After the high comes the low!
It was such a great Christmas, but now Ed and I are back to Derby and Joan status. Our eldest daughter and family went home on the 27th, our son was coming and going anyway (hates sleeping in a different bed, so makes day trips), and our youngest daughter (with boyfriend who appeared on the 28th) returned to Belgium on the 29th.
Yesterday was that sort of huge sigh of relief you get when you’re back to preparing only two meals instead of seven or eight, and when you get to sit in your own chair instead of slumming it on the floor playing dolls with the youngest child, and when you can fall asleep again in front of the television. Anxious, of course, until we heard that our young couple had arrived safely in Belgium, but then relaxed and enjoying the lull.
But today has been different again. I felt so low (and irritable, it has to be admitted) and although I know it’s the symptoms of bereavement in miniature since all the family going their own ways is like a little death, I still feel their loss. Yes, I know – they’re all within spitting distance (apart from a few miles of ocean, in Becki’s case) and I’ll see them all again in a couple of weeks, but even that doesn’t really help. So I tell myself that I wouldn’t enjoy the highs half so much without the contrast of the lows, but that doesn’t help either.
There was only one thing for it. I dragged Ed out for a long walk, and that did the trick. Released endorphins or something. I came home feeling a lot brighter, despite the fog and the dismal, grey weather. He came home aching in every joint, but you can’t have everything.
They’re already celebrating New Year in Australia (the parts that aren’t under thirty feet of water, that is – imagine starting your New year like that!) but it’s only lunchtime here. Another twelve hours to wait to see the fireworks over London (on the television, of course. Ed and I will be tucked up snugly in our favourite recliners..)
Meanwhile, Becki gave me a new programme for my Wii. It has a little webcam which you fix on top of the television, then it scans your shape (horror of horrors), you input your age, height and weight, and it works out a tailored (that’s what it claims, anyway) fitness programme for you. I’ve done it twice and it damn nearly killed me, but what the heck. I need those endorphins.
A HAPPY, HEALTHY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL.