Out of Sorts with Myself and The World

I'm stressed. The signs were all there but I didn't really take them on board until last week, which it has to be said was a bad one.

The OH was in London for work. He hates being away and although to be honest I can usually cope fairly well with his absence, and have even been known on occasion to whisper the odd 'Huzza for some peace and quiet' that wasn't the case this time, chiefly because I had far too much to do.

 

One of the cats was ill. In fact it seemed very sick, nay, I feared sick unto death. I had to get it to the vets in Kirkwall one morning early and back home again later that same day (Wednesday) which is tricky when you don't drive, that cat is very heavy  and the bus stop is a 10 minute walk away. As it happened lovely neighbours stepped in and helped but it was such a hassle, especially worrying about all the things that could be wrong with him, and wondering how I could break it to the OH if the cat really was sick unto death. It didn't help that the day before the appointment said cat was nowhere to be seem for most of the morning and I became convinced he had done that cat thing and wandered off to die somewhere. He hadn't. After putting me through  a horrible worrying morning he strolled up at about 11.30 looking as though butter wouldn't melt.

 

[And the result at the vets was that he has an overactive thyroid (or possibly under active?) which can be managed with a magic thyroid pill and so far we have managed to artfully conceal said pill in his food on a daily basis and already, much less than a week later, he is much more like his usual self. Which is a relief.]

 

Meanwhile I also had responsibility for feeding a neighbours cat. It was the one I was feeding when I broke my ankle although fortunately this time there was no repeat of that. Less fortunately however there  was  a repeat of the necessity to worm the cat concerned. It's a longish walk if you're feeling not quite the thing and if the weather is bad.

 

The trials and tribulations of my trip on Thursday I have already rehearsed here and I had to go into town again on Friday to return some Inter-site library loans which were due back that day. Don't ask why I didn't do that on Thursday. There is more than one college location in town and the library is in the one at the top of a very steep hill. You've been told Orkney is flat? You were lied to. I couldn't face the hill on Thursday.

 

Meanwhile back at the house the decorator was hanging the ugliest wallpaper known to man in the living room. For some reason which currently escapes me but which presumably I thought good at the time I rashly said the OH could choose the paper for in there, but if I had thought for a minute that he would choose anything so awful, the words 'you can choose'  would never have dropped from my lips. Nor will they ever again. The more paper that went up the worse I felt. And I wans't helped by the reflection that we were paying someone to desecrate the living room in this fashion.

 

But over and above all this, or perhaps more accurately, underpinning it all was the knowledge that I have been out and talking to people far too much recently and its not good for me. I knew really when I started listening to myself babbling to people I didn't know, taking the burden of conversation on myself and forgetting that just because the air is empty I am not obliged to fill it with words. This happens periodically and the cure is a simple one; time on my own, solitude, silence, the non-necessity to engage with others. Give me a week of that and I'm as good as new.

 

Sadly the decorator is back this week (although this is his last job here for this year) and Saturday sees the return of Son No 2 for a week, then we're off south to Glasgow for a few days and I'm planning a research trip to the National Library in Edinburgh. Quiet and solitude seem far to seek, with the result that I'm feeling snarky and grouchy and very very prickly. I'm hoping though that long solitary evenings will help  get me some way towards normal again.