Death and the Guinea Pig.

(right: Albert in former days)
Despite the fact that there is now some glorious sunshine pouring down from the blue (ish) sky I am definitely feeling a bit low today.
This is largely due to lack of sleep (Daughter #3 had a rowing 'head race' which necessitated a 4.30am wake-up to get us over a hundred miles distant for 8am start) which was compounded last night by being woken with a start at a loud noise (drunkards down the street) and an inability, it seemed, to get back to sleep fully.

Coupled with this, I went out to the guinea-pigs' hutch at bedtime and found Albert, the littlest fellow, inert and cold.
This wasn't totally a surprise: he had been failing gradually since before Christmas. I'd been bringing them both in faithfully every night and ensuring that they both had plenty of fresh greenery in their diet (g-p's, like humans and unlike many other creatures, cannot manufacture their own vitamin 'c') and keeping their quarters spotlessly clean. Alas, to no avail! Sometime whilst we were in Lincolnshire he shuffled off his mortal coil and headed to the Great Clover Patch in the Sky.

As usual, I got quite weepy (I don't even manage to dispose of the deceased goldfish without a snivel) and called upon the Husband to prepare a suitable grave under the back lawn, where so many other Small Creatures lie.
Albert was still reasonable flexible, and his little head lolled over my wrist as I lay him gently in the ground. I had to leave at the moment of inhumation itself to comfort a sobbing Bright-Eyed Boy who had just been made aware of the situation, and to dab my own eyes.
It's very strange but even had Albert still been warm, it was obvious that he was quite dead - there is something that leaves the body at the moment of death that is perceptible even if your were not a believer in the soul. It is a life-force that exits, a vital spark that seems to be more than just the sum of biological processes. The essence of Albert himself had left the building.
Alfred, big, daft, pink-eyed and pinked lipped ('like a woman, m'lord') appeared agitated. When I put him out in the hutch on his own this morning (life must go on, even for guinea pigs) he snuffled about where the body had been laid before retreating to the bed-department, no doubt to have a little weep of his own (anthropomorphism). I shall feed him spinach for his tea to strengthen and sustain him in his loss.

Pigged Out

Well, tomorrow it's one week of from receiving the hard word from the practice nurse concerning my raised blood pressure.

How is it going, I hear you say?

We-e-e-ll, actually not too bad! I've adopted a far healthier eating pattern: bowl of low fat cereal first thing, 100cal snack mid-morning, lunch consisting of a pitta stuffed with salad and a dessert spoon full of houmous, 2 portions of fruit, mid afternoon cup of tea with low fat/low sugar snack and dinner consisting of two pittas stuffed with salad and a can of healthy eating tuna with some sort of dressing. I'm allowing myself a postage-stamp size portion of any dessert that's going, 2 squares of 85% cocoa-solid chocolate when desperate for a treat, and a regular sized of red wine with my weekend evening dinners. I've taken to power-walking as and when I can (for example, into an out of town, a good 20mins either way), and I've rejoined the gym (at vast expense, but I don't, as I've said before, want to have a stroke), more of which anon.
I'v also purchased a RespErate breathing coaching machine: it's supposed to reduce your BP by encouraging you to breathe more slowly thus causing your heart to slow and your blood vessels to relax. In fact, after the initial session today my BP registered at a very healthy 145/82, a good ten points down on both readings! Most encouraging! It's also recommended for relaxation and stress-relief too, so a bonus there - I'm aiming to do two 15 mins sessions a day.
It's going to be quite tricky to fit everything into my new regime, which includes a number of academic new-year's resolutions, and keep on course with writing up my thesis. Extra organisation will be required to make sure no one project slips, but when it comes to organising I'm as happy as a pig in what's-its-name!

The Weight of the World

....a a and...you're back in the room!

Re-emerging after the Christmas hiatus, I am pleased to note that it all went a lot better than expected. Silly of me to have been so gloomy and pessimistic, I think: I have decided that it's not Christmas that I dread, but the prospect of Christmas.

