Am I Weird?

From Noveltea.co.uk

A national newspaper once pilloried me for saving money, suggesting I was careful to the point of mean.  We never buy that paper and we never speak its name, so I can’t tell you which one it was.  When my poetry book is e-published and goes viral, doing for rhyme and form what Fifty Shades of Grey has done for mommy porn, I will refuse to allow it to be serialised in that particular paper.  So there!

The thrust of their argument was that I re-use teabags and therefore I am a heinous person.  They conned me into posing with used tea bags on my washing line, claiming it was ‘a light-hearted piece’.  And so it was, if by ‘light-hearted’ they meant, ‘vicious to the point of stabbing her in the heart with a teaspoon.’ But I’m not bitter, unlike that editor’s soul.

I do re-use tea bags.  I don’t hang them on the washing line.  Here’s how it works:

I drink milk, water, the occasional glass of wine or Dandelion & Burdock, and Earl Grey Tea.  I drink tea all day long.  I like tea; it’s refreshing.  I don’t do drugs, snue gliffing or alcohol to excess so, in the scheme of things, it’s not a dangerous addiction.  I’m not likely to mug a granny for the price of a china cup of char.  I don’t get high on bergamot & lemon fumes.  I refuse to apologise or stand up at the TA* and declare, ‘My name is Tilly.  I am a tea-drinker.’

* Tea-drinkers Anonymous; not the Territorial Army.  I’m hardly likely to wander into barracks and declare ‘I drink tea,’ am I?  Not if I’ve had my regular doses, anyway.

[276/365] DSC_1914 (Photo credit: knowinspiration)

We are on a minuscule budget and fifty Twinings Earl Grey Decaffeinated teabags cost around £3.59.  That’s more than seven pence a cup!  

I drink an average ten cups a day. Seventy pence a day x seven days a week x four weeks a month x thirteen months a year because four weeks x twelve months adds up to only forty-eight weeks and I’m not giving tea up for a day, never mind a whole imaginary month = £254.80.

I know I could use that money to go on holiday or buy gifts for my boys or pay my gas bill (it hasn’t stopped raining since last September; of course I’ve got my heating on in July), but I won’t.  And you can’t make me.

I drink decaff after noon and regular before noon, and the regular is a little cheaper; but if I drank regular Earl Grey all day I’d get no sleep and start writing daft posts about ordinary things, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?

I drink my Earl Grey black.  I drink ordinary tea with milk, not too weak, not too strong, no sugar, not too milky, just so you know when I visit you.  I’m easy to please, so long as you make it exactly how I like it.

Black Earl Grey is strong.  I don’t like strong tea; I’m not that northern.  Making my tea is a matter of pour, wiggle, remove.  Around a third of its natural strength.  That’s two-thirds of a tea bag unused.  In this – or any – economy, that’s a scandalous waste of money.  Would you throw away two thirds of the contents of your tea box?  Of course not.

Excuse the blurry photos – I’m useless before the third cup of tea.

This is what I do every morning when I get up:

• Put the kettle on (filling only to the required level; don’t waste energy, water and money by over-filling the kettle).
• Set out three cups – one wide; one large; one small.
• Make the first brew in the wide cup: pour, wiggle, remove.  It cools quickly, giving me an immediate fix.
• Put used bag in large cup.
• Make the second brew with breakfast – pour, wiggle-iggle, remove.  A large cup, to wash down the meal; not wide, or it would cool before I’ve finished eating and it has to be drunk at just the right temperature: not too hot, not too cold.
• Put used bag in small cup.
• Make the third brew around ten.  A small cup, because the tea is beginning to lose its strength.   Pour, leave to stand for a minute, double wiggle, squeeze, remove tea bag to food recycling box.

There’s nothing weird about that, is there?

Why don’t you visit me, and we’ll discuss it over a nice cup of tea?

