My goodness returning to work after two weeks off is a struggle. It's completely thrown out my routine and I'm finding it hard to do literally anything. I've been doing the garden in short bursts over the summer so I've never needed to do one massive bit of gardening. However, since I've been back I did one cursory attempt and I've not done anything but water it since then. I simply can't be arsed.
It's not just the gardening, it's literally everything. Can't be bothered to tidy the house, can't be bothered to put clothes away after washing, can't be bothered to..... well can't be bothered to do anything at all really.
This doesn't mean I'm not working hard at work. I'm programmed to do the best I can do at anything (if I actually do it) and as I don't have any option but to be at work I do everything there to the best of my ability. Well the best I can whilst having literally no working memory - god the menopause is a struggle. Some days its so bad I wonder if I have early onset dimentia. However I refuse to google the symptoms because if I do there is chuff all I can do about it.
Three more terms of school to pay for, I say this mantra to myself every morning. Quite what that means once we stop paying I'm not sure. We can't give up work, it may mean that we request fewer hours - or we may purchase a small properly where we want to move to eventually. Then spend all our weekends there. Right now we don't know what we can financially afford. We're not going to start looking at that until early next year. Don't want to get our hopes up and get itchy - or to find out the truth about what's not possible and go into a decline. So for now we sit and dream. There's also that lottery win around the corner!
I've still managed to remain fully clothed with my spider in the knicker drawer debarcle. So far I've just been washing my clothes more often meaning I haven't had to even consider accessing things from the airing cupboard. There's always a solution. I'll probably not go back in there until the spider has died of old age (how long do spiders live?).
I went onto AI to ask why all the spiders were out so early - I mean it's usually September when they start becoming challenging.With great glee AI told me that it had been a perfect winter for spiders, followed by a dry hot summer. As a result the labido was up and they were out looking for mates earlier than usual!
This bit of AI assuming where my mind was at was right up there with when I was worried about an ant that had come in on my clothing, I asked if it would be able to get the scent and find it's way back to its colony. Here AI told me, no what will happen is that it will wander around aimlessly trying to find the colony until it dies. Needless to say I now spend huge amounts of my life trying to return ants to where I think I may have picked them up from.
On Friday at work I had my final session with one of my coachees. It's always really strange. You really get to know people and usually the coaching relationship is for about 6 months. Both coach and coachee open up and share things you probably wouldn't in everyday life - well unless you're a very open person - which I'm not. Don't get me wrong I'm terrible at oversharing and I can see from peoples faces that the things I'm prepared to share are things they don't think I should - however, I'm actually really closed off and never share anything deep and meaningful. Anyway on the last coaching session you look back at the coaching journey and then say - it's been great - bye. And that's it! Sometimes the coachee comes back and asks for a follow up session on something, but usually it's goodbye forever. Very very strange feeling.
I really hope that this coachee goes onto great things. They deserve to and they have all the skills and capabilities to do so, but they really struggle with self-confidence. If they can build their confidence they can do whatever they want. It's so frequent that people set standards for themselves that realistically nobody could meet - as a result of this they never see themselves as competent. Ironically the people that do so often excel in life are those with very little talent or capability but with an over inflated sense of how wonderful they are. And these idiots are so often the ones that control the lives of the capable people in the world. Go figure!
On Saturday I did a rare 'ladies that lunch' at South Lodge. I was meeting one of my besties. I was so impressed with the people at South Lodge. She'd rung in advance because she's in a wheelchair and the car park has gravel so isn't wheelchair friendly. They'd said to turn up at reception and they would drive the car around to the car park. It all worked like a dream and they didn't make us feel like it was a problem for them at all.
