Friday, July 17, 2015

Yes, Polly Has Learned To Pace!

I've been congratulating myself lately on how I've learned to pace myself and then I realise that I sat down to check out a couple of things while I ate my breakfast of home baked fresh bread, butter and my mum's blackcurrant jam with a nice mug of tea. Sad to say that was this morning and the day has now passed me by.

I was feeling a little guilty about this until I realised that I'm still sitting here because I'm still recovering from a week's worth of 'pacing' myself but I've had a lovely conversation with an old friend for a couple of hours via messaging on facebook. We haven't really spoken for years and recently bumped into each other through a mutual friend. The intervening years have seen many changes and maturity dawn upon our faces and you know what? |It's wonderful!

I also had a few other conversations by telephone. For example I spent a while phoning around three towns in search of an emergency dental appointment with any dentist available to see other half's toothcue. It started playing up on Monday but he wouldn't possibly have time to go to the dentist and told me not to bother with it earlier in the week! Cue emergency appointment on Friday...





The other calls were about the blessed tooth in question or perhaps the questionably blessed tooth. A chat with my Mum regarding the whereabouts and plans of the boys and their friend who's also been staying with us this week. Another phone call to thank me for completely renovating my fathers garden of remembrance up in the cemetary. That took two trips, an afternoon in the sun, disposing of the two ginormous bags of cuttings, getting scraped to hell & back, delivering the resulting roses to various ladies and the resulting conversations. I also weeded & trimmed the vegetables, flower garden, pot plants and seed heads, cutting down overgrown and diseased flowering currant tree, pruning mock orange, buying more potted plants to go into the garden - two visits as I went back to buy a plant for my Mum who then proceeded to tell me that she hates Hebes but they look great in my garden!

When my sons' were busy with their course I assisted with the cutting, felling and clearing waste from half an overgrown laurel hedge with my sons' friend which was also bloody hard work on a hot and sweaty day but it was very enjoyable! I procured cones and a signpost placing them as warnings of work on three roadsides.

I too went to the dentist, spending €55 for a check up and two xrays! Thank goodness for no caries, 'just' some localised periodontitis at the site of three extractions over thirty years ago, oh joy. Still a trip to the hygienist three times a year for deep cleaning and tartar removal from below the gum line (cost €60 per visit), the use of more floss, tipi brushes and a daily fluoride mouthwash will help with that. Actually, it already has as one of the pockets has shrunk by a whole milimeter - that made me feel a little better.

Finalising the grant acceptance forms and associated documents & then posting/emailing for the Offaly Dyslexia Group was challenging; consisting of  all of the above plus mending naughty printer scanner which took rather too long for my liking. This was followed by a breakfast meeting at the treasurer's home along with associated chat with her children and meeting her husband, having first thrown my own special treat of Gay Davis's cappucino all over the car on the way in! The treasurer generously shared her mug with me and it was every bit as lovely as anticipated if a little shorter than expected...

I installed a TP-link wifi extender thus improving my mum's wifi connection, made bread x 4 loaves and cookies x 2 types, cooked meals for five, did washing and drying for three, the fourth thankfully does his own and it's not who you think it is! The badly frozen over freezer is currently defrosting in preparation for half a lamb. And I cleaned the putrifying contents of my fridge drawers ditching a mountain of compostables in the process, did washing up, loading and unloading the dishwasher how many times?

Collecting and delivering various items for various people was also done along with paying bills, doctors, pharmacists on two occasions. The latest resulted in my giving my eldest son a tetanus jab because he managed to stab himself in the finger with a broken drill bit at work and goodness only knows when he last had a tetanus jab (vaccine cost €30 and the doctor €25).

I've neglected many of the other associated duties of a mother except going to the gym for a couple of hours earlier in the week. They've all new equipment which as far as I'm concerned isn't an improvement. That may sound like an odd thing to state until I tell you that the new treadmills' don't have an integral tv screen or any tv screen nearby at all. While I enjoy walking in the great outdoors I find it mind numbingly boring in the great indoors or at least I did until I discovered the delights of daytime tv. No, I don't mean soaps. I used to watch the Cash in Your Attic, Antiques Road Show and the like and the time passed without me even noticing, in fact I'd often go more than my prescribed half an hour just so's I could watch the end!

Until the other day I've been clock watching which of course makes everything seem to take so much more time than usual. I had a brainwave though which has made all the difference. Not only do I listen to heavy metal/hard rock on my GoPro (stolen from youngest son), I've discovered that I can read my Kindle if I make the writing big enough for me to see while pounding the vinyl...

You could say that 'yes, I've learned to pace myself', so well that by the time I've cooked and eaten dinner it's late and I've managed to fall asleep within an hour or so of sitting down every night this week! So today was my 'day off' to rest and recouperate before I get back on the hamster wheel and drive back into town to collect two boys and God only knows who else.

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