Back into the fold...or not, as the case may be

Ah well! Over too quickly but fantastic while it lasted....farewell sun and the relaxing Mediterranean lifestyle, hello grey skies, overgrown lawn and unanswered mail.
I felt the usual post-holiday fatigue, which is a combination of travel exhaustion (how can just sitting in airports and planes be so tiring?), withdrawal from alcohol, lack of sunlight, good food and the general sense of anticlimax, plus the knowledge that it'll take another year of solid saving to repeat the experience. A brisk trip to the gym and a swim drove out some of the lethargy and accumulated CO in the system and today I feel considerably brighter.
Sadly the major source of funding for my doctoral studies has not deemed me worthy of an award (again) so I am desperately hoping that I get an in-house scholarship from my chosen university. Otherwise, it's back to the drawing board for a serious reassessment of my life plans.
I knew my chances of scoring with the AHRC were slim (does anyone know anyone who has got funding from these people?), but I hadn't anticipated being as disappointed as I actually was. Mentally my compass over the past year or so has been fixed on starting doctoral work this autumn and now it is looking less and less likely, I find myself panicking rather, and wondering what on earth I will do if it all comes to nothing. I need some serious thinking time to map out a new route, but that'll have to wait until I have some quiet family-free time - another couple of weeks at least. Meanwhile, I feel somewhat downcast and rather tense. A scholarship would be a tremendous boost to my confidence, a real lifeline to the scholarship that I deeply and passionately love. I daren't believe I won't get one: I promise that I would be an exemplary student and treat the three years as professionally as I would treat a job. I have so much to offer, and so much I want to say. Please keep your fingers crossed for me.