Friend has a new chair, I'm a bit sad about this because we've had so many adventures with the old chair. It's a bit like when you get rid of an old car and inexplicably feel sad to see it go because of all that's happened whilst you've driven it. The new chair is super groovy, it's electronic. This is great because it gives her so much more control over her mobility. She's never forgiven me for wheeling her into a disabled loo at Gatwick and leaving her abandoned in the middle. I turned up 10 minutes later and asked if she was ready to come out and she had to say she hadn't even been yet and had been calling for me. Now with the new chair this isn't a problem.
We had lunch in the Spa restaurant. Really nice - it was very modern and had amazing views over the countryside. The food wasn't awesome but it was definitely better than what I'd eaten at the Ivy last week. As both of us were driving we were on soft drinks and as a result the bill was actually really reasonable (thank goodness, it's been an expensive year).
It was great to just natter and put the world to rights. Things still not great at home for friend whose husband is struggling as her MS takes more and more of her motor skills from her. He definitely wasn't paying attention about the 'for better, for worse' bits of the vows. The thing is that apart from the fact that her legs and arms don't work as they used to she's still the same person she ever was. Still the most beautiful of my friends (used to pull in 15 seconds back when we went clubbing), still same sense of humour, still has the enormous drive that she always has had. I think that it's pants that he doesn't recognose this. I mean we're all getting older. It was 30 years ago they started dating, she's had 3 kids since then. Things were never going to be identical to when we were all young free and single and in our twenties.
After we'd finished eating we went out onto the balcony, it was great out there. Half the balcony was for dining and the other half were these super comphy chairs you could curl up in. Friend wanted shade and despite the fact that normally this is what I'd have been going for I'd rather have had the sun. For some reason this year I'm enjoying sitting in the sun. I think maybe it's just so unbearably hot all the time it doesn't matter if you're in or out. However, I knew shade was the sensible option so readily agreed. So we just sat outside with beautiful views and nattered for hours and hours. A really lovely day.
The theme of this summer is definitely hot and dry. I can't remember a dryer summer than this since COVID. Day after day of unbroken sun. I don't think it's rained in way over a month. Most of the country has hose pipe bans, but we're still ok here. I believe our water is fed from an underground river and so far I don't recall us ever having a hose pipe ban. That said, they are just building more and more houses this means that there will be more and more people drawing water. At some point this will change.
Part of my morning routine is to check the Southern Water website with my postcode to make sure there still isn't a ban. Then watering the garden when there isn't - though I try to keep it short sharp and sweet. If things continue other areas are going to need to share our water. Watering in the morning has been a better option than previous years when I left it until the end of the day. In the morning when I wake I'm all fired up to get things done, as the day goes on my batteries get more and more depleted. So in an ideal world I'd get everything done before 10am and then have a nap (which is what I often do at the weekends). Some lunchtimes I also have to power nap. One of my core skills. I can set an alarm for 30 minutes. In that 30 mins I wind down for 10 mins then sleep for 20 and I can pull myself straight out of this sleep and back into being productive (with a coffee to help).
Aaaanyway, back to the weather. There have been wildfires all across Europe, we've even had wildfires in Scotland. A colleague was high up in a hospital recently and could see a wildfire in the distance. They said it was like that scene in Star Wars where the city was rising out of the clouds (Cloud City I think it's imaginatively called). Such scary stuff. I believe that in France they've had it particularly badly.
So that's it for last week. I'm hoping that at some point this week my motivation comes back.Well either that or I win a stupid amount of money on the lottery. If I do that then my motivation doesn't need to come back, I can live a life of luxury where my biggest problem is finding people to do the work for me. Oh, on that subject - the plug in my bathroom has broken, literally just popped out. I haven't the faintest idea how to fix it and what do you think the chances are of somebody coming in just to resolve that. I'm literally lost about what to do. So frustrating.
Now I've shared the excitement about my plug I really will finish for the week. Any more excitement like that and you'll not be able to get to sleep tonight.
I've literally just noticed that it's been so dry that automn has hit. The sycamore at the end of our garden do turn early, but this year earlier than ever!!! It feels like only yesterday I was excited about the first daisy of the year.
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