*

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The Best-Laid Plans Of Mice & Mothers

I had this whole week planned:

• Monday, clear the hall, especially the corner where we think Jimmy Hoffa is buried.  It’s been so long since we moved anything that it’s entirely possible there’s more than one corpse under our junk. 
•  Tuesday, scrub the woodwork and walls prior to painting, if by ‘scrub’ I mean ‘lightly wipe as fast as possible with a damp cloth because it’s the dullest part of decorating and if I did it more often I wouldn’t need to paint so often.’ 
• Wednesday, get Tory Boy to paint the ceiling because he’s taller than me and he offered. 
• Thursday, paint. 
• Friday, recover.

All plans are subject to change, of course; and change they must.  I have to break up my day today because I am at last going to own a girlie bike – one of those things with no long bar to fall on and a basket on the front for my shopping or dogs, like the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz, but without the bad skin. 

 
I was once complimented on my skin.  I was eighteen at the time.  I even know the exact date: 14th August, 1982.  I was on a plane to South Africa with my Mum, and an Afrikaaner sitting next to her told her what beautiful skin I had, unlike South African girls of the same age.  I was thrilled at the time but now I wonder if it wasn’t just a little bit creepy?

I am getting the bike from a woman in church; she was asking if anyone wanted it and of course I said yes because I have wanted such a bike for years.  I have been bobbing along all happy at the thought of fulfilling another dream, when I suddenly realised the truth of the adage, ‘Be careful what you wish for…’  I have to ride the thing home.  I have to ride a bike.  I have to get on a bike and ride it.  On the street, in front of people and cars and nasty dogs and with no helmet or – worse – ability: I haven’t ridden a bike in 32 years, and even when I did I wasn’t very good at it.  No wonder Miss Almira Gulch was grumpy; she probably had a dream come true.

Think of me after two this afternoon, crying because I fell off my bike and bumped my head and scraped my knee and crashed into a car and fractured my leg and hit a wall and grazed my beautiful skin and broke my neck and couldn’t care for my family any more and and…

…Just had a calming cup of Earl Grey and I’m back.

As well as collecting the bike (fingers crossed I don’t fall off but then it will be harder to ride it with my fingers crossed and I might fall off; what to do?  What to do?) we need to visit the launderette: this morning I am re-washing the washing that I have already washed because it smells like washing smells when it takes five days to dry, so I am going to dry it at the launderette and walk the dogs while I’m waiting.  It rains a lot here in Stockport in summer.  It rains a lot in winter, too, but we don’t mind so much because we are wrapped in central heating and the telly is good and our wet washing dries on the radiators.  Not a good look but nobody visits in winter because they’re wrapped in their own central heating, watching telly and if they’re not, their clothes are too wet to wear and they can’t visit anyway.

That’s one day’s delay; I suspect there will be more because Tory Boy is – rather selfishly, I feel, because now I’ll have to paint the ceiling myself – ill.  He started feeling unwell on Friday but he went to Birmingham on Saturday to visit a friend who is studying nursing.  He got a lift there but was almost immediately put to bed because he had a temperature.  At one point it reached 41° and the bevy of student nurses caring for him in the house considered calling an ambulance, but he began to cool down.  He staggered back by train – how ridiculous is this?  £19.45 return to Birmingham by train or £18.45 one way?  No wonder we all avoid public transport if we can – and fell into bed, sleeping all day. 

I came downstairs this morning to find him asleep on the couch.  Having slept all day, he couldn’t sleep last night, especially when I started snoring.  He came downstairs to get away from me (a common reaction, I find; and not just when I’m asleep) and finally dozed off around dawn.  He has now gone back to bed.  This kind of thing has been happening since he started uni and I’ll be honest: I’m a little bit frightened.  This is how the Hub started, with cold sweats, hot sweats, fatigue, aching joints, fluctuating temperature.  I’m scared Tory Boy may contract CFS/ME.  I can just about cope with the Hub having it for the last fourteen years and probably the next fourteen, but I can’t bear the thought of my son having it, and at so young an age.  At least the Hub lived a bit.  A lot, actually, which is how he ended up sick in the first place.

