Grumpy Old Bat

I don't know what's happening this week, but I feel like a complete wreck. Bits of me ache, not the usual bits like back and hips, but I feel like I'm 598 and falling apart. It's very frustrating, as I have been travelling the back lanes of south Somerset and this morning followed a young hen pheasant who hadn't sussed out what to do when meeting a car. I've had the lovely Millie cat to stroke each morning and Tom to snuggle up to in the evening and life should be feeling great, but I feel all urgh and deflated.

Just ignore me, I'm only having a whinge. Work is piling up and I can't see the wood for the trees; in fact, I shouldn't be blogging at all, as I have yet another proposal to write, a contract to draw up and I have to do a telephone tutorial for a client this evening on how to use their new system. Blagh - what I want to do is bury my head under a pillow, pull the duvet over my head and drift away somewhere different. I'm feeling all restless and dying to just pick up, think of a destination and go there. I haven't done that in ages - I used to do it when I was on my own - just think "Oh, I fancy going to Carnac" and I'd book a ferry, cross the chanel and do it.

These days, it's all so... turgid and difficult. It's not my work that keeps me from such things - I am more than happy to work all sorts of odd hours to make the time to be able to do these things, but somehow it's not the same when you have to think about another person and what they do and don't want. I suppose that being on top of each other, literally in next door rooms, for the past five weeks hasn't helped things along - I'm missing the long silences that being on my own gives me.

Actually, writing tht has given me an insight. I like silence and seclusion and I am happy in my own company. I also like socialising, but I like to do it on my own terms and when I want to seek out the company of others, not when it suits them. Sharing a house, which is also a place of work, with someone doesn't give that option and it's not like the normal life of working people when you are separated all day during the week because of working in different places. It's even less normal than just working in the same place all the time, as he often works away from home and I spend all week on my own; just lately, though, he hasn't had much work and the stuff that he has had has been home based. There's no consistency to the home/away pattern and I think that it's this that challenges me. If he works away too long, I miss him and wish he were at home more and if he's home for more than a week or two, I wish he were working away!

Never happy? That's me! Poor man has been slogging away on some particularly sticky code for one of my new projects and doing it with the nasty virus that has been doing the rounds. There has been the odd whimper and groan emmanating from his office, but on the whole, he has been soldiering on valiantly. I have brought him lucozade, magnums (very good for poorly men, I'm told), cherries and strawberries and as much TLC as I could muster and he seems to be recovering. The time has come now, though, for me to break out and have silence and then an adventure. I have no idea what I'm going to do... that's the whole point of an adventure I suppose. Just acting on a whim and going off and doing something new and different... that's what I need.

I'm stretching myself with the work I'm doing, as every time I think I have got to grips with a new technology or topic, something comes along and I'm back to square one - all fine and well (if frustrating at times), but outside of work, I don't feel challenged or like I'm stretching myself or spending my time well - there is so much world to see before I die and the way I'm feeling this week, I don't have long left! Oh dear, what a grumpy old troglodyte I am. And grumpier still because of the high heel red sling-backs...

There comes a time in the fatness of women when wearing high heels is no longer reasonable. When you consider that one's entire body weight is focussed down on to the ball of the foot, one's poor feet can only take so much punishment. I used to live and die in very high heels - it was a sort of trademark. I could flounce about all day and dance all night in long, spiky heels quite happily, but then, I was a dainty little thing. These days, I look like a walrus on steroids and to put that much tonnage on the balls of my feet, a mere few square inches, is just torture.

The trouble is, high heels are so flattering and apart from the added inches of height, make my legs look so much less... doughy. My ankles seemed to miss the message from the rest of my body, and as the blubber piled on elsewhere over the years, my ankles remained firmly slender. Now, you'd think I'd be grateful for such a blessing, but if you wear flat shoes and skirts long enough to cover up the blubber, it just looks plain silly. Big body and tiny, weedy ankles that don't look robust enough to hold up what's above. Anyway, I decided that it was about time I got back on some heels and made the most of my ankles. It's not like anyone will look at me and go "Oh wow! Hasn't she got neat little ankles" and not notice the Pilsbury dough boy wobbling around on top of the ankles, but it seems a shame not to make the most of an advantage.

Erk! I had lost the art of walking in heels. It never occurred to me that I'd have to re-learn that art of walking in high heels, but that's what has happened. I have a wonderful pair of 3 1/2" high heel red sling-backs, very pretty and girly, and I'm lurching about like a stilt-walker who's had a few too many! Not a good or elegant look, I can tell you. So, here I am, tottering about on my red shoes upstairs on soft carpet, trying to regain the art of the slinky walk, the swinging hips à la Monroe and the long lost elegance and I'm failing miserably. So, this too is making me an even more grumpy old troglodyte. Cripes, at this rate I shall have to resort to wearing crimplene dresses, purchased from catalogues with support stockings over big knickers and bowl along the street with a tartan trolley. *sigh* I feel so old.