The Husband took the week before off work and threw himself into emptying and re-organising the cupboards and replacing worn-out and clarty pans and baking tins . I was so impressed by his dedication and the quite staggeringly rapid improvements that I was enthused enough to down lap-top and join in on a mini pre-Christmas spring clean. The result was a tidy, smear and dust-free house, and with a little bit of co-ordinated effort, it has remained thus, despite the vagaries of wrapping paper, extra stuff everywhere, Christmas dinner and more food and bodies around than usual. I have to say my mood was much improved to see it all so pristine: maybe we really should consider getting someone in for an hour or so each week to maintain the standard once both our noses are firmly back at the grindstone. For morale's sake.
We generally slobbed about a lot over the holiday, eating and drinking, which for me has come to a sudden halt as a visit to the doc confirmed that my blood pressure was still higher than desirable. Two alternatives were unequivocably given: a formal diagnosis of hypertension and tablets thereafter (possibly for the remaider of my natural) or some life-style modifications.
It's a no-brainer really - I know that being sat on my arse all working week in front of a computer screen and eating what and when I like will inevitably end badly. I am pretty lazy by nature and I don't like exercise much, never having found one that I didn't get bored with. Running?: hate it! Boring, boring, boring! And it hurts my dodgy hip. Swimming?: takes too long to dry off - and that smell of chlorine - phew! (also boring). Cycling? Er, no thanks!

Trouble is, there's no way (or time) to fit an hour's power-walk into my daytime routine, so I'm pretty much looking at joining the gym again so I can go and do something in the evening.

It's just got to be done: I'm overweight, and at my age it just ain't going to miraculously disappear. Measures have to be taken, and that invloves (duh!) eating less (and more healthily) and exercising more. End of.
I absolutely don't want to have a stroke/heart attack or get vascular dementia. Nightmare.

The awful thing is, I know exactly how to go about it, exactly what exercises to do (and how long for), exactly what proportion of carbs to protein to fat is optimal. I know because I used to be well-fit (though I say so myself, ahem!), in my thirties pursuing a regime of restrained body-building that made me lean and toned and lighly muscled. I have photos from the year before Daughter #3 was born , but I don't tend to look at them.
The arrival or Daughter #3 and soon after, the Bright-Eyed Boy, changed all that.
As an 'elderly' multigravida mother (the B-E B was born when I was 41) I didn't cope very well with the tiredness and didn't lose the weight I put on during the pregnancies. I did make a couple of attempts to start training again, but lack of time and exhaustion took their toll and I just gave up. Looking back at pictures of me then when the children were small, it would have been relatively easy to get back into shape, but I just lacked the impetus.
Starting on a degree course absorbed any energy I had and meant that I no longer defined myself in purely physical terms (no bad thing really). It gave me a different sort of pride in myself, and as I have always enjoyed food and wine I unconsciously (Ithink) allowed my appetite full rein, eventually becoming rather dismissive of those who spent any time exercising (jealousy?).
Well, I am now reaping the harvest of that lazy gluttony, and it serves me right too.

At the end of the day, it might all be to no avail - my dad has high blood pressure for which he has to take daily medication, so it could be hereditary and I make no impact.
Nontheless, I am going to give it a proper go: eat less, exercise more. Groan!
I have 4-6 weeks to get my BP a bit lower, and I am damn well going to do my best and use the knowledge I have to make a difference.

A Donkey's Christmas

Well, here it is: Black Friday.
Apparently, this is what today is known as in the hospitality trade as one of the busiest days of the year, when venues are packed to the rafters with drunken carousers on office Christmas 'do's'. The Husband is going to his second one today, and had the ill-grace to complain that he didn't really want to go as 'he had a lot on' and 'could have done with a full day at work and come home at the normal time'. Really? R-E-A-L-L-Y? Not a good thing to say to someone who hasn't had a sniff of a works do for years, nor the prospect of one in the near future. I actually used to really enjoy them - probably because I got on well with most of my colleagues and actually miss that sort of non-complicated work-based relationship, you know the one where you discuss work, life, kids, holidays without the feeling that you have to pursue the friendship any further than those friendly chats at the table, in the pub, or over a desk.

