Medical lies, wildernesses and chat

A slight relapse on the health front this morning, I fear - my nose has a mind of its own, alas (and how I've always wanted to use "alas" in a blog, so that's hugely cheering ...). And I feel as if my head is full of mud. Could I have caught the cold a second time from Lord H - who is now feeling better? An image of the future stretches ahead in which the cold becomes something that never leaves us, scary thought ...

Anyway, I was determined that today we would have our holiday jabs, come what may - as we're off next week and are taking it to the wire. As it were. So when the lovely nurse prepared her syringe and asked if I was feeling well enough, I looked her straight in the eyes and lied for Britain. Well, sometimes it's best for the medical profession not to know entirely everything - if only for the stress levels of the patient.

But thank goodness I have a day off today - I don't think I could have coped with being at work, as whatever it is - the cold, the jab, me - I feel as if I could sleep for a week. And some. Despite that, however, I have bravely faced down my half-finished short story, The Wilderness Room, and I have actually finished it, hurrah! It's turned out roughly similar to what I envisaged too, so that's a miracle in itself. It feels nice to have got it down - I do so hate things floating around half-done.

I've also managed to cobble together a morning meditation:

Meditation 72

In the middle of the parties,
the poor are a shadow

at the corner of your field,
at the edge of your eye.

You remember them
when the last of the grain

is gathered, the last
of the crop cut.

Do not keep what you do not need
and let your hand be open

to the song of the wind,
to the sky’s wideness.


Exhausted by all this excitement, I then collapsed on the bed and have spent a whole three hours asleep. Three hours! What a waste of an afternoon, my grandma would say ... Still, as she's dead, I don't need to worry about her opinion, hurrah, and I so definitely needed the nap. I'd even go so far as to say I feel a little better now.

Which can only be a good thing, as tonight I'm out with some old workmates (old as in former - we're all young and glamorous, naturally ...) for dinner and chat at a local restaurant, so I'm looking forward to catching up for sure. Just hope I don't fall asleep over the pasta - that wouldn't be very Surrey.

Today's nice things:

1. Getting the jabs sorted at last
2. A day off
3. Finishing my short story
4. Poetry
5. Napping - big-time!
6. Dinner out.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website - just about keeping its eyes open