Up The Farway Tree

I finally made it back to work after four weeks sick leave, and a weeks holiday prior to that. Funnily enough, it's as if I never left. And I don't really mean that in a fuzzy warm kind of way. More of a "*sigh* could someone remind me why I got out of my bed this morning?!" kind of way. I do know however that I need work to keep me focused, motivated and grounded in reality. Otherwise I'm in grave danger of becoming overly absorbed in CF, symptoms, treatments and day time TV. All of which are dangerous past times. Although I seriously didn't want to crawl out of bed this morning (and would have paid a large sum of money not to) I was actually pleased with my general energy levels and did manage to get through the morning relatively unscathed. Granted I hardly did any work, and got home an hour early, but best not to rush things on my first day ;)

I say relatively unscathed because there was the incident of nearly knocking down a cyclist on the way home. If I had done so, I would however not have been in any way to blame. She was after all on my side of the road and heading straight towards me. Or at least she was trying to. To let you understand, the area I live in is, shall we say, elderly in its population. So basically this old nut job, dressed in a pink velour tracksuit and daz whiter than white trainers, is astride this monstrosity of a bike, wavering in an alarming fashion and frantically trying to get the damned thing going. The fact she was rather rotund in shape and substantial in proportions may have had something to do with her difficulties. The other problem was the inflexibility of her trainers...you know the type that have soles so thick you would survive being struck by lightening several times over. So, there I am driving along at a sedate and sensible 30mph (or thereabouts) when I swing round the corner and am faced with this large pink object, complete with shock of white hair, careering towards me. Of course I braked sharply (although there may have been a slight delay while my brain attempted to make sense of the scene; then gave up). Luckily at the last minute she gave an almighty push, got some purchase on the peddles and managed to swerve onto the other side of the road. What happened after that is anybodies guess but I'm sure other drivers would not fail to miss her with that tracksuit on. Whether by "not fail to miss her" I mean not fail to see her, or not fail to hit her, is entirely open to your own interpretation.

I have spent the rest of the afternoon recovering from my first morning back at work and my encounter with the large pink pensioner. I have also found myself bizarrely creeping around my own house in an extremely stealth like fashion, making sure I don't creak a floor board or open a door too loudly. No, I am not in training for a career as a professional burglar, but I am instead trying very had not to wake Seb up. I can't believe my luck that after having been left all morning he has gone back to sleep. You have no idea what a luxury this is for me. You have to understand that Seb has 2 modes..sleep and play. Eating figures in there at times, but unfortunately not even food can distract him from play mode. This mode largely involves him grabbing toys, or preferably items of footwear if available (even if this means removing item from a nearby foot) and running about the sitting room. When this behaviour does not grab your attention, taking toy or footwear onto couch and rolling about with it is the next stage. If again, this fails to bring desired effect, then dropping toy and grabbing couch and trying to wrestle this instead is sure to bring me to my feet. We usually then enter into the game of Seb being removed from room for 'time out' then being let back in only to dive straight back onto couch, grab some fabric, hold it in his mouth while lying motionless and watching me sideways with large wide eyes to gauge the reaction. Needless to say the reaction is prompt removal from the room again..and so we go on. He does not appear to learn from this process, and in fact I imagine he thinks the whole pantomime is a game especially deigned for his enjoyment.

Lastly I have to mention the lovely day I had on Saturday. I had my good friends and their partners over for a bite to eat and a general catch up. They are my best friends from school, so we go a long way back but have somehow managed to keep in touch during that time. It was great to see every one and I even managed to cook some food, which appeared to go down well. I'm glad no one saw the kitchen an hour earlier though..the word 'bombsite' springs to mind. The fact that Seb was diving around under my feet and managing to catch food that flew from my mixing bowel gives an indication that I am no Delia Smith (although I do take my rings off when baking...have you ever seen Delia on TV sticking her ring laden podgy fingers into some pastry dough? Gross). Seb was also keen to sample the food post-baking stage, and was found on 2 separate occasions on the dining room table tucking into pavlova left overs. What was wrong with my fruit crumble, I didn't like to ask. Anyway I digress. It was a lovely day all round, and if you are reading this ladies, then thank you for your great company. Its good to know I have such fab friends supporting me; and more importantly, making me smile :)