Louisa Simmonds

I’ve been in a bit of a rather unattractive and sweaty, sick fug for the past few days.

Unfortunately I packed ‘la gripe’ (flu) in my suitcase when we left France and it has ravaged my pathetic defenceless body with hot sweats, aching limbs, headaches and a chesty cough for the past few days. Uncharacteristically, one of my symptoms is an inappropriately insatiable desire for food, (and alcohol has proven once again to be the best form of medication), meaning that sympathy from the old man and his family has not been unconditional.

So caught up have I been in my hypochondria near death experience, that I almost forgot one of my main duties as a blogger, that of commenting on important annual events such as the advent of the new year.

English: Peking Duck, being dried for 5 hours. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So dire has been my self-imposed exile to the bedroom and away from the hubbub and general awkwardness of being with the old man’s family for longer than 12 hours, I almost completely skipped the familial Hogmanay festivities and implications, (apart from an multipally orgasmic Chinese meal that included five Peking Duck pancaskes that I carefully packed myself with all the most succulent and un-fatty pieces of duck, and which I somehow managed to summon my last reserves of energy to inhale from their plastic containers just prior to collapsing back into bed with the Panadeine Extra and a G and T in the disguise of a bottle of water).

So I haven’t really had time to consider the full contents of my regret box of 2012, and what will no doubt end up being the dashed hopes of 2013; or even how I WILL this year change the old man’s ways no matter what the old wives might say about leapards and spots.

The old man and I do generally compile a list of sorts on New Year‘s Eve, albeit less of a resolution list and more of a To Do/How To Improve/Stay Married list.

Exercise always features prominently because we find that thinking about it does go part of the way to making us feel better about not actually doing it. Being better parents is another annual aim, but as my therapist has told me categorically NOT to focus my anxiety on mother-guilt for the time-being, I have decided to pass that particular mantle  on to the old man this year. We both had ‘new hobbies’ on last year’s and this is one I can confidently tick off with my writing, although I am not sure that either the old man’s singular bike ride to the local shop in August counts as ‘sport’ or the barbequing of sausages last Australia Day (and they were pink inside) really count as ‘cooking’ for his.

However, we may have ‘improved our lifestyle’ with our impending evacuation to the city. The old man will be cutting down on his commute and will have time to utter more than his current few words (‘to the Valley of Death’) to me before leaving for work and will not have any excuse for flashing the torturous en suite lights directly into my eyes at some ridiculously anti-social time of the night which is when he currently leaves, so that he can get in early enough to read the paper and use the office toilet before pretending to work.

The ADHDer will be donning his new ballet tights and leotard, plastering his Glee white-toothed grin across his face and all that jazz en route to becoming the next Hugh Jackman Billy-Joe Armstrong, while Nerd Queen should be happily ensconced in a laboratory somewhere in Physics Road with a bevy of equally socially-challenged nerdy Asians and a bunsen burner.

And meanwhile I will be lighting the home fires at our new terrace close to the city, anxiously waiting for a new and fulfilling career to choose me, like I have done many times before when the grass appeared greener and the family uprooted for pastures new. ‘Writing the book’ is on the list again and there is every chance that this year will be the year that I will fulfil my writing dream and think of a plot that is fluid and characters with some character.

Or maybe I’ll be really radical and just be ‘grateful for what I have’….

Unlikely though.

#dreams #todolist #newyearresolution #Health #Family #flue #Life #NewYear