Time off is exhausting

 

I know I'm turning into a massive feminist as I get older (and I don't apologise for that), but I can't help but think that if I was a man last week would have been better.

What is it about having time off when you work full time that makes people want to fill that time? No sooner do I say I have some R&R time off than people go - oh great - let's meet up and go to xyz. Which bit of R&R do people not understand. I dream of having the opportunity to just sit down - just for a couple of hours - that's all I want.

With this in mind - I tried to pre-prepare for my time off. In my last blog I explained exactly how much I did on my Saturday and Sunday.

I was actually working on Monday morning - so that's how my week started. Once I finished at lunchtime I took dog for a walk and then went to the garden centre with son and dog to get dog stuff and pick up part of Sister-in-law's Christmas present (I'm nearly done on present buying - can't bear being hugger mugger in the shops in November and December).

On Tuesday I tidied up the house which was beginning to sag with neglect and then sorted out garden after the building work we had done last week. 

On Wednesday I worked in morning and then in afternoon and evening I worked on a blog I'm creating for a friend who has been through stem cell replacement. No mean feat as she's been very busy with videos - there are about 40 of them to sort out and upload, plus add into a blog. But she is very much worth it as she's amazing.

On Thursday (beginning to sag at the knees now) I took son pumpkin picking in Sompting. I was amazed how many people were there. Normally when we go there we are the only people in the pumpkin patch, but it was heaving. Son focussed on getting the biggest pumpkins he could and I found ones that I thought would make a nice soup (more about that later).

As we arrived home I saw the delivery van that had delivered 9 mature bushes to our house to finish off the work on our garden. So I dropped the pumkins and got elbows deep in mud to plant them. No mean feat. I actually had a great idea of soaking the roots of the bush as I dug the hole for it to go into. This meant the roots were looser as I put them in the hole. Don't get me wrong - there was a LOT of heavy lifting and the whole thing took hours as there were so many, but it was a job done.

By the time I was finished I had just enough energy to get supper on the table.

Friday was something of a low day for me - I suddenly realised that I'd ploughed through the whole week trying to get all my chores done so I could sit down for one day. I'd failed - my so called time off was up and I hadn't sat down.

So son and I made some bits and bobs for a Halloween party we were having on Saturday night, I did the washing - sat down for a whole hour and then made pumpkin soup and Halloween cup cakes and biscuits with son and then started on Supper.

Then what do you know - back to Saturday with my usual run of Saturday chores, plus helping son as he built a helmet for his Halloween costume (though to be fair he did do 99% of it - but in order for that to happen I had to go to the shop to get paint and tape etc). Then we had a very small Halloween party in the evening - just 2 kids and 3 grown ups (of which I was one - in case you were wondering).

On Sunday son had been invited to a Halloween party. As I was on my knees I got husband to drop son off. Nobody expects the dad's to hang around - and whilst it is genuinely a lovely group of grown ups I think if I'd had to sit down and be jolly when I was so exhausted I'd probably have just sat on the floor and sobbed!

That said it was my job to do pick up - we'd just set off back home when I realised that we'd left sons coat and my handbag back at the party so we had to turn around and go back.

It absolutely sucks being a female. I guarantee you if I was a male I'd have managed to find at least 20 hours to play computer games or something or other - I defy you to tell me I'm wrong.

Anyway - back to work today - busy busy busy. I'm actually looking forward to the break.

Oh and PS. Pumpkin soup still on stove in pan untouched - turns out none of us actually like it!