I am not very good at friendship. I am a poor friend. The two close friends I have had died tragically young, one by their own hand during a severe bout of depression, the other of a cancer almost certainly brought on by a rigorous diet of alcohol and cigarettes. I failed both of them near their end - not at all deliberately - but by failing to realise the seriousness of their situations. No empathy, you see?
I'm a pretty poor mother, wife, sister- and daughter-in-law too, if it comes to it.
Nowadays I keep pretty much to myself, but I do occasionally miss having friends.
Actually, I am not totally friendless, having a one-time colleague that I meet on a fairly regular, if sporadic, basis. But our meetings have become much less frequent over the past six months or so largely, I believe, due to pressure of work, but also I think because I am lacks-a-daisical in pursuing friendship. I don't put in the required effort. I don't wish to impose on a hectic life, and I guess that could be construed as remoteness, or lack of caring.

I think I shot myself in the foot a bit on this: They contacted me this week to see if I fancied meeting up for lunch (and it would have been a Christmas lunch of sorts!) but only gave two days notice which, forgive me if I'm wrong, I felt a bit annoyed about. I felt that I was being 'fitted in' and in a tiny fit of self-important pique, I played the 'up-to-my-eyes-in-it' card, which I was...but REALLY! How pathetic!
So - no Christmas meet-ups for me, nor any cards addressed to me in my own right.

So Black Friday it is, and for me it represents the beginning of the White Noise and Shapelessness of the 'festive season'. The children have finished school, and when the Husband rolls in a bit later (neither too late nor drunk, he prides himself on his self-control too much for that!), that'll be it until January 4th when Normal Service resumes. I can feel my sanity spirally rapidly away from me even as I type. Daughter #3 has her boyfriend round: no doubt he will be another regular mouth at the table over the Christmas break, since she seems joined-at-the-hip with him, and has for the past year (he's actually a fine young man, witty and intelligent).
The Bright-Eyed Boy is currently playing on his X-Box, and I envisage even more of the same as the Husband asked the In-Laws for another game for him, and we have one for him too.
I am also exiled from the 'study' where I work on a daily basis during the evenings, weekends and holidays as the 'family computer' is there.
I did set up a 'satellite' study (up in our bedroom), but it all desperately needs dusting and hoovering because housework just isn't being done anywhere in the house at the moment and, really, who wants to sit in one's bedroom during the day?
Additionally, it's north-facing, so rather dismal in the winter months, plus the desk/chair combo gives me fearful back/hip ache.
I keep thinking of things we (don't) need to make the celebrations go with a swing: a nice tablecloth and napkins, crackers, mistletoe, mince pies......and I have a running list to add to and cross off stuff as we go. It seems endless.

I used to have so much more energy for it all than I do now, and I think I must have set a precedent in the past, because I now get asked if we're having mulled wine and baklava on Christmas Eve, or a curry feast with pickles and poppadoms on Boxing Day.
I just can't be bothered to organise any more. I know the Husband would happily do it were I to ask, but why should it be me that instigates, or even thinks to instigate action? Where's the initiative? I do know, by the way, that that is a mealy-mouthed attitude, and all to do 'unknown unknowns', to borrow a phrase from Donald Rumsfeld

In truth, I don't think I did myself any favours by cutting right down on the wine over the past couple of months. Actually, that's not true - I don't get the palpitations or hot flushes half as much nowadays, but mentally I feel much more on edge and tonight I just feel plain gloomy - and not a drop touched! (Nor likely to be either as I am on taxi-duty).
Why do people keep wanting stuff from me?
Why can't they just leave me alone?
If I had my way, I'd curl up in a corner until summer comes.
I know I am becoming more and more isolated as the years go by, but it's just less exhausting that way. Eeyore!

Christmas. Ho ho ho.

Christmas looms ever larger and this year, more than ever before, I feel ambivalent about the whole thing.
I am, I have finally admitted, a pretty unsocial creature: I enjoy my own company, I enjoy reasearching and writing up my PhD, I enjoy a routine of sorts.
I dislike banale conversation - the sort that erupts as people flap their gums to fill the silence, I dislike the mindlessness of television and I dislike chaos.
That's not to say that I sit here surrounded by pencils in a neat row, or that my books are alphabetically lined up on the shelves. Not at all - my 'study' (ahem!) is a model of lawlessness, but it is my lawlessness. Similarly, the plates that are on the work-top in the kitchen, the breakfast pots, are mine. I am not uncomfortable, because I can lay my hands on any volume I like within moments and I will either use my crumpet-plate for my lunch or stack it in the dishwasher.

