Saturday, July 30, 2005
Not Quite Myself
The bus stop at the foot of Leith Walk was relatively quiet for a Saturday morning. There were no queues, no prams and more importantly, a lack of buses. I was several minutes standing at the bus-stop before I realised today is another day of strike action by those wonderful Lothian Bus drivers.
With only an hour spare between dropping Laura off at her dance class and collecting her again, the strike put paid to my planned trip into Edinburgh for an hour browsing books and records. Instead, I bought a copy of the Racing Post, and sat reading it with a cup of coffee in the Leith Walk Cafe.
I'd never been in it before, but it reminded me of a 'greasy spoon' cafe I used to frequent on the Seven Sisters Road in London. Both made extremely hot coffee and both were run by several wee wifies, passing on their years of experience raising children to the locals by producing favourite fried meals and inexpensive snacks.
It was raining steadily as I gazed outside at the shiny tarmac street and passing cars. The streets were ghostly quiet because of the lack of buses and the smell of smoke from the tin-foil ashtrays that kept my attention from wandering too far.
Half an hour passed and it was time to return to the shambles of the dance school to get Laura. Organistion is not something they seem to comprehend. She wasn't happy about having to walk home but at least I got to try out my new jacket and see just how much it could keep the rain out.
The day was slow and stressful. Laura had a number of her school pals in, and when they were joined by several of her friends in the neighbourhood the house was as busy and noisy as it has ever been - ever. Children kept turning up at the door until eventually we had to turn them all out into the street; there were too many to handle and of course I got practically no work done for the noise and kids running amok.
I did manage to order new furniture for my office, which is coming along nicely. I should have a new desk and filing cabinet withint 3 weeks.
Gail took Laura to the cinema in the evening and I used the time to write. Half way through I was hit by a coughing fit and I was unexpectedly sick; some of it splashing onto the laptop. No worry - it's the Company's. They'll give me another should this one stop working.
Before long, it was time to go into the office to carry out an installation of software on the company mainframe. Oh, what fun. Glory be.
My stomach still felt a bit dodgy and to add to it I've now started to develop a bit of a hacking cough. I took some cough medicine to try and appease it before it got too much but the dodgy stomach remained with me into the night.
I'm feeling quite low today. I can't explain it - just not feeling myself.3 Comments:
Take two aspirin, go to bed, and make anybody under 21 go outside.
Doc Ann
(My bill is in the mail)
Hey, and be glad that Laura is so popular! Sure, it sucks to have all those kids around, but think of how well-rounded and normal (and confident!) she'll turn out to be...
;-)