One Of Those Days

I've been a bit flattened by the Birthday Weekend, but yesterday (Wednesday) I had a productive morning. Then mum and Chris had gone out for the day and asked me to let their dog out at lunchtime, so at about 1pm I went to their house (only two blocks away), let the dog out, had a rest, let the dog back in, and went to the shop for some bread on my way home. I had a bit more trouble than usual getting up the stairs to the flat, and once I was in I called Steve to warn him that I was going to be asleep all afternoon and went to bed.

Woken up by the phone ringing, it was mum. Their car had broken down. Their breakdown cover would relay them and the car either home, or to a garage of their choice. Chris's preferred garage is quite a distance from home, so they figured that it would be easier use the cover to get them and the car to the garage and find another way to get them from the garage to home, than to use the cover to get them and the car home and then have to find another way to get the broken down car from home to the garage. My job was to go to their house, dig out their address book, and text them with the number of a friend who lived in that area and might be able to give them a lift home.

Parents stranded in the wilds of East Anglia is one of those situations where "do I have the energy for this?" doesn't really come into it. I was kind of wiped out, and for ten or fifteen miles I'd have told them to call a taxi and I would cover it, but the actual distance according to Google Maps is just over FIFTY miles, which is not taxi territory. So I warned them I might take a while, put on my coat and shoes, and began to shuffle.

Halfway to their house, a group of kids playing in the street with a football came careering towards me. No problem, I just paused and held onto a handy wall... then one of the kids who wasn't in the scrum yelled "MIND THE OLD LADY!"

I looked round.

They meant me.

I was mortified.

Anyway, got to the house, found the number, texted it to mum, let the dog out again, and curled up on the sofa to try and finish my nap. Woke up, took painkillers, planned to head home once they were working. So far so good - until The Sister got home from work. I've mentioned her before. Nice enough girl, although of course being siblings we regularly fight like cat and dog and have phases of Not Speaking to each other, but Oh Dear God does she talk. On and on and on and on, well I can deal with that, but also high-pitched, too fast, repeats herself, and never ever lets anyone else get a word in. Plus, she had had a bad day at work. I nodded and smiled and prayed for deliverance. After half an hour an absolutely shattered mum and Chris wandered in, and I could leave the room. We ordered some takeaway and then I think mum persuaded her to do a bit of work on her job application so she was quiet for a bit, but soon she was talking about what she was writing rather than writing it. Aargh.

We all had dinner and then mum offered to walk me home. Getting up the stairs took the last little bit out of me. I took my coat and shoes off, stood up to get ready for bed, and lurched into the bathroom just in time to throw up. Lovely. No one else is feeling ill so it's not food poisoning and it's unlikely to be a bug. The only theory Steve and I can come up with is that it's my system telling me to bloody well stop punishing it, on the basis that last time I was throwing up for no reason (so that's not counting little teeny bits when I'm extra-dizzy, heat exhaustion, or that bit of food poisoning last year) was when I first got ill and was pushing it by keeping going to work. So today I'm in bed, no ifs, buts, or maybes, and having as many little naps as I can. It's helping.

While I was final-editing this, mum rang. Turns out that as well as their car breaking down and my sister's bad day and me being sick, the people they had gone to meet, on their way home, got stuck in traffic and then something hit and shattered their windscreen. Not a good day for anyone!