You've been swell, but I'm not getting married

Most nights I go to bed with a song in my head - 'Not Getting Married' from Stephen Sondheim's Company, in case you're interested. It's not a song I'm particularly familiar with. I only know a handful of the words, and I don't even like it very much. And yet, almost every night, it plays over and over in my mind.

Last night I finally realised why. The last thing I do before I switch off the light is check my emails and Facebook  just to make sure the internet has nothing fascinating to share with me before I turn in. Then I turn off my laptop. I can't believe it took me until last night to realise that the two little bing-bong notes it plays as it turns off are the first two notes of that song. And now a question for the tech-heads - Can I stop it playing a sound when it goes to sleep? Or even switch those notes for better ones? Sondheim is not restful.

Confusion

The last couple of months have been full of some fairly dramatic highs and lows. First a holiday, which was great but left me with some rather burning questions about my life and my attitude to myself. Then, on the last day of that holiday, I shattered my coccyx into a million pieces, leaving me housebound for the best part of a month, which is way too much time to spend dwelling on such questions. Just days after my return to work, and with only a couple more days until my birthday, I lost my grandfather, then felt horribly guilty for being able to enjoy what was a really wonderful birthday despite my bereavement. Top all that off with another intense trip to Burning Man, and the eternal disappointment of coming back down to earth afterwards and, honestly, I just don't know where I stand right now. I think the overwhelming impression I'm left with from the last couple of months is that there are a lot of people out there doing some really amazing things with their lives, regardless of what anybody else has to say about that. Also that life is just too fucking short to be spent doing things that don't make you happy.

I need to make some changes, but I don't know which or how. There are little things: I want to learn some kind of hands-on skill that'll make me useful to my camp at Burning Man, like carpentry or metalwork. I want to learn a new language. Being impressionable and, yes, ever so slightly mad, I want to take lessons in everything from circus skills to taxidermy. Unfortunately, the problem with learning new things is that you usually have to pay someone to teach you, and I can't. And then there's the big stuff. The eternal balancing acts between security and risk, the humdrum and the exciting. Do I continue to plod along in the same safe, ordinary manner forever, or do I put myself out there and take a risk which, knowing my built-in bad luck, would probably end in disaster, but which maybe, just maybe, in my most unlikely and most cherished hopes, could be my greatest triumph?

I'm rambling, I know. I did say I was confused. Turmoil is the order of the day. I'll shut up now.

Introducing......Mad Corgi Lady

Mad Corgi Lady is my downstairs next-door-neighbour. She is generally to be found in her garden, chatting loudly to her two corgis, Winnie and Teddy. Unlike my upstairs next-door-neighbour, Mad Shouty Man, who is also loud and often wakes me up at 3am by screaming at the apologetic and surprisingly patient man who may be either his son or his carer, she is quite likeable. She dispenses much wisdom unto her canine companions and I, by dint of being within hearing range (i.e. less than a mile away), feel I am also benefiting greatly.

Here are a few things I have learned to date:

• If you have a rash, you need to go to the doctor and get a ointment. Unless you're a dog. Dogs never get rashes but, when they do, they go to vets.
• The plural of egg is heggs. One egg, many heggs. The aitch is proper only she can't remember why.
• When you've been boiling vegetables you should put the used water onto the garden, as it's very good for the plants. Not potato water though. It's too starchy. Next time she'll boil the parsnips separately from the potatoes so she can put parsnip water on the roses. Roses like parsnip water.

I'm a little saddened that my education is likely to be called to a halt over the Winter, when I assume she will be spending less time in the garden. I must glean as much knowledge as I can while Summer lasts.

In loving memory

This week I received the call informing me that my Grandad had passed away, after a long illness. I'm told that, contrary to the last, he died on the stroke of midnight, leading to confusion over which date should go on the certificate.

He was......well, I suppose he was a pretty ordinary man really. The history books won't be writing about him. He was, however, everything you could possibly want from a grandfather, and I adored him.

He kept bees on his allotment, and let me turn the handle on the big spinning drum thing he used to get the honey out of the combs. He held back the world's most vicious cat so that I could put food in her bowl without losing an arm. He fixed up a bike from a car-boot sale for me and timed races, always encouraging me to go faster, because why shouldn't I do anything the boys did and beat them at it? He taught me to patch a punctured tyre. He opened the cupboard in the room I slept in at their house, to prove there wasn't a monster living in there.

