Catching up

Not in the good sense, but as in stress catching up. My body has finally decided to shut down in protest. No, not totally (I'm here, aren't I?), but in a way it did on two other occasions in the past 20 years when I was seriously overdoing it. Unfortunately at 45 it takes a lot less for me to react this way as it did at 25, when the combination of a new teaching job, rewriting notes I left at college the previous year by accident, and spending two evenings a week doing a master's degree made me almost collapse two weekends running. As I already had a reasonable teaching job I decided to earn my money and let the master's go, as I would have had two more years with no income had I stayed on, which was too much of a luxury. I swapped it for a three year counselling course which only took up one morning a week and no effort at all except the long journey.

This time all the dentist and following hospital visits, combined with the constant letter writing and form-filling to try and get my income reinstated (don't ask!) and worry about having no income with a flurry of massive bills eventually took its toll and allowed the germs in and the energy out until I found it very hard to do anything. I'm going to have to cut down massively and have little choice in letting down all sorts of people for a while if they want me to do anything beyond my current limits.

Meanwhile life goes on, and I do what I can, as I still seem to pick up later in the afternoons. I've played a mean set of tennis (lost, but to a far better opponent and was up 4-3), am about to start two more paintings for the gallery, and have seen my house transformed to the 21st century, with all the whitewashing being done next (it's a white house of course...). I also extended my weightlifting record today, not by weight but repeats at my top level. Though it's almost 3 times the weight I started with one of the younger and newer members just walked in and lifted the one up from mine, so though I am impressed it's only a relative landmark and nothing impressive in gym terms... (50kg overhead lifts if anyone knows the system).
I have no idea (as always) what crap may be ahead. The trouble is it's not evenly or logically distributed, and just because there's none expected and I've dealt with most of the previous mountain doesn't stop any new surprises coming.
Of course, though great minds agree the bias in life is towards failure and loss, it could be different, and money may miraculously appear to fill the space and other people may fill the space in my life where presently they are also missing. I'm learning a new technique to improve my life at the moment as well (not the first but the best looking from a logic point of view). It's not a secret one (for a change) so if it works I'll mention it more, otherwise this is all I'll add!

I did go briefly to this year's Big Brother final's party (outside) as I did the last two, after an hour held up in road works, but the buggers had covered the window so it was impossible to see anything. There were still a few groupies outside who appeared to be watching the studio car park like a small flock of sheep. I have no idea why, all the housemates got into vans with darkened windows in the rear car park previously and were impossible to see once the cars left the building. But anyhow we didn't care as we saw them all partying, plus they came out to talk to us last year. Meeting Harry Hill was more the next step on the ladder for me after fulfilling my top celeb ambition, and though I did dream I met Craig and Anthony on the final and following nights, it wasn't possible in reality this time round.