Where does the time go? What happened to doing a weekly blog, note to myself " Must Keep up with Blog".
Seriously though, it is scary how fast life whizzes by. The last time I blogged I had suddenly realised it was Christmas in 3 weeks, also that my husband ( do I call him my husband, or ex, or estranged, I really don't know) I prefer to call him "lost", as that's where I think he is. Anyway building up to this, I get myself into quite a stressful state, as most of us do. Why do we do this every year, its bonkers, but we do it anyway.
We as mothers ( or parents,not wishing to offend anyone) strive to produce the perfect Christmas for everyone we care for. So this involves cleaning the house from top to bottom for some weird reason, Why? do we think the people who live with us are suddenly going to get up on Christmas morning and say." Wow the house is so clean, this will make Christmas so much better".No! they will get up and not even notice.
I found myself, having to finish my kitchen floor ( it looks great by the way, photos after). then because I had finished the floor, and got the tree up, and the decorations up. I decided to repair a chair that i had bought a couple of years ago, because, I thought it would look nice in there for Christmas. A couple of friends pointed out that this was insane, and I tended to agree so took the Chair back to the barn.
I look around and find most of my friends are equally frazzled, my mate Heather decided she would finish tiling her kitchen Christmas week,it had been in that half finished state since god knows when, so why start that then? but she did and it looks great, still not finished, maybe next Christmas!
Also in my stressed state I find my blood pressure going up, face very red ( no not the wine) feeling slightly unbalanced (nothing new) so I visit my French friends who have a machine to measure this. Oh dear, there were lots of shaking of heads and proclaiming the need to visit the docs, as it was high.
So I visit my mate Lisa and discuss this, she says I should go, and I say," but I have no time to go to the doctors" and we both look at each other and burst out laughing at how ridicules that statement was.
So I go. Now I like my doctor, but it has to be said that he has a fascination for the breast area in some ladies. I begin by telling him that I think I have high blood pressure, that my face is going very very red. He is then proclaiming that my face is beautiful, nothing wrong with it at all, absolutely beautiful! he whips out his stethoscope and proceeds to listen to my chest, I think he listened to every inch of my chest! said it was all ok but to come back if any more problems. I was having a devil of a job keeping a straight face. They do say laughter is good for you, well it certainly gave Heather a laugh when I called on her afterwards.
So my "Lost one"(husband) arrived on the Monday before Christmas, bit strange but really, just like it always was, which is nice. But it doesn't take long to see the warning signs. then we walk on eggshells. I can see he is stressed, even having his family around is really to much. But to be fair he did manage very well, I think, only lost it once over the turkey carving!
There we were, the four of us, all sat round the table, with this simple meal that we cook all the time on other days, but today takes military precision. Unfortunately I asked Lost one to calve, well I am not to officiant in the knife department, and they are not very sharp. I had tried to sharpen one, but not very well it seems! I could have said things like, "not a good idea to have sharp knives in this house" but don't think that would have helped!
So, After finding that the knife would not calve, Lost one 'stabbed' the turkey and left the table!
Max rolled his eyes and looked daggers at me, George looked confused. I wished I was somewhere else.
But as always, life goes on, we pulled crackers and continue Christmas lunch, read out the cracker jokes, and pretend this is normal, which it is, if you live with someone with such problems of the mind.
Lost one went to sleep on the sofa, no doubt locked in his own world of frustration and confusion at his own actions. I am once again filled with a huge sadness that I cannot help or reach this man, nor can he help himself.
Anyway, Lost one regained his former self later in the day, and when offered something to eat later,was unsure if he wanted the uneaten Christmas lunch, but gave it a go. It seems he was far to offended by that turkey to eat it, so left that to one side! or maybe he just doesn't like turkey any more! Who knows.
Sally arrived on boxing day,so a full house again. Lost one left on the Monday, and promptly arrived at the ferry 24hours to early, having left a day early by mistake, where is his head I wonder yet again.
I think I will leave New Year to the next blog.
