Moving on

Onebrokelady

Everyone has their mowers out here, it smells lovely 😀 I also talk to myself when I’m doing anything. I quite often have to tell myself what I’m meant to be doing or I get overwhelmed. I have a routine in the morning that I don’t deviate from or things go very wrong 😀

Cherryfudge

Onebrokelady said:

I have a routine in the morning that I don’t deviate from or things go very wrong 😀

I am sure there must be people who can actually think, process and communicate in the mornings - I'm not one of them! I have the same breakfast every day unless there's a very specific thing needing to be eaten up (or I'm on holiday), because then I don't have to think about it. I can have a muzzy head till 10 or 11 some days and I well understand that feeling of plodding through the routines because I have to come out the other side fed, watered, dressed and vaguely presentable. Oddly, though, I can do things that require patterns of processing, like Wordle.

Last night I went to bed early and slept till 8, when I could hear DH and Auntie talking downstairs. As I never sleep eight and a half hours, I think I must have needed it. I started coughing soon after that, though - not a persistent cough but an irresistible one. The others have gone out till mid afternoon after which we are due to visit A, H and the girls so Auntie can meet baby F. I'm not sure whether to go or not. I googled whether I'm likely to be infectious and am hardly wiser, but I would rather not socialise. With my usual commitment being cancelled tonight, I'm expected to go along with the meal out (a treat from Auntie), but at the moment I'm clinging on to peace and quiet in my own house. I don't feel too unwell to go, but I don't want to talk as it feels as though that would make the symptoms worse, and Auntie is too full-on for me. How does she, in her eighties, have such a lot of energy?! If anyone here knows the steps at Whitby, she went up them yesterday without any problems, went all round the abbey and town and was absolutely fine. The flip side of that is that she's awake at four thirty in the morning (apparently - I'm asleep so I don't see what she reports) and has to be on the go from the moment she's officially up and dressed. Just the opposite of me!

So I'm asking myself am I being selfish trying to stay at home? Am I looking for peace and quiet (yes) as well as not wanting to trigger an attack of coughing? (Yes). 

I've done some further gardening then had a rest. I'm undoubtedly a bit short of energy, but not anywhere near crisis level. However I really need to make something of today so I'll get on with the garden.

EssexHebridean

Sounds to me like if you are feeling under the weather then a balance between being sociable at home, but also wanting time to rest and recharge a bit so as to be able to cope with other commitments is a very reasonable one? It's fantastic that your Auntie is so full of energy, but with some form of lurgy you don't want to be trying to keep up with her! 

Onebrokelady

Cherryfudge said:

Onebrokelady said:

I have a routine in the morning that I don’t deviate from or things go very wrong 😀

I am sure there must be people who can actually think, process and communicate in the mornings - I'm not one of them! I have the same breakfast every day unless there's a very specific thing needing to be eaten up (or I'm on holiday), because then I don't have to think about it. I can have a muzzy head till 10 or 11 some days and I well understand that feeling of plodding through the routines because I have to come out the other side fed, watered, dressed and vaguely presentable. Oddly, though, I can do things that require patterns of processing, like Wordle.

Last night I went to bed early and slept till 8, when I could hear DH and Auntie talking downstairs. As I never sleep eight and a half hours, I think I must have needed it. I started coughing soon after that, though - not a persistent cough but an irresistible one. The others have gone out till mid afternoon after which we are due to visit A, H and the girls so Auntie can meet baby F. I'm not sure whether to go or not. I googled whether I'm likely to be infectious and am hardly wiser, but I would rather not socialise. With my usual commitment being cancelled tonight, I'm expected to go along with the meal out (a treat from Auntie), but at the moment I'm clinging on to peace and quiet in my own house. I don't feel too unwell to go, but I don't want to talk as it feels as though that would make the symptoms worse, and Auntie is too full-on for me. How does she, in her eighties, have such a lot of energy?! If anyone here knows the steps at Whitby, she went up them yesterday without any problems, went all round the abbey and town and was absolutely fine. The flip side of that is that she's awake at four thirty in the morning (apparently - I'm asleep so I don't see what she reports) and has to be on the go from the moment she's officially up and dressed. Just the opposite of me!