Once I reached adulthood, he was always the one who told me to take no notice when people were getting at me. He was the reason I stuck out my degree studies when they felt like more than I could handle, because he wanted so badly to put up my graduation photo with the others, and disappointing him was somehow worse than disappointing everybody else. He was the first person in my recollection to ever tell me they were proud of me.

He was a man who worked hard all his life to care for his family, and to give them the opportunities he didn't have, and he meant so much to all of us. I'm going to miss him - probably even more than I realise right now, when it hasn't fully sunk in yet - but I'm glad he's not in pain any more. He deserves a rest.

Rest in peace, Grandad. I love you.

Happy Birthday to me

Being woken on my birthday by a 7am call from my brother = bad.
Being woken on my birthday by a 7am call from my brother, so my 3 year old nieces can sing Happy Birthday to me down the phone = totally worth waking up for!

Washing Machine Repair for Dummies with Back Injuries

Chapter one - things to remember

• Righty tighty, lefty loosey.
• Your back is injured.

Chapter two - shit not to do

• The Internet will suggest pulling out and tipping the machine. Do not attempt this.
• Do not pull the cap off the drainage hose with your teeth.
• Do not underestimate the volume of water the machine contains or the stagnant rankness of it when you subsequently get a mouthful.
• Do not overestimate a) the capacity of a dish or b) the absorbency of a towel.
• Do not ever leave a draining washing machine unattended (see above).
• Do not assume the cat will not attempt to drink filthy filter water even though her water bowl is mere inches away.

Chapter three - things you will find in the filter

• Fluff
• Playa dust
• Diamantes
• Lollipop stick
• Glowstick connectors
• Donkey finger puppet

Chapter four - post-draining

• Return clean filter to position (with difficulty).
• Switch on machine.
• Discover machine still doesn't work.
• Cry.
• Desert feminism and wish you had a boyfriend or butch girlfriend to fix this for you.
• Give up and pour a gin.

*UPDATE*

Chapter five - twenty minutes later

• Return to machine and press 'on' again in the vain hope that it will have miraculously fixed itself.
• Discover miracles really do happen!
• Pour another gin.

Cushioning the blow

I'm hoping to be back at work next week. I'm going crazy sitting around on my own all day, so I'm determined to return to normal life, rather than having my sick note extended. Unfortunately I'm still in rather a lot of pain so, to ease the transition back to sitting on a broken bone for eight hours straight, I have purchased a coccyx cushion. This is basically just a big, square pad with a hole cut out of the back where your tailbone goes. Sadly, it bears an unfortunate resemblance (i.e. is identical) to a pile cushion. I'm feeling a vague urge to embroider 'I do not have haemorrhoids' on it. If only I knew how to embroider.

Things that make me smile no.91

The broken coccyx is a big cloud at the moment, but the silver lining is how my friends have rallied round me while I've been out of action. I've had calls, emails and texts every day to check up on me or to offer assistance, and a surprising number of people have come over to keep me company. It's touching to know I have such a great support network.

I'm still here

I haven't disappeared again, I promise. It's just that I've been signed off work for a while with this whole broken coccyx thing, so I'm stuck at home all day. Nothing happens here, so I have nothing to write about. Although, I did get a fabulous delivery today. The Chameleon sent it to cheer me up.

 Good huh?

Actually, while we're on the topic of deliveries, my grocery shop came today. I ordered six loose yoghurts because they were on offer. One of them was unavailable, so they gave me a six-pack which contained that flavour.....plus the five loose yoghurts I originally ordered. Why not just replace the unavailable flavour with another flavour? Now I have eleven yoghurts. Nobody can eat that much yoghurt!!!!!

Oh, I really need to get back out into the world. I'm clearly going stir crazy if I'm utilising multiple exclamation marks just to bemoan a yoghurt glut.

Really?

Inappropriate Pharmacist: That's a lot of painkillers. What have you done to yourself?
Me: I fractured my coccyx.
Inappropriate Pharmacist: Ouch! Well [winks], if that little lot doesn't sort it out, come back and we'll kiss it better.