Tory Boy, do your mother a favour: listen to your father and take it easy.  More importantly, listen to your body.  You don’t want to upset your mother, do you?

 

There Were Seven In The Bed And The Little One Said, ‘Stop Kicking Me And Give Me Some Covers, Will You?’

It feels like Christmas in South Africa in my house, bursting at the seams with people.  Just how I like it: I love a full house because it means people like me (or my offspring, in this case).  My niece and nephew arrived on Saturday and they bunked down in Spud’s room with him, as he has the largest bedroom and that’s how they all like it.  Spud finished school two weeks ago; the niece and nephew last week; Tory Boy is home from university; Tory Boy is in love and trading visits with Tory Girl and it was her turn to come here yesterday.  As far as the Hub and I are concerned another little one can be squeezed in no problem, but the house took the huff and refused to play along. 

Where to put everyone?  There are two couches downstairs so TB & TG could go on those but they felt they had been apart too long as it was (five whole days).  Two of the kids could go on them but they would have had to stay up late to use them.  TB & TG could go in our bed and the Hub and I go on the couches – yeah, right; like I’d give up my bed for anyone.  The couches were not an option.  TB & TG could stay in his tiny room if TG took the single bed and TB folded himself at right angles and slept like a Zed (‘Zee’ for my American friends) on the floor.  ZZZZZzzz…he wasn’t too keen on that idea for some reason.  TB & TG could take Spud’s three-quarter bed which is almost a double (they liked that one) and nephew sleep on floor of TB’s room on the airbed and niece sleep in the single bed.  No, niece on floor because she’s smallest and nephew in bed.  That left Spud who could sleep on the fold-out bed in our room.  Spud flat refused, preferring to slander his mother with scurrilous lies about her snoring proclivities and offering to sleep in the shed with the lawnmower and wallpaper stripper propping up the warped wallpaper table as a bed instead.  After briefly considering and discarding the bath for him, that left the Hub and I in our bed; TB & TG in Spud’s bed; Spud in TB’s bed because he is tallest of the three; and the nephew and niece on the floor in TB’s room.  Not as harsh as it sounds: with the door left open, we used the airbed and the mattress from the fold-out bed as a base; added four winter blankets; four winter and five summer duvets; seven pillows carefully placed to avoid bumps on the head from looming wardrobes and bookcases; and, as long as TB & TG were careful not to kick them in the heads sticking out into the upstairs hallway when they came out of Spud’s room – which they tend not to do for days on end except at feeding time – the nephew and niece slept like the princess after they removed the pea, not even noticing when Spud climbed over them with – and I quote – ‘a lot of ninja skills’ to get into Tory Boy’s bed, and accidentally flattened them.  Jolly japes!

I slept like a baby in my own bed but accidentally got up an hour early because I misread my watch.  When I came out of my room I saw that all the children were up but when I went downstairs it was just the nephew.  I went back upstairs to check on the other two and realised I wasn’t wearing my glasses and so hadn’t spotted Spud under his duvet and the niece buried like a gerbil in her nest on the floor.

*

I was surprised by a nice gesture yesterday: the Hub bought an airline pin from eBay; he has around seven thousand that he has accumulated over the years. 

The first 114 of seven thousand

He’s such a geek.  Him buying the pin wasn’t the nice gesture (I don’t want any of the seven thousand of them); it was the eBayer who sold it to him: he included a sachet containing an Earl Grey teabag and a bag of sugar, with a note explaining that he was encouraging the world to stop anytime for a nice cup of tea: ‘Tea-time, anytime can be just for make time for me-time too.  Pure Pleasure!‘  Isn’t that a lovely idea?

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Yesterday was Three Word Wednesday and I thought I’d join in.  We are given three words as a prompt and they were: abuse-cramp-hatred.  I used a synonym for hatred because it reads better.