I can't cope with mess that isn't mine, and there's a lot of it about at Christmas. But if I were to say that shoes and glasses and crumpled paper strewn about made me feel uncomfortable, I would, quite rightly I suppose,be accused of being uptight and pernickety, and lacking festive spirit.

Through general boredom, I also tend to drink rather too much at Christmas - not get steaming drunk, but generally end up feeling below par and somewhat self-disgusted. Ditto eating.
I feel, once the schools close and the Husband finishes work, that I enter a sort of limbo, and I think a lot of people feel like that. Speaking to others it would appear that the first week of Januaryrepresents a real epiphany (no pun intended) and the refrain, spoken with a sigh of relief, is that indeed it was lovely, but it's nice to get back to normal.
Yea, it is that normality that I miss at Christmas. You see, because I work at home, I guess that I subconsciously feel that the house is my territory, and I resent people camping on, and sullying, my patch (yes, I know, how selfish and crass of me, I know it's their home too and I love them all dearly).
I also dislike intensely the expectation that I am responsible for feeding people ("What's for tea?" "You tell me!"), and am slighly nauseated by the constant munching that accompanies Christmas. I do love eating, but not really at home. I am bored by my food, and by the whole process of shopping/cooking.I resent it immensely. And I hate going into the shops and seeing row upon row of coleslaw, mince pies and Quality Street leering at me.

I am depressed by the whole grubby house/home thing which I can ignore during most of the year, but deprived of any mental stimulation, I tend to notice smeary windows and cobwebby corners and feel intense hatred towards them without any motivation or desire to do anything about it.

So I will end up feeling bored, grumpy, slightly ill and resentful. Not a good combination, and not one conducive to cheery fireside evenings.
Every year I scrabble around in an attempt to preserve my sanity, and this year I have a little side-project lined up: to get to grips with the ideas and works of Galen, the Roman physician.

Whether this will prove to be absorbing and fruitful remains to be seen: what I really need are some totally noise-cancelling head-phones so I can block out the TV, but remain, semi-socially, in the room. I am not hopeful.

A Bit of a Mess

I have to say at the outset, the Husband does not expect me to 'keep house'. He recognises that washing, cooking, cleaning and child rearing is a joint effort that one contributes to as and when required, and is not the default task of one parent or the other.
It's just as well, because my efforts at 'housework' (and here I'm talking about anything from de-crumbing the kitchen worktop to weeding the flowerbeds and spring-cleaning the attic) have got fewer and more desultory with each passing year. And so have his.
When we first married (fifteen years ago today!) and bought our first house, we had so little in the way of furniture and possessions that maintaining the cleanliness of our austere and minimalist environment took a joint hour every Sunday morning.
As time progressed, and the children arrived, we acquired more 'stuff' and as our careers zigzagged and progressed, time became more and more limited and mere housework got lower and lower on the agenda. Sunday mornings got swallowed up in footie and rowing practice, walking the dog, homework sessions, preparation for the week to come and the hoover and duster (let alone the lawnmower and paintbrush) saw action less and less often.
Usually we have to have an imminent 'visit' to spur us into action, but then we have to shelve a more important activity to fit it in. Having given the house a bit of a blitz, we're generally content to let it go for a few months.
Now, we're not complete slobs....the laundry is still rigorously done (in fact, TOO rigorously....where does it all come from?), the plates, cutlery and pots are blasted in a hot dishwasher every day, and the bogs get bleached as often as required, but the less pressing (to us) tasks like vacuuming up the dog-hairs, or washing the kitchen window-sill with soapy water, or dusting just gets left. Everyone has clean clothes and hot food and is (relatively) ready to go to where they have to go, when they need to....but that's it. the fluff-wads and tea-stains accumulate, not because we don't care - we just don't have the time to address them.

My research is at such a stage that I now sit down at 7.30 in the morning, and often don't stop until the children get home at around 4 - 4.30pm. (No, that's a lie....sometimes I have to stop because my head is buzzing and I have written myself into a stupor).

