Billygean.co.uk

Sigh. I hate what ME (or whatever was/is wrong with me) does to people.

Link.

It, like, blows. Leave comments please!

So. Horrible week went quite well. I went to Sheffield yesterday with BathShop for training (rubbing lotions on, smelling bathbombs, talking about our feelings!) and got in really late because of horrible delayed trains and so on, but! I did buy a dress, a cardigan and some bangles before the day even really began. (“Billygean’s day in Sheffield,” MindReader mocked, “the day she spent more than she earnt.”)

I am really really quite tired today. But functioning-tired, and going to work later, so that’s good.

MindReader left just a few minutes ago for another stag do (its counterpart wedding is the one I bought the dress for), and I’m going to MadFather’s tonight after work and then to DoctorSister’s tomorrow after work when we’re going OUT FOR A MEAL and to see Bill Bailey which shall be nice!

I have in the meantime discovered twitpic and in the last 24 hours alone have tweeted my new clothes that I bought and how I covered my bath in glitter, so if I don’t blog that’s where I can be found!

This photo appeared on facebook just. We REALLY need to stop canoodling in public like we’ve been together 2 months, not two years!

I walk out of the office, sun in my hair. I look at the other commuters and wonder what they went through to get here, working.

I don’t use my iPhone to direct me to the station, feeling smug and like I can remember. I walk up the hill and turn right. The train station is quainter than I remember, with little antique tills (although nobody is sitting on them).

I walk to the only platform even though I swear there were four this morning.

I can’t find a monitor thing with train times anywhere so I ask the only person I can see, pulling into the station on a train with steam coming out of the top of it.

“Where is this train going? I say, motioning to get on it. He blocks my way, tipping his flat cap to me.

“Erm, nowhere,” he says.

I frown and deem him to be crazy. I look around and see no train times and check my watch and realise that my train is late.

It is at this exact moment that I see the giftshop.

I am in the RAILWAY MUSEUM. TRYING TO BOARD TRAINS.

Needless to say, I missed my real train, at the real station down the road.

So.

In terms of tiredness, The Day At The Office went well.
But.

I did have some issues.

1. I picked up MindReader’s lunch by mistake, despite him saying to me, “make you sure don’t pick up the wrong lunch!” In my defence, I didn’t realise that he, too, had made a sandwich type thing and surrounded it with crisps and chocolate buttons in a sandwich box! We are way too similar. Anyway – this resulted in me stalking across town cursing Coeliacs disease, Glandular Fever and the lack of availability of NON WHEAT products for hungry people, as my Twitter evidences. I ate some melon, an orange and a banana. Bearing in mind I eat a BIG MEAL approximately every three hours I was hungry enough by lunchtime to walk across town to the Morrisons where I bought some wheat-free scones.

2. Somebody left a comment on my blog that evening. Basically (and hi! Nicky!) they said they got well, went back to work and RELAPSED. While, short of very early on in the whole ME/Coeliacs/Glandular fever saga, I did relapse/remit, I haven’t since and I have experienced only progress (albeit sometimes mind-numbingly,slow), apart from the odd flu. Touch wood.

But this is the second person to come forward and say this. Let me tell you, it is one thing living with the dim notion that it can sometimes come back and a whole other thing to have someone tell you that it happened to them. But, actually, I’m not in a position to say, actually, I think I’ll spend the day at home today, because I have no money and the government is crap and doesn’t think I have a real illness/thinks I haven’t paid enough national Insurance Credits/Thinks MindReader’s pittance salary should be enough to keep me and pay off all his law school loans.

So, I don’t really know what I’m saying, except that I had a cry in the loo, and I really hope it doesn’t happen to me.

I am very nervous today.

Tomorrow – office.

And then, I’m at BathShop on Tuesday and going on a training day in SHEFFIELD on Thursday which is a very early morning but with the promise of lots of free stuff.

And then on Friday we are MOVING HOUSE.

And then on Saturday I am at Bathshop, MindReader is in London on another stag do, and I am going to Nottingham to see DoctorSister and her cats.

My body is now quite used to being busy – indeed in just a week I notice I can do a ten hour shift at Bathshop now without my legs aching – and we frequently go out too late or take really long walks and all that. It’s just really the sleeping thing that holds me back now. I continue to moan that I have made no improvements. Back in January when we moved into this flat, I was pretty useless on less than 10 hours’ sleep and that continues to be the case now. I’ve got a little better at – I hate to say it – managing the tiredness, in that I know I CAN go to work on 7 hours’ sleep and be okay at carrying things and talking to customers. But the fact of how I feel – drunk, so tired sleep is all I can think about sometimes, achey, dry eyes – is just the same.

I thought this, until MadFather pointed out that in February I turned down a lecture at 10am because I wouldn’t be able to concentrate. And that I used to say I was so tired I was dizzy – a fact which has, thankfully, passed. So, I can only conclude that the fatigue is receeding, and I just can’t tell. Which is why I think I have to push myself. Even if I did just read a story about someone on the Action For ME website who GOT WELL and then had a relapse and has been BEDRIDDEN ever since. *breathes*. I think it is a fact all chronic illness sufferers have to deal with: it can come back, and it is good enough to smell the freshly cut grass until it does.