Advice For Catholic Boys

Self-abuse
leads to
cramp.  Then
it drops
off.  Self-
loathing follows.
You’re left
with a
phallic thimble.

*

A sex education
second-to-nun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

America, Please Enlighten Me

This is something that has puzzled me for years: are there no electric kettles in the USA?

Watch American movies and tv carefully: whenever a cup of tea or coffee is made, the character fills a kettle and puts it on the stove. No-one ever plugs a kettle into the wall. Why is this? I mention it because I was reading WendyUsuallyWanders this morning and she had an interesting virtual tour of her kitchen, and I noticed there was no kettle. I asked her the same question and she was a little helpful: she doesn’t drink tea or coffee herself but she has seen electric kettles in other homes. But that doesn’t tell me why they never appear on tv. Is there a ban on their use in the media, like there is for cigarettes? Does the American Government know and is not telling us that electric kettles cause lung cancer?

There is also the question of tea: why do Americans drink tea with the bag still in the cup? I know this is so because the string and label always hang over the side. The tea must be stewed by the time they get to the bottom of it. No wonder there are so many hairy people in the States. And don’t get me started on how they drink it the minute the boiling water is poured in – do they all have asbestos lips? My own theory is that America has traditionally been a nation of coffee drinkers and directors want to show their characters’ individuality by making it obvious that they are tea drinkers: maverick detective with hirsute trout pout clears name by killing seventy-three queuing assailants with six bullets, and rounds off the day with a nice cup of Earl Grey. Or it could just be a matter of product placement. But that still doesn’t explain the weird absence of electric kettles.

‘Queuing’ came from last night’s writing class, where we discussed the fact that there are no new stories, then segued into movie clichés: the baddies always take turns fighting the hero instead of rushing him en masse. It’s usually a him. He might have – in fact, he will have – a gorgeous female sidekick and she will have a fabulous name and these days can kick butt as well as him, but she will inevitably be captured and be reduced to ‘the girl’: ‘Let the girl go/just give me the girl/blow up the Isle of Man or the girl gets it.’ If I am ever captured and the Hub rescues me and I hear him say, ‘Let the girl go,’ the first thing I will do after my grateful smooch will be to kick his butt and leave him for a dentist. It annoys me.

Then there is the matter of coffee drinkers: we see them in their homes, loading their stove-top kettles or their coffee machines. Next scene: a cardboard cup of coffee in their hands, bought from Starbucks on the way to fight crime. What’s that about? Are the stove-top kettles decoys? Or a subliminal message…if it ain’t from a street vendor you’re killing the planet?

One final question: do I spend too much time watching tv and worrying about inanities?

Here Come The Birds

Summertime and the living is easy

The Hub and I went on a mercy mission yesterday.  The poor birds in our local park are starving.  The reservoir still has patches of ice in the corners (how odd that water has corners) and was still almost completely frozen over last week.  We took the dog for his walk there on Tuesday and noticed an old lady feeding the birds.  The geese – about fifty of them – climbed out of the water and surrounded her, then followed her back to her car when she was done; they also scavenged for food on the ground.  I have never seen anything like it.  Geese in our park are usually quite stand-offish.  They consent to be fed upon occasion but they often get bored and leave it to the ducks.  The ducks didn’t get a bite on Tuesday.  

The Hub took one look at the stalking geese and dumped me and the dog to go buy a loaf; and we went back yesterday with more.  It’s not fun to be hungry, I imagine.  I am fortunate enough never to have missed a meal that wasn’t scheduled by a diet.

My diets don’t last long – about mid-morning, usually.  I like food; I really do.   Hot roast dinners with all the trimmings; cheese & onion crisps followed by Maltesers and a mug of Earl Grey; steak, egg & chips; lasagne; hot, buttered toast; cheese & pickle on crackers with a glass of cold milk…that’s today’s menu sorted.

