bang, crash, bang, crash

Current work: please can any time-machine inventors get in touch?
Listening to: Corelli
Reading: Michelle Styles, A Question of Impropriety (enjoyed it, especially the bits about the travelling engine and learning new stuff about costume)

Workwise, yesterday was pretty much a wipeout. The builders had to go to an emergency job, so we weren’t sure what time they’d arrive here. They were lovely, cleared up all the mess and were very dog-friendly, but I find it hard to settle to work when I know I‘m going to be interrupted at any moment. Taking the top bit off a concrete floor isn’t a quiet job, by definition; and creating a new world when there are drills, hammers and chisels going on is nigh impossible. By the time it was over and I’d done the school run, cooked dinner and sorted out homework and reading and stuff, I was dog-tired and not in the right frame of mind to sit at the computer. I could have chugged a cup of coffee, and then I’d have been awake enough to work, 20 minutes later – but I’m trying to keep off the cycle of drinking too much coffee to stay awake, then needing more coffee to get me going in the morning and a paracetamol to deal with a headache from lack of sleep. (As a short-term measure to get through an emergency, it’s fine – but that was earlier this summer.)

Unfortunately, the carpenter couldn’t make it yesterday so is coming tomorrow instead – which means tomorrow’s going to be a wipeout, too. Think I’d better make tomorrow an admin day. I really don’t have enough days, right now, and I'm rearranging some of the things I'd planned to do. But it would’ve been my mum’s birthday this Saturday, and I want to clean her grave and put new silk flowers on to keep it nice for the winter (this is important for me to do, otherwise I’ll be really upset and fret about it); I also need to spend time with Dad (I can’t let him down because it’s not fair on him); and somehow I need to find some P&Q to work. Ha. Maybe I should sit in the car with the PDA…

Still, glass half full: rang up to find out my blood test results and they were clear (routine stuff – thyroid and blood sugar). The fact I'm permanently tired at the moment is probably a hangover from the stresses of this summer, and I also need to do more exercise and lose weight. [MUCH easier said than done.] I had a decent amount of sleep last night, though I had a very odd dream about finding a Roman villa in my garden. As in one with still-standing walls and some gorgeous sculpture. As my garden isn’t actually big enough to contain a Roman villa, that’s very strange. My subconscious is clearly limbering up with ideas, so it’ll be interesting to see what it comes out with, later this week. And I had a very nice email back from the MD of the restaurant chain – I wanted our waitress to have some official thanks for her excellent service on Saturday, so I emailed to say how much we appreciated what she did. I really do believe that kindness and courtesy makes the world a better place. And I had a lovely email from one of our local journos saying that she’d spotted my cover on Consuming Passions, on Sunday night. I was so touched that she’d taken the time to tell me.

Plan for today: guitar this morning (am being stubborn about this because this is the only real me-time I get and I do not want to give it up or cut it back – even though two hours a week, as in lesson + travel time, is possibly a bit much); shoehorn in as much work as I can; and then Madam’s concert tonight, at son’s school – am really looking forward to that.