The Lurgy is Leaving the Building

The next time I notice a festive season on it's way, I promise that I shall have some illuminating, humorous and informative posts lined up and scheduled for your entertainment so that in the case of sudden bouts of Lurgy, there will be no discernible lapse in the blogging proceedings.
I shall also endeavour to supply associated illustrative effects to detract you, my lovely reader, from being aware that anything other than entirely normal is occuring behind my scenes.


Which could well have been one of my New years Resolutions, had I been in a position (other than horizonal with Mr Beecham and Nurse Lucozade) to appreciate this.

I am also more than a little indebted to my lovely Hubby and Gorgeous Girl for NOT having the idiot sense to have snapped a photograph of me sitting propped up in bed one morning with half a potato sliced and arranged on my forehead, secured with heavy-duty after-party napkin and tied at the side with a jaunty pale blue scarf.  In fact if it hadn't been for the raging fever and pain-on-moving I'd probably have rigged the camera up myself - and maybe even queried this supposed 'Italian Old Wive's Remedy'.  I just thank God we weren't in the immediate vicinity of a half-skinned rabbit and a piece of week old beef flank.  Don't ask.

Thanks to the very funny Savage Chickens people

Ah well, as 'they' say,onwards and upwards - things can only get better, right?  (Note to self: DO NOT check what you said this time last year.  Just don't, okay?  You're still not strong enough. Leave it alone!).

A Good Start (Not)

I'm glad one of my new years resolutions was not to cut down on the use of swear words - I just  typed 'sewar words'  in my sleep-deprived state and ordinarily I *heart* typos like this.  I'll probably like it better tomorrow.  Bear with me. 
For the first word  that left my mouth this morning was a mighty "SHI-IT!" as I realised I'd overlsept the alarm by a good (make that bad) 80 minutes and today was the return to school after the Christmas break.
I'd been up the previous hour you see.  And the fifty minutes prior to this and an hour earlier... oh and another hour prior to this one and the one before that too. And a couple more times during the previous three hours... In fact now I look back I probably slept for about... oh, 80 minutes...from alarm to Shi-it!.
Why?
Simples.
Bed at 10.00.  read til 10.40.  Lovely.
Hubby starts snoring at 11.05.
Still at it at 11.30.
11.40 Hubby retires to another room after exhusting different sleeping positions.
I lie awake worrying at midnight if he might be cold downstairs with the cats on the sofa so try to remember where I stored the blankets last year.
12.20 find blanket.  Go downstairs and cover snoring, blissfully unaware husband with it.  Making sure I don't stuff any part of it into his black hole of a roaring mouth. By accident I mean.
1.15 sound of ticking and rumbling of pipes alerts me to heating coming on - which it's not programmed to do.
Lie awake for 15 minutes thinking (ok, hoping)  it might stop.
1.30 locate remote heating controls.  It tells me heating is off.  Hot radiators tell me different.
Twiddle every goddamn knob on the control box and nothing happens.
Contemplate going into every room and turning off radiators.  Worry might wake hubby and Girl. And it's Girls' first day back at school tomorrow (correction, today) too.
Best not.
2.00 ticking slows and radiators cool slightly.  Decide should go to bed and try to ignore.  It's probably doing it for a reason.
2.30 Still trying to work out reasons.  Might it have snowed and therefore so cold it's switched itself on to prevent pipes from freezing up?  Do pipes still get frozen in the 21st century?  Start to imagine that if it's snowed heavily (too tired to get out of bed and look so wishful thinking relied on) then schools will be shut.
3.10  pipes start ticking and thumping again.  Might start crying.
3.50 contemplate turning off heating completely but then worry that house will be cold when alarms start going off and anyway it's programmed to come on at 6.00 what's the bleedin' point now?
4.15 Worry that haven't slept enough to wake up refreshed and alert for start of new school term.  Wonder how bad will be feeling at 6.30 (alarm).
5.00 Wonder if I should just get up now.  If I fall asleep I might not wake up and that would be worse than not having slept at all.
Wouldn't it?
6.30 Alarm goes off.  Forgotten which button is 'snooze', forgotten how irritatingly annoying Sarah kennedy is first thing in the morning and accidentally hit wrong knob.
7.30 ticking of radiators cooling down rouses me.
7.35  Where the Flip is hubby?
7.40 Wasn't I supposed to be getting up earlier for something to...... SHI-IT!!

