Best laid plans

So when I said goodbye to my working life last week, albeit with a hacking cough that made the goodbye last a tad longer than it should, I had carefully thought about what I would be doing this week.

First of all, there was going to be a strict curfew and a strict wake up call. Just because I'm not working in an office, doesn't mean that I'm not working, so getting up on time gives me an extra hour free which would usually be wasted on transit, so I could be super-productive.

Second of all, I wasn't going to spend all day on Twitter. I was going to set myself a word count, and a time limit, and I was going to get sh*t done. On time. Overpromising and underdelivering or something like that.

Third of all, when I wasn't doing either one of those things I was going to be catching up on housework that would more usually be shoved into the precious weekend hours. Now those precious weekend hours are even more sacred because they won't contain the work that I used to do during them, but am now going to do all week long. Weekends are for gaming.

I was also a bit worried about how I was going to adjust. After all, I've been working for the same company full-time non-stop for the past twelve years. Not going into the office is going to take some getting used to. I may get emotional. I may get weepy. I may get overexcited and go bouncing around the house laughing and clapping.

This was my plan.

Instead, my darling chose this week to become sick. I'm aware that I bear some of the responsibility for this situation, given that I was infected with a cold my last week of work, but still it could be down to some other vagaries of the universe.

So, I didn't wake up on time on Monday morning because the alarm didn't go off because SOMEONE turned it off when he got up early to cough up a lung.

I also discovered how hard it is to concentrate on writing when someone is sitting forlornly on the couch looking for some kind of sympathy or something?

So day one didn't go quite as well as expected. I still hit my word count, but it wasn't the relaxing experience that I'd been looking forward to. That didn't really matter though. My darling is sick, and he couldn't help it, and he was going to work on Tuesday so it was just one day.

Tuesday morning started better. My alarm went off, and my darling got up and went to the office. I cleaned up a few things, put a few loads of washing on to take advantage of the mid-week sun, and then settled down to walk on the treadmill for my morning exercise.

I then fielded three phonecalls from my darling as he punctuated his journey home via making an appointment, going to the doctor, and then picking up his prescriptions. The phone is in a different room to the treadmill, and I have to wait for it to stop before I can go and answer. Safety first.

Needless to say when he finally turned up on the doorstep coughing and hacking I was tense. The kind of tension I expected to leave behind me in the office last week.

I would just like to point out to my darling (when you get around to reading this, if you ever do) that when I'm sick I don't come into your place of work and sit by your desk expecting sympathy while you're trying to get stuff done. I don't think it's too much to expect the same in return. I'd say 'get your own house,' but it already is so that would just lead to awkward conversations.

Still, I'm holding out great hopes for Wednesday. Yes, yes, I can hear the laughter at my six month plan from here.