Thinking about food distracts me from today’s problem: paying bills.  I like paying bills because it means I can breathe for another month; but I don’t like going into Stockport to do it.  I have never been a great shopper (except for food shopping: I like food shopping).  I read these surveys about 98% of women spending a third of their lives in Sainsburys and Top Shop and I wonder, who are these people?  If my children are home, my bills paid and my cupboards full, I am happy.  I don’t get the compulsion to spend whole Saturdays in packed precincts, queuing for forty minutes to buy three vests and a sale corset that is two sizes too small and will be worn only once because you nearly choked on the fat that was pushed upwards, giving your neck nowhere to go and the sound of exploding satin left your husband temporarily deaf and he still screams when he passes the lingerie section of Debenhams.

Paying bills isn’t really the problem: that was a distraction from the real issue: public toilets.  I can’t be out for more than an hour in winter without the cold attacking the nether regions (see that clever use of the definite article so you don’t think it’s my nether regions I’m talking about?  I would never discuss such a delicate subject with my public; the children don’t like it).  Actually, it’s not even the public toilets that’s the problem; they are usually cleaned every hour or I report them to the manager if I am not completely satisfied.  It is those horrible, awful, disgusting air dryers.  I hate them, no matter how cool Madonna made them look in Desperately Seeking Susan.  You put wet hands under the dryer and it’s not so bad if it’s automatic but what if it has one of those huge silver buttons to press?  You don’t want to touch that grubby thing with your nice clean hands so you raise an elbow but if you’re short like me it slides off at first contact, throwing you off balance; you find yourself on the filthy floor (it’s been fifty-nine minutes since the last inspection) and you have to start the whole hand washing cycle again. 

If you are lucky enough to have a modern air dryer, the damn thing won’t start no matter how much you shake your hands under it, so you move away and say apologetically to the woman behind you who picked you up off the floor, ‘It’s not working; sorry,’ and she smiles like you’re an idiot because she can’t hear you over the rush of air coming from the dryer.  Defeated, you shuffle wearily out, shaking your hands as you go and looking for all the world like you escaped from a Bob Fosse audition; but it’s cold out there, remember, and you don’t want to put wet hands in your mittens so you wipe them on your trouser leg, by which you mean your bum but you say ‘trouser leg’ because you don’t want anyone to think you uncouth.  And that’s how you’re going to spend this afternoon: walking around Stockport with wet hand prints on your backside, showing the world how couth you really are.

 

 

Walking The Crab

The dog seemed to be losing his fur

I had a horrible day yesterday.  I inadvertently made a mistake in December that only came to light yesterday.  I won’t bore you with the details but I was a mess of snot and tears for a couple of hours.  Fortunately, my knight on a white charger and his trusty sidekick, Rum & Rummer, came to my rescue and sorted it all.  The Rum Hub refused to let me fall apart and came up with a solution and a box of tissues and the Rummer Tory Boy implemented it.   It was nothing that a good family and a strong cup of Earl Grey couldn’t settle, but it knocked me for six.  Life is like that sometimes, I find; but you have to deal with it and move on. 

Moving on, it’s snowing again.  It’s snowing so bad that Spud only got halfway to school when  he had to turn around and come home again.  He catches two buses and the one that goes up the A6 was cancelled.  There was a huge accident and the road was closed, as was his school, but only after he had already left home this morning.  There were no buses coming back this way so he had to walk home and it took him an hour.  The snow it was snowing and has been since seven last night; it is almost calf deep.  Spud tells me I am a wise woman because his friend was in flimsy shoes and tights whereas I had made Spud wear a pair of trainers and carry his school shoes.  He was also in fur hat, coat, and thick gloves over his uniform.  His friend had only her blazer.  I don’t know about ‘wise’ so much as ‘fussy and over-protective’, but he was glad of it for once.  When he got home I had dry clothes warming on the radiator and hot chocolate and hot, buttered toast ready for him.  There are some advantages to being a stay-at-home Mum. 

