Well, here I am in the interstitial space between my last case of the summer and the ceremonial packing of the suitcase for ‘the holiday’. The holiday into which I will mentally pack all my hopes and dreams and wellbeing needs, and both more activity and more rest than is humanly possible, only to return exhausted and dejected to the fray in September when the mathematical unsustainability of the whole thing has been laid bare. I am trying to keep my expectations low, as is always wise with Wales in late August. I am dampening my enthusiasm, if you will. But I will fail.
But by god a holiday is much needed this year. It still threatens to be scuppered by a dog with an inconvenient mystery illness and a knack for slipping out of her bandages and splitting her stitches, but we are trying not to think about that too much.
Today I hit send on my last written submissions and penned a suitable out of office response for my email, pitched perfectly so as to make anyone who emails me feel sufficiently guilty. It won’t, of course, stop me reading the bloody things. We are taking the teenagers and thus have rented a holiday home with wifi.
As the children get more and more lanky on their relentless march towards adulthood (they are all elbows and adams apples and whispy moustaches), and myself and as the pooch get more portly and prone to deep, world weary sighs and entertaining chuckle-snores, I realise that one of my children has attained majority without me even remembering it.
Don’t worry. Not an actual human child. My poor neglected eldest child Pink Tape was begun just over 18 years ago. It scarcely comes out of its room these days, probably spends all its time on the internet.
If I’m honest I’ve been ignoring it a bit, like Bertha in the attic, partly because I’ve lost my mojo and partly because I’ve been too busy – and also because the damn thing is busted. Something to do with a PHP upgrade, which frankly I don’t have the energy to try and understand. I think that is why even when I write a post it doesn’t populate your inbox with a cheery wave on a Monday morning. I’m reliably informed it’ll be fixed ‘soon’.
But you know, if I don’t get off my backside and write a blog post when I’m on me hols, when WILL I ever write one? So here I am. Talking about writing a blog post. And still paralysed by the choice of which of the eleventy five annoying / distressing / challenging / interesting / uplifting and amazing things about this job I should pick today. This is what happens when you stop. You stall.
Usually, if I start writing a meandering little thing like this a topic has popped into my head by now and I’m off.
You’ll have noticed that hasn’t worked quite yet. Bear with me though, I have a whole 2 weeks of holiday left to play with (damn, I have been telling myself it was 3 all summer but I just counted and its 2). I’ll be right on it as soon as I’ve started a new crochet project (I’ve recently completed a hexi-cardi for 15, having made 17 a blanket of his choice – pictured – and am now bereft), laid on the beach, been on a boat trip, cooked for the teenagers, separated the teenagers, played board games with the teenagers, picked up some socks, spent some time with the husband and extended fam, taught my niece to crochet, written my book updates and caught up on some sleep. Oh, and once I attend that unexpected hand down hearing on Friday when I had planned to be packing.
Yes. I had in fact booked the summer holidays off but had stupidly not booked an actual holiday and thus was caught out. And yes, I have already marked the entire Xmas holiday in my calender with BIG RED LETTERS SAYING OUT MUST AWAY DO NOT ENTER ON PAIN OF DEATH etc so as to not be caught again. And yes, as soon as I get paid by the LAA (2028 perhaps?) I will be booking a long holiday far, far away for at least 3 weeks (which long experience tells me is the minimum period between stopping work and resuming work that ensures at least a full week of NO INCOMING EMAILS).