Stir Crazy

I am writing my latest blog from the comfort of my sofa. This has pretty much been the sole location of my butt since last Friday when I returned home from my  recent work trip to Belgium.  Why oh why I hear you ask. No I am not still waiting for the Sky man. He did turn up in the end and installed me a fandabydosy satelitter dish too. My HD is rocking now. Really it is. And no I have not turned into a couch potato… well not quite. Not yet anyway…

Basically I have been a poorly pup. If I am honest I am not the most patient patient. I don’t like to take time off work at all. Last Monday I managed to develop an infection in my wisdom tooth. I would like to stress at this point that whoever called them wisdom teeth must not have had any. I certainly feel no wiser for having mine. They should be called teeth too big for your head. That would be a more fitting description.

Anyway I managed to get myself over to the dentist where she performed a rather unsightly cleaning procedure on my gum involving a needle and sweep manoevre. I shall say no more. She then packed me off with some nasty antibiotics, a syringe (yes really) and some extra strong mouth wash which I had to use 6 times a day via said syringe. In addition she advised me to max out the painkillers (yes these were her words) to control nails down black board irritating kind of constant pain.  All this the day before I was hopping on Eurostar to go away for 4 days for work….

My first dilemma was the whole syringe on Eurostar. I mean I travel quite a bit and I know they don’t like me taking tweezers let alone a damn needle. Dentist suggested I hid in my big bag. I decided to whack in my handbag mainly because I did not want embarrassment of having to unpack my smalls on the security belt at St Pancras (yes that has happened to me before at Baltimore airport because I had a bloody paper weight in my bag - on that occasion Security guard put on rubber gloves and proceeded to take each item of clothing from my bag one by one in front of male work colleague – blush is not the word).  I also put all my drugs in my handbag to demonstrate I really was sick and had prescription medication.  As it turned out I blurted out I had a needle in my bag when arriving  at security and naturally they asked me to get rid of it. I am such a fool. When I last went through Munich airport I was wearing boots and I asked the guard if I had to take them off and he said yes so I had to remove and walk through security with socks pulled up over jeans to enable boots to fit over the top. Stylish.  The man behind me laughed and said mistake number one – never ever ask.  I seem to want to confess everything…

The Dental first aid kit (good job I have a BIG hadbag..)

Anyhow this meant without the syringe I was unable to direct the extra strong mouthwash the result being I could not feel my tongue by the time I got home Friday. I actually think all of the sensation had been stripped by whatever the hell is in that stuff. The good news was the tooth is way better. The bad news, I seemed to have developed a flu like illness (NOT manflu) and lost the feeling in my tongue for about 3 days. Yes attractive I know. This may have been related to the fact that I still decided to travel when I clearly wasn’t well but you know you only live once…

Therefore I have spent the first 3 days of this week working from home. Unlike many I am not a big fan of working from home. Mainly because I like to see people. Ok yes I like to chat. Having spent the past 3 days at home I have discovered 3 things –

1.              Daytime TV was made to make people want to go to work. I mean to drive them out of their houses. I love Holly and Phil but honestly even I can only manage one day of daytime TV. They even have a program about buying people house gifts – I mean what happened to Supermarket Sweep and good daytime TV like that? I actually KNOW someone who went on supermarket sweep. Oh yes, how cool am I? Anyway telly was turned off in the day after day 1.

2.              My post actually arrives in the afternoon. Sometimes not until 3 or 4pm. I thought post people finished work by midday? My postman also wears shorts all year round. When its freezing, snowing or boiling. Always shorts. I think I may have to write to the post office and ask to give him some long trousers. He will catch a death.

3.              When my mobile and blackberry do not work people panic. Big time. On Monday the Vodafone network went down completely because of vandalism. This actually meant to tell my boss I was working from home I had to get out of bed at 6am, log in and email her because neither of my phones worked, nor text, nor BBM. Of course it took my about 30 minutes of switching said devices off and on and removing batteries to realise that actually maybe it wasn’t just me… Eventually I logged in from my Sofa, consulted the oracle that is twitter and emailed a few people to let them know I was at home and Vodafone was down. In the afternoon I received an email from one Manager who had clearly not seen the news (I am sort of impressed by his diligence here as he obviously had not been on msn or yahoo all day long – shall make sure his manager is aware of this level of commitment for his mid year review...).  The email said I have tried ringing you 10 times. Your phone is broken. I immediately panicked thinking – why 10 times what’s happened? has someone collapsed, did someone resign etc. Turns out he just wanted a chat about arranging a meeting in 2 weeks time. Brilliant. I sort of love people like that because I am the total opposite. Keeps me on my toes.  Anyway I definitely appreciated those 5 little bars and the GPRS icon on my phone WAY more on Tuesday as a result.

So my objectives have been a bit on hold the past few weeks. No training. No healthy eating and I spent 6 euros on a bloody magazine at Brussels station on Friday. Yes yes I know but I was sick and weak! I have sold a few things on ebay though which was VERY exciting.  I am arranging some PT sessions for when I am better though to get me back in the zone (assuming it doesn’t kill me first.).

In the meantime I am determined to brave the sardine can that is the central line tomorrow in a desperate bid to once again mix with civilisation, well people anyway….considering whether tomorrow is the day to give the Michael Jackson mask an airing…(might get me a seat at least?).

Wish me luck. Till next time….x