I have mentioned before that the dog is not a morning person but that’s before you throw snow into the equation.  He adores snow.  I adore walking in it when it is fresh and deep and dark outside.  For just that reason I walked to the bus stop with Spud this morning at 7:45 and on to buy the paper, then I took Toby out for his constitutional.  There is nowhere that is not white: it is glorious.  At eight in the morning the sky is beginning to lighten but the street lights are still on so there is a warm, orange glow to the world.  I gave the excited dog a good run on the park but I didn’t realise that the snow would cling to him quite so fiercely.  Each leg and his underbelly looked like they had their own little bunch of haemorrhoids and were just as tenacious as the real thing.  Toby stood patiently for half an hour while I tried various removal methods, including squashing, sliding, squeezing, slipping, snipping, rubbing and the hairdryer.  He was shivering so much after that time that I had to simply wrap him in a towel and two blankets and let him melt in his basket.  Once he had dissolved I gave him a good rub and he rewarded me by eating half my toast. 

So here I am, wrapped in four layers and sunglasses from the snow glare shining through the window.  It is still snowing at 11:21 a.m. and the nation has ground to a halt.  We are fortunate in that we went into Stockport yesterday instead of today so our bills are all paid.  There was one period when I was sitting tittylipped alone in the car and I thought I’m not having this so I started to sing.  Nothing cheers me up like incredulous passers-by staring in at the strange woman singing to herself in an old Citroen.  I heartily recommend it as an antidote to self-pity.  Something else you might try is counting your blessings; which brings me to today’s photo: it was taken by the Hub on one his trips to Madagscar or Mauritius or Mozambique (I know it had a coastline and began with an ‘M’, and he’s been to all three of those countries).  These cheerful boys had nothing and no hope of ever getting anything, so they looked around and adopted a crab as a pet for the day.  If you look at how they are dressed, they are comparatively wealthy compared to some of the children the Hub saw over the years – he once saw a naked child licking cellophane from a dustbin in Madagascar.  I have posted this photo to remind me that my family is safe; we have heating; food; running water and electricity; we are rich in everything that matters; and no problem is so great that it cannot be temporarily ameliorated by walking the crab.

Have a happy day!

 

The Host Of Christmas Past

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Look what I got in my stocking

I couldn’t sleep last night – I ran out of decaffeinated Earl Grey on Monday and I don’t shop until tomorrow – and I lay awake thinking of past Christmases, so I thought I would share one with you; it’s an easy way to fill a blog.  Christmas 2006 was not a vintage year.  We got our turkey on Christmas Eve and it showed –  I have never been so disappointed in a frozen bird; it was as if that particular turkey didn’t want to be someone’s Christmas Dinner.  No meat on it at all.  Luckily, we also had gammon and duck, though the duck was an unpleasant surprise – so much fat on it, I know now why they don’t get cold on winter ponds.  We didn’t have gravy so much as artery-killer. 

Luckily, only Mum was having dinner with us that year, Dad having had the good sense to pop his clogs Christmas Eve 2000, once he heard I’d be cooking.  He wasn’t so lucky the year we had 22 for dinner and I remembered everything except the setting of the table, so everyone ate wherever they could grab a seat, some inside and some in the garden (in South Africa, don’t worry); and the greedy lot gobbled it up so fast that by the time I served the last plateful (mine) everyone had finished and I sat in lonely and tearful state with the Hub.  On the plus side, the washing up was done by the time I was. 

We had no problems at all in getting Spud to bed in 2006: he no longer believed in Father Christmas; hooray for the death of children’s fantasies!   – although he did wake up at three in the morning.  He managed to go back to sleep after rummaging through his stocking, but woke Tory Boy at 5:45, to TB’s vociferous displeasure.  Spud then climbed into our bed with the apparent intention of him no sleep, no one no sleep, so we gave in and were up by six-twenty.  Grandma was already awake, so it was simply a matter of toilet breaks, tea all round, video camera at the ready, and then the boys were allowed into the living room to receive their gifts.  Once they’d had a good poke around their booty piles we all sat to unwrap the under-the-tree gifts.  That took a good two hours, what with all the squealing and ‘thank yous’ and sorting of gift wrap, bows and ribbons into appropriate recycling bags.  

