sure if I’m actually hibernating, and I’m definitely not sure where all this nesting material came from).  I now notice flocks of bird flying south for winter, hundreds of seagulls passing the window at 5 o’clock every night as they head towards their night roosts, bats in summer, strange footprints in the snow in winter.

And finally, I’m taking heed of dad’s advice.  Mostly because I have to because I’m getting what’s commonly known as ‘old’ now, with much less energy or enthusiasm, frantically groping for an excuse to Not Move Much.  I’m barely functioning – some would say this is my normal state, but I’m less functional than usual.  I’ve decided to Go With The Flow… except there isn’t a flow, just a trickle of days, one blending into the other.  Ugh, Monday, then kerpow, Friday.  My life on fast-forward, only in a slow kind of way, if you know what I mean.

So what am I trying to say, I hear you cry at the back whilst inspecting your nails and wondering if there’s a point to all this?  There is a point.  I’m sure I’ll get to it eventually… in my own good time.

So January, post-Crimbo, bone-freezing temperatures, mould appearing in the house where mould has never been seen before, short days, endless berluddy nights.  Oh, and no work by the way.  That gave me a shock and a half I can tell you, I’ve never been totally workless before, and visions of poverty and starvation became HD clear in my head.  And the thing about Having No Work is, you become rather sedate and lethargic and… well, lazy.  They say ‘If you want something done, ask a busy person’, but by the same token you could also say ‘If you want to see the epitome of chronic apathy, go look at a self-employed person with no work’ – I was like The Scream for most of January, only lying down.

January was also when it finally sunk in that Hubs isn’t massively likely to find another job after being made redundant in November last year.  He’s tried, and his visits to the Job Centre to be interviewed by some fetus about ‘finding work’ in order to claim his £40 a week (£40 a week!) have been a highlight, but there appears to be a recession on and a definite dearth of jobs out there.

We’ve become financial meanies.  I was a meanie before, but I’ve taken it to extreme levels now.  Lights and radiators get turned off on a regular basis (we sit in the dark wrapped in blankets, dithering and breathing on each other to keep warm), we shop locally and cheaply, we freeze leftovers, and raid the neighbours bins every night. 

I can’t remember when we last had a takeaway meal.  Or a decent bottle of whisky.

Talking of cooking, I’ve started doing it, like a lot.  I know, shocked or what!  And proper meals too, not just oven chips and summat out of a tin, we’re talking chicken tikka with biryani rice, paella, meatloaf, onion bhajis, curries, and my infamous ‘potatoe thingies’.  No one has yet died.  In fact, I’ve received praise for my culinary efforts, as in “This is nice”.  This has never happened to me before, I’m in a chronic state of shock.  Hubs keeps searching the garden for ‘foaming pods’ to explain this phenomenomenomenomen, but he’d be better off looking in the medicine cupboard for the Screaming Abdabs Menopause tablets.

So, the point is, I’ve been busy being a meanie, and cooking, and scavenging in neighbours bins is quite time consuming too, plus Hubs is home all the time now (doing the housework… he vacuumed the study while I was working this morning, and I was like “Hello, is this my perfect life or what?”). 

I’ve been Taking it Easy, like that bunny says in the Cadbury’s Caramel adverts (SAVE CADBURY’S, DON’T LET THE EVIL KRAFT PEOPLE GET THEIR HANDS ON IT, ITS OURS!  Oh, too late… bar stewards!)

So the next time you’re wondering where that Brummie Blogs person has gone, just imagine me as that bunny in the advert, serenely chomping on a chocolate bar whilst typing one-handed, gazing out of the window at the birds in the sky, and wondering what meal I can make out of a handful of rice and some frozen peas.

Right, I need a lie-down now.

Tuesday 2

Here’s something interesting that’s going to happen in the year twenny-ten.

My dad was born in 1940, so this year he will be a sprightly 70.

Hubs was born in 1950, so this year he will be a very handsome 60.

I was born in 19**, so this year I will be a young-looking *0.

My brother was born in 1970, so this year he will be a very intelligent 40.

My son was born in 1980, so this year he will be a very fine 30 (Oh! My! Berluddy! God!)

Weird, huh?

So what does this mean?

It can only mean one thing……………

………

………..

………………..

………………….. PAR-TAY!

Oh yeah!

Wednesday 3

I am pleased to report that I am no longer workless.  I now have a meaning to life, a reason to get up in the morning and crank up the laptop. 

I’m financially viable once more!  Yay!

There is a downside to this reversal of fortune.  When there was no work and I was panicking and wailing and beating my chest, I offered my services to other transcription companies… and was accepted by two.

Which means that, now that they’re all up and running again, I am awash with audio files and battered by deadlines.

S’great J

Thursday 4

Hubs had a cold a couple of weeks ago.  It lasted a week, and every day seemed like his last. 

What a baby, I thought.  Tsk.

I have it now.  It’s terrible!  A vacuum cleaner has been fitted to my big toe and sucked out all my internal organs, every once of energy I ever possessed (which admittedly wasn’t much to begin with) and my will to live.  I ache.  I sniff.  I cough.  My sinuses are roughly the size of Australia.  I’ve blown my nose that often (to stop the ber-luddy sniffing) that I now have a huge, red, throbbing lump in the middle of my face.  My dinner-plate eyeballs are now pinpricks in dough, and my mouth hangs wide in order to breathe.

I’m miserable. 

Hubs was clearly Florence Nightingale in a previous life.  I keep apologising for not giving him enough sympathy when he had it… as I raise a hand to my fevered brow, sniffing and coughing and groaning.

I can still work though.

Friday 5

Today is granddaughter’s birthday.  She now looks like a dolly, with super-long legs, long blonde hair and huge blue eyes.  She’s gonna be tall, just like her daddy.  She’s going to be gorgeous and funny, just like her nanny.

She’s four today.  FOUR!

I can’t remember what life was like before this cute, funny, expressive child was around to entertain us and make us laugh like drains.  She’ll pull faces for no reason, scream ‘NANNY!’ and shock the living daylights out of me, and play for hours with my fridge magnets.

She wakes up with a huge smile on her face every single morning.  She rarely cries, rarely throws a strop, and is whiney only when she’s tired (then falls asleep like she’s been switched off).  She’s clever and bright, and did I mention she’s funny?

We’ve developed our own little in-jokes; like a tin that always has something ‘scary’ in it (like a bit of fluff that looks like a spider), voices that we use for the ‘magnet men’ and Ralph the teddy, ‘arm runs’ to the William Tell Overture, bulging eyeball stares, a model bag at which we always scream “A haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand-baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag!” and ‘bed boinging’ which makes her so hysterical with laughter she can barely breathe. 

She has her own draw full of clothes which we add to on a regular basis, her own pink duvet set (pink! in my house! who’d have thought!), her own poppy-cup with her name on it, and 30,000 toys.

In short, she’s perfect.  And I’m not the least bit biased, really I’m not.

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