The Husband disappears off to work at the same time to his highly stressful and unenjoyable job. Come evening time, 6pm, we sit down to a meal (usually some form of pasta bake or casserole - never, ever, complex or time-consuming) and afterwards generally nothing much happens unless the Husband goes to the gym (mercifully he has stopped his relentless rowing regime) or I go to my language night-class. I suppose we could fit some 'housework' in then......yeah right! That ain't EVER gonna happen!

Why blog about this today? Well, as it is our anniversary, the Husband secretly booked a trip to London, where we will go to the British Library, the National Gallery (both his suggestions, bless him!) and to see a classical concert in St Martin-in-the-Fields. Wonderful! I am so looking forward to it! Daughter #2 is coming to stay at ours (c/w the Bouncing Babba) to look after the young 'uns and will sleep in our big bed. OK.....that entailed me having to wash the one remaining decent bed-sheet (currently in use) and finding it has a rip in it. Actually, I knew that, but was ignoring it.

Drove to a nearby shopping mall this morning to look for a cheap bedding set, but they didn't have anything in super-kingsize, and as I needed proof-read and email my latest portion of work off to my supervisor before lunch, I couldn't afford any more time out. I'm fear that I am actually going to have to do some 'mending'!
My lovely In-Laws will be also round tonight to bring us a card and their best wishes (bet they didn't expect us to last, ha!) and I am conscious that, by their standards, the house leaves much to be desired in the cleanliness stakes. My M-i-L is one of the last generation of stay-at-home mothers (actually, she is fairly unusual in her generation too - many of her contemporaries work at least part-time) whose day has been devoted for 40 years to the daily rhythm (grind) of housework and cooking. Her one-time remark to the Husband was that, if a woman was out at work, she was not doing a proper job at home. Quail!
I don't think she quite realises the amount of time I spend on my work (which is mostly produced on the laptop in the front room 'study') and probably wonders (though she is far too polite to say so), given that I am at home all the time, why the house is so filthy. (I've caught her examining my plug-holes and the inside of my kettle, you know....)
By and large I don't care, but I would really like to care less. It seems really unfair that any shortfall in the household cleanliness will probably be down to me somehow, because I'm the woman.

Just because I am, doesn't mean that I have any interest in housework, soft furnishings or the like. I guess I'm not very nurturing. Don't get me wrong, I am capable and caring, but will not be whipping up tempting little snacks, plumping any pillows or bleaching the paintwork.

The Husband once called me unsympathetic, but my response was 'I will sit up all night with you, and dose you with medecine and run you to the hospital if you need me to. I will wash you and feed you and make sure you are comfortable. Just don't expect any snuffling and maudlin noises of empathy. That's not my style. I am not your mother.'

I am not going to look at the overcrowded worktops in the kitchen. Granted it would only take a couple of hours to clear them (and the cupboards bulging with out-of-date dry goods), but it's time I just don't have. Nor, in truth, do I have the inclination. What I would like is a cleaning fairy, and I've told the Husband this. He said he'd rather do it himself than pay someone to come in....but that isn't very likely, seeing as he has even less time (and not much more inclination) for such matters than I do! Impasse.

The house is a cluttered mess.
But it is of our (mostly my) making: the books piled high threaten to take over every surface, but that's the way it currently is.
At the moment, this house is my office, my library, my laboratory, my reasearch my all-consuming passion. Time will come, I suppose, when I'll consider cleaning the windows a profitable and attractive way of passing an empty hour. Or not.
I know when I visit houses that are as mad and cluttered as ours, I feel an overwhelming sense of relief and I hate 'show-homes' where no-one has any of their 'stuff' on show and everything is pristine. What I really dislike is when people act like their homes are really disgustingly dirty when there isn't a smeary window or sticky cupboard front to be seen. I know their game!

However, it would be extremely nice for a change to snuggle down in crisply clean sheets (not prepared by me though!), next to a bedside table that was not covered with fluff-wads and tea-stains. Just don't move the books.
Any offers?