The Hub is a great gift giver.  That year, I got stuff from the White House, including a tree decoration, pin, and cufflinks which I am going to wear every time I have on a long-sleeve blouse, if I can only find them.   Unusually, no underwear, but furry socks and a large bag of Maltesers and lots of stocking fillers.   He also bought me the bread maker I so desperately desired.  I must be the only wife in the world who doesn’t hurl a new kitchen appliance at her husband on Christmas morning.  I had wanted one for ages and I used it every day for a fortnight; then about once a month; and now it’s just another dust-gatherer on top of a kitchen cupboard.   Why am I cursed with such a listening husband? 

The boys bought me thoughtful gifts: Spud bought me the Take That cd I was after (I had to have a little patience but I got it in the end) and a large box of Maltesers.   TB bought me a £10 book voucher and a large box of Maltesers.   How I love my children, especially when they spend their own money.  

I also love my mother, who bought me The West Wing.  Need I say more?  

Christmas dinner was delicious, reluctant turkey, oily gravy and all, and afterwards we watched a new dvd while Mum snored. 

Boxing Day was buffet day; a sort of ‘all-you-can-eat’ for the greedy amongst us, with me at the front of the queue.  I always do a buffet on Boxing Day because my Mum always did a buffet on Boxing Day.  I set it all out on a table in the lounge and we stretch out in front of the tv we taped but didn’t have time to watch on Christmas Day.  The only year since I’ve been cooking Christmas that I didn’t do a buffet was the year I didn’t cook Christmas because we were invited out.  That Boxing Day, the Hub and his offspring insisted I cook Christmas Dinner on Boxing Day because it didn’t feel like a proper Christmas without my Christmas Dinner.  Something to do with them missing the kitchen hysterics and burnt smell permeating the air, apparently.  Happy days! 

  

  

About ME

Feeling tons better tonight. Thanks to Melanie and Abraham Lincoln for your good wishes. It gives me a frisson of pleasure to say thanks to Honest Abe: I am fascinated by American politics and presidents. I think it started back in the Eighties when I watched a mini-series about Theodore Roosevelt, and I know it became a part-time passion when I started watching The West Wing; and last year’s race for the Democratic nomination was truly exciting. I just hope President Obama’s hype is more than that. Not sure about that dancing on Ellen, though….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsWpvkLCvu4

I don’t know where my headache came from because I’m not prone to them and can usually ignore them; but this one had me flat on my back for almost 24 hours. My friend suggested it might be hormonal. Given that I’m a woman of a certain age, it’s a possibility. The last time I remember being so bad, I had not long given birth to Tory Boy. Or maybe it’s just my age: the Hub suffers migraines, but he hasn’t given birth to any children that I’m aware of.

The Hub’s migraines are connected to his CFS/ME, of course. He became ill with it in 1996. It isn’t life-threatening, but it is a life killer. Forget any hope of going back to your pre-CFS existence: it ain’t gonna happen. The prognosis for it is anything from six months to the rest of your life, with the average being ten years. Once he got to six years with it we started hoping he was average, but it’s going on for thirteen and he’s getting slowly but progressively worse. We’ve accepted – grudgingly – that he will never be well enough to work again, and that we will never go back to our pre-CFS life, but that makes it oddly easier to go on. Once you can accept your life has changed forever and that five-year plans are a waste of time (just ask Stalin), you can get on with it.

My next five minutes plan is a hot bath and cup of Earl Grey (decaf, naturally), then bed. It won’t pay the bills, but it’s about as perfect a plan as there is, as far as I’m concerned.

Sweet dreams!