Long Weekend

The weekend was quite a nice one. One part written off for sickness/rest, one part productive, one part lazy. After belated birthday drinks with my workmates on Thursday night, which resulted in a night later than I had planned, my cold returned on Friday night. I felt exhausted, hungry and really worn down. I had a nice long shower at about 8pm, deciding to try out my new in-shower hair removal cream on my underarms and legs. A few minutes after application, my underarms were stinging. Attempts to rinse didn’t go too well, since the cream is designed to stay on while you shower, so I used the sponge provided to remove it. What I didn’t realise was that the stinging was my skin reacting rather violently to the product, and as a result, the sponge which is meant to help remove the hair, also removed much of my skin with it. After finally getting the cream off, I finished showering, got dried and dressed, now not only feeling exhausted, sore-throated and sick, but in pain with throbbing, raw, weeping armpits. That’s the last time I bother with that.

Feeling rather miserable, I went to sleep at about 9pm, waking several times in the night and coughing plenty, waking eventually at about 9.30am feeling worse than the night before. I smothered my skin in antiseptic cream again and then stumbled downstairs for some breakfast, announcing that I wouldn’t be joining the rest of the family at church, but would be staying at home resting. I ate heartily, had some tea and then eventually watched the service at church via their online streaming, on Mum’s laptop, in bed. After the service, I went back to sleep, waking later rather grumpily when they arrived home.

When we eventually got home, it was about 9.30pm. I had some food and retreated to my room to watch some telly and have a rest. I have been getting fed up of travelling everywhere lately, to and from work, to the rents’ and back, to Samson’s, to work and then home again. Samson said he would come over on Sunday to see me, as I had a few things I wanted to get done in the morning anyway. I woke up at 9am, got up, made tea and had some breakfast, returned to bed for a bit and then got to work. I tidied up some long-overdue bits of stuff in my room, managing to fill two plastic bags full of rubbish and one big sack full of recycling (mainly paper). I vacuumed the floor and then started going through the boxes of jewellery and accessories I want to sell on eBay. I took photos of most of the items and sorted them into batches, also sorting out a box of packaging supplies like padded envelopes, bubble-wrap, tissue paper and so on. I was still covered in antiseptic cream, partly for my still-sore armpits and partly for my face which was covered with blemishes and not looking its best. My hair was scraped back and I was in trusty house clothes of leggings and a long slouchy t-shirt. I wasn't going to bother having a shower until I had finished most of the tidying, or I’d just get all hot, sweaty and dusty again anyway. At about 12.30, I was still mid-swing and was just about to start sorting through the huge mound of clothes in the corner, when Samson rang. I hadn’t heard from him all morning and assumed he was probably having a lie-in and would text me when he woke up or was on his way.

“Let me in, let me in!” he said, laughing.
“Haha, where are you?” I laughed back, thinking he was joking.
“Er…I’m outside.”
Slight pause. Oh, that’s why you asked me to let you in.
“I thought I’d surprise you!”
“Yeah...you did. My room is still a mess and so I am I! I’ll be down in a minute…”

Thanks to my newly-cut fringe, I could at least hide a little behind my hair, but still felt hugely embarrassed at my unwashed, unkempt appearance. I couldn’t even be annoyed that he’d turned up without warning, he was so enthusiastic at being there to surprise me and I thought it was sweet that he made the effort to get to me quite early, seeing as we live about an hour apart and neither of us are really morning people. “I won’t do anything,” he said, coming into my room and sitting in the corner, on the bed, “I’ll just be here, I won’t get in your way.” Luckily, the pre-World Cup England friendly against Japan was on telly, so he sat there watching that, while I pottered around getting stuff done. I still have loads to do, but taking photos of the 100+ items of jewellery, plus several bags, pairs of shoes and items of clothing, was the slog I wanted to get out of the way. We chilled in the afternoon, ordered a curry for dinner and watched some Quantum Leap (he has all 5 series on DVD and we are going through them – now on series 2, disc 2).

Monday morning, I woke up with a splitting headache. We chilled in bed for a bit, then I made us cups of tea and a sausage sandwich each for brunch. Samson channel surfed on telly, while I tried to fight against the throbbing pain and get my stuff together. Late afternoon we set off, stopping on the way to get snacks, food for dinner and dessert. We arrived home to an empty flat, had a sandwich and cuppa, put some washing on, watched some telly, ironed my dress for work, did a bit of washing up, I had a shower, had a quick chat with his housemates who returned from a weekend away, had dinner, then retreated to bed for a bit more Quantum Leap, before drifting off to sleep. All very domestic and not necessarily exciting, but all very, very lovely.