A 2009 MeMe

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Started blogging. Keris made me do it and like so, so, so many other things, she was absolutely right about how much fun I’d have and how much I’d enjoy it and get out of it.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions and will you make more for next this year?
Along with David Tennant (see how we’re just *meant* to be?), I don’t do resolutions because life throws enough disappointments my way without enforcing some of my own. But this year I am *determined* to be more confident and optimistic. Oh and eat less. That’s like saying ‘loose weight’ only it sounds less scary.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My husband’s cousin’s girlfriend had a little girl in January and my lovely interweb writer-friend, Keris (who made me blog) had another little boy the same month.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Funnily enough (no, bear with me) I went to a funeral in May – the wife of one of my husband’s colleagues and was confused to notice some cousins of mine in the congregation. Turned out the deceased was a distant cousin of mine I’d never met. Spooky.

5. What countries did you visit?
Italy. Odd that, being married to an Italian!

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Oh God, the elusive Agent please. One who loves what I write as much as I love writing it and who believes in me and encourages me and gives me deadlines I need to have to make me be more disciplined.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
November 6th is a new date that will stay with me. The head-on collision. Oh, and November 9th was quite a biggie as the Girl turned sixteen. Sixteen…. OMG, and they said the pains of labour would fade with the years – how much longer now?

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Being asked by TWO Agents for the full manuscript of ‘Double History’ (the teenage thing). The excitement and delight of being asked still makes my head spin. And even though I haven’t heard anything back I know that I got one step closer than I ever have before. Onward.

9. What was your biggest failure?
No specific failure – just a few disappointments.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I got pretty cut up in the head-on collision. Bruised, bashed and whiplashed.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A pyramid of Krispy Kreme doughnuts for the Girl’s 16th Birthday cake. Complete with 16 candles and sparklers. The look on her face when she saw it made my heart burst.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Ppft! Where it usually goes. Bills, bills, holiday, bills.


13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
See 8. Squeep!

14. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Paolo Nutini’s ‘Pencil full of lead’.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder?
Perhaps slightly sadder. Car crash knocked confidence and seems to have had a knock-on.

b) thinner or fatter?
Probably slightly more belly. I must move about more – just not so much in the direction of the biscuit tin.

c) richer or poorer?
Probably poorer. Credit crunch put hubby on a 2 day week which is not fun right now.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Writing. Always writing.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Arseing about on Facebook when I should have been writing.

18. Did you fall in love in 2009?
Oh, Susan Boyle did things to me I never expected. You know what I mean. The whole ‘Su-Bo’ effect.

19. What was your favourite TV program?
‘FlashForward’. Am obsessed with anything TimeTravelley (hence the Doctor – it’s his profession, not his foxy cheeky ways, honest!).

20. What was the best book you read?
‘The Disengagement Ring’ by my writerly friend Clodagh Murphy. She even wrote a message in it for me which made my year! And ‘One Day’ by David Nicholls.

21. What was your favourite film of this year?
‘Taken’. The Liam Neeson thing. Can’t remember when I held my breath for a whole film before.(oops that was 2008 - doesn't time fly?) So 'Night at the Museum 2' then.

22. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Can’t remember and prefer not to remember.


23. What kept you sane?
My amazingly upbeat, optimistic, forever resilient husband and my happy, shiny daughter. They are my rocks.

24. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Oh… now let me think….Doctor… Who?

25. Who did you miss?
My Dad. Always.

26. Who was the best new person you met?
If internet meeting counts, then Deborah Durbin. We met through a writing site we both belong to and have been e-mailing each other ever since. She’s talented and lovely and I realised I already had a book written by her on my bookshelf – which strangely enough led partly to my meeting my husband. Can’t get better than that!