Happy Days - Simples!

I had one of Those Days a couple days ago. Shortly you’ll learn why I couldn’t tell you until now…
One of Those Days where:

a. The sun shines (okay, call it chance…)

b. There’s either no housework to do or else no inclination or guilt-inducement feelings to have to do any.

c. I “give myself the day off”, having written an incredible 13K words in 4 day.

d. The daughter delights me with a ‘let’s have a girl’s lunch in town’ (bearing in mind she is still only 15 y/o this particularly delights me because I know it’s not something every teenager wants to do let alone say out loud) . Today I am NOT an embarrassment.

e. Lunch is an enjoyable albeit technologically demanding occasion. (i.e she texts – much – so much I can’t keep up so make random comments about new book, the joy of texts, the beauty of school holidays etc and take camera pics of her scowling and going “mu-um…” a lot – when she notices me anyway)

f. On the way out of the store’s restaurant we happen upon a sale rail where we both delightedly fling ourselves and emerge with four hangers each. For the next half hour we are a Richard Curtis film – popping in and out of our separate changing rooms with a new outfit on, nodding, shaking heads, squealing with laughter and spinning excitedly around…and we leave with one new dress (she) and one new top (me). She is thrilled, I am cautious. (Always cautious with new purchases – esp. as mine wasn’t exactly ‘sale’ but full price and something I wouldn’t ordinarily have chosen or even need, but we’re off to an Engagement party tonight and daughter convinces me to “just get it – if you don’t like it and don’t wear it – bring it back” Don’t know where she gets this philosophy from but I wish I had it – so “simples”).

g. Miraculously, I am later able to paint not only toenails but fingernails in same shade of silver-grey (matching the top and hoping it will look okay) and then put top on. I turn one way then the other. This can’t be right – surely – where’s the mutton-dressed-as-lamb thing? This is a very up-to-the-minute (dare I say catwalk?) type affair and it makes me look great! I even find a pair of shimmery wedges that I bought last year for a ball we didn’t end up going to but which go beautifully with this amazingly lovely top and the whole effect makes me feel BRILLIANT! Look at me twirl, look at me looking all trendy and ‘together’. Hubby is delighted. Probably moreso because of my smiles than the new top.

h. And so when we are at Engagement party, because I feel so great and because I don’t feel old or tired or boring and because I can’t remember the last time we were both out together apart from family occasions – I have a G & T. To celebrate. And, okay, I’ll have another one. And then they just keep on coming and I don’t want to insist on whoever’s buying the next round that I’d like a Slimline because I don’t want to break the happy bubble and look like a dieting saddo, so I continue.

i. And when the Engagement party ends at midnight the group we’re with reconvene at a different drinking house in town.

j. And then another.

k. Until by 2 a.m. I am almost asleep on hubby’s arm.

l. And then I kinda loose two days.

I could blame the G or the T (Quinine can have a detrimental effect on your health – heck, in the right/wrong quantities it could actually KILL you) but I won’t. It’s just me. It’s my character. I get so carried away on the Happy Place I’m in that I don’t want it to end. Same with Wedding Day, Christmas Day, any Happy Day and I want an extension on the 24 hours please.

But. And there is a But. An Up-But if you will (which now I’ve written that looks positively illegal and a tad painful). Now I can see it for what it is. The Hangover – the horrible all-over headache that accompanies such excesses. And I am wiser for it. I don’t feel grubby, ashamed, compelled to mix a good old “hair-of-the-dog” remedy and berate myself for being such a lush because I know it’s not something I do every day. Nor even every week. In fact months. I have done an Extraordinary Thing. Which was great.

And even through the hideous hangover headache as I was prising my eyes open after only 6 hours fitful sleep during which I refused to throw up on at least nine occasions because I didn’t think I could reach the bathroom without knocking through three supporting walls, the first thing I saw was that beautiful top hanging up on my wardrobe door and my heart floated back to That Happy Day and I sighed.

Then functioned no more until pretty much… now.