So: I have absolutely no idea if I’m going to remain well enough this week to do all the things that I want to do, but I think it’s come to the point where I have to try. I have to know my limits so I can begin to try and push them. As nice as it is to work part time at BathShop and at home, it can’t be forever and I need to know how far off joining the real world of 9 – 5 I actually am.

In short this week is packed with bad and scary things. Returning to a near-full time week. My beloved boyfriend going away. moving house. Being on a train to Sheffield at 7:53am. I am counting down the next 7 days.

But then, I remember a time when I moaned that i was depressed because the momentum of life comes from having to ‘get through’ bad things and look forward to good things, and lying on the sofa all day every day didn’t really cut it as a reward. The fact that I’m even contemplating doing this is a leap and a bound, admittedly one I never even wanted to BE a big deal if I hadn’t GOT GLANDULAR FUCKING FEVER IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Still – rant over, wish me luck.

MindReader just made me:

Homemade (as in, olive oil, fresh basil, mint!) pesto with gluten-free pasta. Roasted tomatoes, peppers, garlic and red onion. Chicken wrapped in bacon with little fresh basil leaves tucked inside. And. gluten-free garlic bread (fresh garlic!) with mozarella.

Could he be more perfect? (see twitter for photo!)

“Now,” MindReader says, “what are you going to do tomorrow morning?”

MindReader and I have spent the evening frantically tidying, which, since I’m coming to the end of a 40 hour week is fairly impressive. Oh body – well done!

We’re having a flat viewing tonight. It is quite important that they take it, because we kind of made a blunder in that WE DIDN’T READ THE CONTRACT (to think, we BOTH got distinctions!), and didn’t give the right notice period. We now owe them £262 unless these people take the flat.

Hence, it is VERY VERY tidy.

I pause for a moment. “Make my coffee, check my emails…”

He looks mildly exasperated. “And?”

“Um, ooh! Do some work.”

“Mmmm?”

“Ooh I know, bake some cakes so the flat smells nice!”

“No, Billygean, keep the flat CLEAN, you know, clean up as you go!”

“Okay,” I say, “ono problem.”

“And Billygean?”

“Yes?”

“I mean like – real person-clean. Not Billygean-clean.”

“Right.”

(BathShop things relegated to a BOX)

I sit down in HeadofLawCollege’s office and exhale slightly. I am pretty sure I know that I haven’t just got a pass, but that February’s marks were too low for me to get a distinction overall.

“Let’s see,” he says, bringing my results up on the screen. I feel that familiar stomach swooping results-day feeling that I’m pretty sure only overachievers feel.

“Commercial law, 71, Employment law, 83, Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence, 85,” he says. “So – overall – you got a distinction – 74.”

I exhale.

“Okay?” he says, tilting his pink head.

I nod.

“It’s nice,” I say, “to feel – vindicated.”

He pauses. “When I first taught you property in September 07,” he says, “I knew you were a distinction candidate. So really – this is exactly as it should be.”

And I think he might be right.

“Hello,” I say to MindReader.

We’re meeting for lunch. I gesture to the bag I’ve brought containing pasta and pesto. I’m culinary, me.

MindReader passes me a Starbucks and kisses me. He pauses a moment and strokes the side of my head.

I flinch and dodgy away.

“Wha?” He says.

“Oh, please don’t touch my hair,” I say.

“What?” MindReader says. He sits down and tugs my hand.

“I think,” I say, leaning forward, “that I am probably losing my hair.”

MindReader rubs his slightly receeding hairline and smirks at me. “I don’t think so.”

“No no, LOOK,” I say, and lift up a piece of hair just by my hairline, revealing – honestly – a BALD PATCH.

“You have ALWAYS had that,” MindReader says, which doesn’t help that much. “No – maybe…” He says, frowning and staring at my hair.

“WHAT WHAT WHAT,” I say, standing up and covering my hair with my hands.

“Calm down,” he says. “Naughty. Your hair is fine!”

I sit down and open my (corn!) pasta. “How was your morning?” I say, trying to ignore the broad smirk on MindReader’s face.

A wasp lands next to me.

“ARGH!” I say, getting up and flapping about. “OH MY GOD.”

“BILLYGEAN!” MindReader says, standing up too.

“Can we just walk around?” I say. MindReader looks around beautiful St Phillips Square. Everybody is sitting on the grass.

“Sure.”

“Sorry you were saying?” I say.

“Oh, just boring – file closing,” MindReader says. “Can we sit?” he says, gesturing to a monument with little steps.

We sit.

An earwig wanders onto my leg.

I jump up again.

MindReader rolls his eyes and eats his pasta while I scratch my legs and dance around.

“It’s ten to two,” he says, “I have to go now.” He smirks. “Thanks – for coming,” he says. “It was great!”