Alone in Paris

Back from Paris, and contrary to our fears EVERYTHING was working as per normal. In fact so efficiently, that on arrival at the Gare du Nord, we made our way to the metro just as a train arrived, boarded it, made our way to an interim station, changed lines and arrived on the platform just as a train arrived again. Consequently we got to our hotel, in the east of the city, less than thirty minutes after arriving in the capital. The hotel, a Novotel, was functionally fine (although it appeared that the interior designer had previously worked on the set of the Austin Powers movies) and the self-service continental breakfasts were epically satisfying and a good start to the sight-seeing day. The weather was extremely kind to us, save for a torrentially wet start to Saturday that cleared by lunchtime, and walking through the falling leaves of the Tuileries was a delight, as were the chocolats chauds that we availed ourselves of in the various cafes we frequented. I won't bother to detail the itinerary, except to say that the highlights - for me at least - was the lovely autumnal light, the bustling market next to the Montparnasse cemetery, the cemetery itself, the view from the top of the Montparnasse Tower, onion soup near Montmartre, the brilliant white dome of the Sacre Coeur against the azure sky, the Eiffel Tower sparkling on the hour and a (very) quick visit to Shakespeare and Co. bookshop on Rue Bucherie. I could have spent a lot longer looking around this last, but as the Husband and two children were waiting outside, I made it a brief visit.
Too brief, and yet again I feel like I'd been sidelined. Nor did we visit Les Deux Magots or Cafe de Flore (which I'd wanted to do last time we were in Paris, godammit!). Fair enough, I suppose, the guidebook did contain a warning about the prices charged for a cup of coffee in those places. But still - there's a limit to the amount of times I actually want to see the Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe.
Once is quite enough for me - likewise the rather bland civic architecture of places like the Madeleine, or the Pantheon or Les Invalides. Impressive in scale, yes, but not what makes up the real essence of a city. Paris is just SO big that macro-scale sightseeing just doesn't work for me. Everything is so far apart that you either have to metro it across the city, popping up like surprised moles at an adjacent station, or (as we did this time) sit for an inordinate amount of time on the open-topped tour bus and it contended with the Parisian traffic, which takes an age. I'd hoped that we would indulge in a little micro-scale tourism, taking an area and patiently exploring it street by street and getting to know some of the city's character. I'd picked the area near the Luxembourg Gardens, pinpointed a few destinations and interesting novelties, but alas it fell by the wayside. The only thing remaining of that itinerary was Shakespeare and Co. and a curious little Melkite Catholic church (which in truth was rather a let-down) St Julien le Pauvre.

I'd also managed to choose completely the wrong footwear. Having bought a pair of 'proper' walking boots to replace the ones I'd got last year (that never, ever got any comfier despite the saleswoman's assurances), and I thought I'd broken them in sufficiently to take abroad, having walked into town in them a number of times. They certainly didn't rub at all, and we weren't -on account of the open-top bus - doing an unfeasibly large amount of foot-slogging, but by mid afternoon the left boot was feeling agonisingly tight across the top of my foot, and causing it to go into spasms of cramp. I can't understand it, other than reason that the left boot has been made somewhat smaller than the right. The Husband thought it was something to do with the peculiar anatomy of my foot, but as I pointed to him, I've never had this particular problem before - not even with last year's boots which were patently a size smaller than they pretended to be!
The lasting legacy has been a numb side to my left big toe, and I find that my knees, which became increasingly stiff in Paris, have almost now almost entirely seized up, especially the right one.
It's incredibly hard to stand up at the moment - I don't think it's the joint itself, rather the ligament arrangement around it. Support doesn't seem to help and I'm a bit worried about restricting the blood flow. Coupled with a diagnosis a couple of days after we returned (during a routine appointment and on my birthday of all days!) of rather high blood-pressure (probably hereditary) I feel that I am getting old, creeky and about to fall apart at the seams.

Having been delighted about visiting Shakespeare and Co., I was eager to tell of my experiences, but realised there was actually no-one to tell. No-one I know has heard of it, and if you have to tell someone what it is before going into raptures, it kind of removes the pleasure of relating your story. What I really wanted was someone to say 'Oh wow! What was it like?' But no.
Once again I find I am the only person living in my world.