A busy week - ending with a mystery and Dyslexia shock!

I knew it was going to be a frantic week this week. On Monday it was work from normal, but on Tuesday afternoon I had to attend some training, that finished late. Then at 06:00 on Wednesday I needed to be in the car and driving to Portsmouth.

Once at Portsmouth we had a meeting that started at 09:00 and didn't finish until 18:00, then of course I had the journey home.

By Wednesday I was holding it together better than I probably should have been, the tiredness hit on Thursday. I'm not entirely sure how I made it through the day, but my brain was definitely not working at full flow. 

All of this meant that I didn't have time to get fully prepared for Friday evening. On Friday evening we had a virtual murdery mystery planned (and I was supposedly facilitating it). Something that a number of us could attend no matter where we were. In the end we had 3 people in a sitting room in Glasgow, one person in a study in Horsham and husband and I were in our separate studies at my house. I had about 6 different documents open to do the facilitation - plus play 2 of the characters (I had a bit of the inspector to do as well). 

Considering the lack of preparation I was quite impressed with how I managed to keep it moving along.

Each of us had a character, I was a burnt out film star, others were James Dean, Judy Garland, Elvis, John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe. I was chuffed to bits with everybody because everybody made a real effort with costume. Even my husband (John Wayne). Plus everybody had a real go at accents, creating a lot of hilarity. Even my husband - I know I keep saying that, but he's very quiet and shy - he made a decision that it would be best to just throw himself into it.

AND HE WAS FABULOUS!

I'll be honest, I'd be lying if I said the whole thing was a rip roaring success. I'm not sure we'll be doing another one of them, but it was worth an experiment - even if the outcome wasn't amazing. 

Certainly it was lovely to catch up with everybody and spend a bit of time together and once it finished a few people sloped off leaving the washed up film star, Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe to discuss what we might do together the next time. We're going to try to plan a tarted up day at the races.

After it finished husband and I were quite wired and ended up staying up until 02:00 watching telly, nattering and having some wine.

Then on Saturday at 06:00 my alarm went off. It hit me like a sledgehammer, I had just 60 mins to pull myself together, get dressed and remove the temporary fence in the garden before the builders came to do build more of the real wall. I was very excited to get it done.

Unfortunately after a few hours they ran out of bricks. They managed to build enough of the wall, that at least I don't need my temporary fence up any more. The whole idea of that was to stop the dog overshooting when it went out the backdoor - falling 15 feet onto steps. So at least we're a little closer to resolution.

For the rest of the day I just couldn't motivate myself to do much. I walked the dog and made a banana loaf, but that pretty much covers the day. 

Today the sun is out again and it looks like it's going to continue for a while, spring has sprung it seems. So I'm just about to take the dog down to the sea as the tide is out. Plans for the rest of the day after that - very limited. Husband is at football, son is revising - so I think I may just curl up and watch telly - or maybe do some sort of craft project. I'm definitely feeling the benefits of trying to minimise the amount I try to pack into my life. So why push it.

My walk down to the sea was horrific - turns out everybody within a 50 mile radius had the same idea. It used to be that the area I live in was virtually unknown, but as people moved out of London word got out. Plus I'm convinced that once they have moved out of London Journalists try to make the area they moved to worth more money by telling the world it's the place to be. This happened in my area 2 years ago and the difference in human numbers is startling. Go away I say, where were you when the wind was blowing and it was raining. 

On Sunday some people came over to quote to build the fence once the wall is complete. The person that arranged it for me is the amazing person who is sorting our wall. They've also put me in touch with somebody to sort out leak damage in the shower and a few other bits. They've so far not turned up for a month.

My contact asked me what had happened and I explained I was happy to wait because I'd got a rather strange message from them about their dad. This message had been 'Sorry I didn't come around, I've just finished work and my dad died, I'll be around soon'.

I was obviously very sad for them and sent back a message to say it was fine, sorry to hear about their dad and I hope that they are ok.

I've not heard anything since, but this wasn't surprising given the circumstances.

I explained all of this to the person that set up the meeting and they looked really confused and said 'oh, I didn't know that'. I explained it had been a slightly strange message as I'd have expected the info about their dad to be the headline news, not the fact they'd finished work. I called up the message to show them.

On doing that I scan read the message. It didn't mention his dad at all. In fact it said 'I've just finished work and my phone died'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I immediately messaged back explaining the situation, to which they responded 'oh, thanks for getting back - I was avoiding you because I didn't know how to broach the subject of my dad still being alive'.

MORTIFIED.