So I'm asking myself am I being selfish trying to stay at home? Am I looking for peace and quiet (yes) as well as not wanting to trigger an attack of coughing? (Yes). 

I've done some further gardening then had a rest. I'm undoubtedly a bit short of energy, but not anywhere near crisis level. However I really need to make something of today so I'll get on with the garden.

How long is she staying for?That does sound a bit full on .

Cherryfudge

Thanks @EssexHebridean and @Onebrokelady, it's always full on when she comes but it's only for a few days. She goes home tomorrow. I've cried off visiting A and H - apart from me getting tired, I'm sure they don't want the bug. I've also said I won't go out for tea tonight. I think Auntie was a bit disappointed, but it seems hypocritical to go to one thing and not another, and last night I was unusually tired.

I've been out doing a small amount in the garden again and I'm definitely not at my best, but it's nice to be out of doors. I've found a dead currant bush and cut back the brambles, and for some reason another currant bush is leaning hard in one direction so I'm about to look up how to prune it. This should all give me a bit of a head start in this year's battle of the weeds.

I have a routine blood test next week but I'm not expecting anything unusual, it's just to keep an eye on whether I'm on the right dose of thyroxine and statins. 

liselle

Oh I feel for you Cherry! A friend of mine has exactly the same auntie - must be out of the same mould! She even wears out my friend’s 40 year old daughter! Her own daughters,who are older, avoid spending full days with her.

Yours has been taken out and about - I think you would’ve been much more unwell if you’d pushed yourself.

Cherryfudge

We have our house to ourselves again. Pleased to say Auntie really enjoyed her visit, which is entirely thanks to DH's hard work. I think he is easier when he doesn't have us both to 'manage' - we are so different that keeping up with one of us is enough.

I'm still a bit under par but not too bad. It will be a quiet day today: it's raining so I won't be gardening. I think we'll do corned beef hash for a main meal as we have all the ingredients in, and I'm working later.

Yesterday I started to look into 'entitled to' and have a little list of thing I ought to look into. Council Tax Reduction can't be claimed due to savings - I expect savings will preclude a lot of things. I never made a PIP application - the suggestion came when I had too much else to deal with and still had nearly full pay, so perhaps one day I could start that again. The other suggested benefits were ESA, JSA and Access to work. I'm not going to stress myself at this point wading through all of them: I'm still actively looking for work but the distances involved are often a barrier, and in the meantime two relief jobs are giving me some income, responsibility, social interaction, experience etc.

Cherryfudge

A bit more progress has been made in that I've claimed the accrued leave for the relief jobs - around four hours between them! The system tends to leave us with very strange fragments of holiday owing: one job was 37 minutes and I've no idea if the system can cope with fractions like that so I put the claim in anyway.

Payslips were published today (mine has £8-ish in tax refund). I've also paid off my credit card so I'm hoping it will show a zero balance soon and I can start afresh with knowing where I'm up to.

The fridge is cleaned and I baked a couple of those tubes of ready-made bake-at-home pastries after work this evening for treats, and to clear a bit of space. They were bought for Christmas so they really needed to be used! We've also defrosted some smoked salmon from Christmas. My share was delicious with some cream cheese left over from the frosting on the carrot cakes.

I also managed an no-spend day. I wanted to go to L!dl on my way home from work as I knew I had some vouchers about to expire but I'd left my purse at home, which gave me thinking time and there was nothing on the vouchers that I'd have been buying if it weren't an offer, so I left the money where it was.

peb

That's the thing with vouchers, if you wouldn't buy them anyway then it's probably a waste of money.

I didn't get all the Lidl pastries as I shouldn't eat them!  Some I got and gave away, some I didn't get, but I did get and eat the chocolate brownie.

Cherryfudge

peb said:

 I did get and eat the chocolate brownie.

So did I! But that was a few days ago. Mind you, I looked up the calories so I had it over two days.  

One thing I am convinced of, as a regular L!dl shopper, they really push the empty calories, though they did have kale in their recent vouchers.