The Country Living connection ends here!
Our shared space! Never to be as tidy again.
Finally, years after buying the thing my massive desk is coming into proper use. Not unusually for me it was bought on a whim without a tape measure or any means of getting it home from the ‘antiques centre’ where I bought it. I think I doubled its price to about $100 by finding some poor mug who had unwittingly put an ad in the local paper offering himself and his van for pretty much any use. He nearly turned and ran when he saw me in the rain with one small cross child and a massive bump (Sam). I don’t quite know what I thought I needed a desk for at that time but anyway. Since then it has been one of our two most annoying pieces of furniture (beaten by Andrew’s futon, see ‘Thanks Mum! April 23rd) used as a den, a jumping off platform for the bed it was beside, a sticker book storage depot, everything apart from my writing…until now.
I have my first commission for an article. Someone (a well known newspaper) is paying me to do what I love doing the most (and do for free for all you lovely people). This also means I have a proper grown up deadline to add to the balls in the air. So far it’s working, the balls are still there while I try to smile serenely (more like a rictus grin) and keep paddling madly beneath the surface.
Andrew suggested I could call today my first day at work since mid 2002. After I had finished bashing him about the head with the nearest heavy object – the last seven years have hardly seen me lazing about reading mags with my feet up (and my grey hairs, wrinkles and back problems are testament to this) – I understood what he meant (I’ll admit uni was not the most taxing four years). Today will be the first time since leaving a corporate job to return to uni where someone has officially paid me for my time. Scary thought. I have to admit I’m a little nervous about being child-free for a day; they are as much my safety as I am theirs. I know, I know it will be great but it will also be weird.
So we have a dorm and a desk. All three beds fit in together really well which is a massive disappointment to William who was hoping desperately for a bunk bed. Those of you who know Edward will understand our determination to squeeze three beds in! Sometimes I do wonder why we bother with beds for Sam and Edward at all. This morning I woke up with a crick in my neck, a knee in my back and a dead arm. I would have been comfier on the bloody futon!
I had to check back to when I mentioned the futon and found reading the post of 23rd April a bit depressing as since then I have barely managed a decent run. As people say, you can’t predict injuries but really, sports people get injured, not desperate housewives out for a light jog surely? Yesterday I took some stronger painkillers and went for a run anyway (aha, you see, you thought I’d gone all sensible without the wine, that’s much more Julia-like isn’t it?) as I am beginning to panic about next weekend. I managed about 4ks and wore my 3 f’s t-shirt (fit, fast and fabulous) for motivational purposes (it distracted me at least as I thought of alternatives – flabby, frantic and foolish?). I’m now beginning to see the run like childbirth –something to be endured in order to get a great result. It is lucky it’s all for such a good cause, otherwise the towel may have been thrown in a while ago.
Darcy is back at school today after having a quiet week recovering from his last immunotherapy treatment. It is humbling to imagine what he is enduring and here I am complaining of sore ankles.
Six days to go, roll on Sunday I say! Thanks everyone for your support.
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Julia Cahill's words 