Wot wot.
Down:
I can't leave the skin at the corner of my mouth alone and now my face looks like a festering mass of corruption for NO REASON except that I can't stop pulling at my dry skin. There was nothing wrong with it in the first place! I have created a festering mouth problem through sheer neurosis. I have just made it bleed again whilst typing this and am mopping up the blood with a green Post-it like some kind of savage.
(God, I look rough. That picture is an exact representation of my mental and physical state)
My younger child has a bad back, which is a strange ailment for a ten-year-old and has been up in the night pleading for Calpol (see haggardness/grey skin tone of above photo) and required 3 days off school, which in turn has meant much more catering than usual ("er, we've got .. bread? And this old kale I bought by mistake") and wall-to-wall repeats of Gadget Man. I have been fretting with increasing intensity about him and today took him off to see an orthopedic specialist. It did not help much, though he had an x-ray and nothing is broken, so there's that. But it still hurts and he is very much not himself. I no like.
Filling yesterday. Awful, though it started with a very gentle injection, so mad props to the tiny dentist for that. He is one of those who works in utter silence, which is generally my preferred option (informed consent, hell no thank you, please treat me like a malleable halfwit), but in this case made for a couple of unnerving interludes where he would do something, then sit for a minute in utter silence, during which I assumed he was contemplating some catastrophic error he had just made.
The combination of the two things above mean my limping finances are now ready to be put out of their misery with a swift shot to the head. Yes, some of it will eventually be reimbursed in this nirvana of socialised medicine, but until then, who the fuck knows. Gruel?
VAT deadline = am surrounded by horrible scraps of paper and looking for many more missing scraps of paper and wondering where I put that paper file into which I put all the pieces of paper with which I simply did not wish to deal. This is my favourite so far:
Eh? Stoppache?
I am harbouring Work Resentments and am now exhausted by a chestful of bad feelings.
New idiot tortoise is still not eating. I put her in front of likely tortoise foods daily. Nothing doing.
I had to lend L the proper camera today for a school project, due to him waiting until five minutes to what-the-fuck-why-haven't-you-left-yet o'clock this morning to tell me he needed one. I am TERRIFIED he will break or lose it.
I got into bed ten minutes ago (it's 15:39) and this really cannot end well.
Up:
Hmmm, I'm not feeling very "up", I confess. However:
Text update: "de caméra is safe and soond"
Horizontality update: I managed to get out of bed by 16:40.
Eldest child, through supreme effort of parental nagging and over-investment has managed 8 out of 10 in his Dutch test. This is quite the exploit, hard as that is to imagine.
My daft Brussels/London/Paris in a day gig was actually quite blissful - quiet trains, lovely meals, booze. My only regret was that the Eurostar put me in business class and I couldn't remotely take advantage of all the free stuff, due to already being up to my eyeballs in food and beverages. Frustrated, I filled my handbag with small bottles of water and magazines until I could barely carry it and eyed the complimentary champagne sadly. Props also to the Eurostar for serving a Scotch Egg as an afternoon snack, which my French fellow passengers eyed in much the same way as if they had been offered a battered dead mouse. I had lunch in London with a charming man off Twitter who had no apparent homicidal tendencies and declared me "not predatory" (high praise indeed) and dinner in Paris with my sister. I still can't quite get my head around the fact my sister - the erstwhile space cadette - lives in Paris and is an adult with a
job. I think this is quite common among elder siblings.
Sundari at around 1 minute 20 here.
I am not especially busy and am doing useful things like
reading books and thinking (ha, staring into space) instead of hustling for more work. Of course, I am temperamentally incapable of hustling for work, so I might as well make a virtue of it. I have a book to write after all (yeah, shit, I should get on with that, I suppose).
Two fun events in London in the next month to look forward to, plus a trip to Tetanus Manor at half term, mixed blessing that that is, where hopefully we will get to meet my niece and nephew's new puppy as well as whatever array of rotting carrion my father has laid on for us.
Eldest child has just spontaneously bought me a packet of Maltesers! Awwww. This might very well be the best thing to happen to me all week.
A picture
Current levels of activity:
Percentages:
55% tired
10% oh god, so tired
10% Maltesers
10% toothpaste stains
10% tedious nagging harpy
5% limp, neglected kale guilt
You?