Sunday, December 05, 2021

Awake forever and whirlwind northern holidays...

I had no idea it'd been such a long time since I'd posted. Last month we had a major deadline at work, which got pretty stressful by the end. I had some minor IT issues on the work's PC - W10 forgetting who I was, lost me 5 hours because the first IT guy tried to back up my C: to my C: , why yes, it DID run out of space! - then having to install the RAM myself on a new PC - pretty sure we're not insured for that sort of thing. Lots of minor things, which I would normally laugh off, get taken way too personally by me and keep me awake at night. This is my first time doing GMT on the epilepsy meds, and apparently they can cause insomnia (which is always a problem for me at this time of the year ANYWAY). Ironically, stress and insomnia make seizures more likely. Couple all that with the DVLA taking 13 weeks to send me the updated version of the form I sent them in August - I ended up taking advice from a lovely lady at an epilepsy charity because my brain was so shot I couldn't tell the difference between surrender and revocation; handy tip - the latter isn't voluntary! So I am now officially without wheels - I know technically this was old news, but it still stung a bit, it now being  official. Passing my driving test is up there with getting my current job and getting my degree for me.  

The Cog booked us a lovely week away - two days retail therapy in Leeds, two days in a posh spa hotel that we could have happily stayed in longer, were it not for our burgeoning bill, and two days in a more basic hotel on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales / Forest of Bowland (but it was a suite! My first ever!). I caught up with a much-missed work colleague in Leeds  - I believe I may have talked her head off, whoops - and it snowed, which is only romantic when you don't have to drive anywhere, and we didn't, so hooray! We celebrated G's birthday at the expensive hotel and both got massages - one of the barmen grew up in Coventry, madness! We had a nice lunch in Skipton en route to the last hotel, not visited since I was a teenager, when my dad's poor car broke down, leading to a very scary 12mph drive back into town and a day locked in the apartment with my younger sister, whilst my parents spent the day clambering over scrapyards trying to get a replacement part, which rather ate into the rest of our holiday money. He had an Austin A40 and had tinkered with it, and something to do with the fan belt sheered off I think. Poor dad - always the frustrated mechanic - found a garage that could repair it, but the car was so old that Dad had to go find a compatible part! We had a lovely pit stop in Morecombe (soo cold it tried to sand our faces off!) and did the obligatory posing in front of Eric Morecombe's statue, before a gentle drive back through the dales, and a lovely hot soup lunch at a tiny pub in Sedbergh. I saw so many places I would like to revisit at leisure - yes I know flights and hotels in Europe are much cheaper and the weather is nicer, but there are some real jewels in England too! We usually go away for G's birthday, but the whole LFT/PCR testing thing seemed to be a lot of trouble - just obtaining some LFT tests this weekend was a PITA, no wonder people aren't bothering! We have been making ourselves laugh, randomly yelling catchphrases from the Fast Show and we really reconnected last week, so it was worth it just for that. Strange that we have both WFH for 21 months yet need to go away to reconnect, isn't it?! :) 

It was a lovely week, but my sleep schedule hasn't been very regular - I defy anyone to have less than one alcoholic drink per day (with the evening meal) on holiday - so I am back but quite tired! On the plus side, we got quite a lot of our xmas shopping finished up last week. I only have a few more things to make / buy and I'm done! Ironically I took three or four craft projects with me, and didn't open the bag all week. There has been a bit of sewing going on, but some of it is for xmas so I can't show it here. 

Anyway, I won't bore you further! G is very kindly sleeping on the sofa for a few nights so I can get back into the swing of things, and I am feeling quite a bit better than before I went away, so that's something I guess! I tried to log in on the work's PC before we went away, just to check some insurance details - Storm Arwen had blown around the house all night and freaked me out enough to get "laid up" insurance on the car - but Windows 10 had forgotten who I was again. That's Monday's problem, anyway. Ha! New laptop, new bugs! 

I hope, if you made it this far, that you are safe and well and hunkering down for the indoors season. Stay safe and well! 

Current mood: exhausted

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