monday...

I slept so badly last night. It’s not often that I toss and turn unable to switch off. My throat felt dry and my nose felt itchy, and my mind was a strange mix of whirling, mubbled thoughts. I was too hot and just couldn’t get comfortable. So I’m not feeling great today. My mind is not sharp, even after an extra large, strong flat white. 

During the night my mind drifted between the book I’m reading, a story set in the 18th century about incest, obsession and control. My 86 year old dad, currently in hospital, after a series of falls, resulting in cracked ribs and incontinence, which means he’ll be unable to attend my brothers wedding in Germany this week, and the decision we (as a family) have to make about whether he is fit enough to travel to Australia and then New Zealand to attend his granddaughter’s (my niece's) wedding in November. It’ll break his heart not to come here, he’s been counting down the days all year. Thoughts about aging parents and the switching emotions between love, and guilt and burden, logistics and memories, of telling Dad he has to go into a nursing home. Willing myself to go to sleep because of the early alarm call for the start of the new school term. The decision about what to put in the kids sandwiches. My disappointment about not getting out on the boat (to our island paradise) this weekend due to the flipping annoying wind that won’t seem to go away. Hearing the wind rattle and shake the house, smelling the dust in the air, because we haven’t had decent rain for so long, and the putrid, shitting fertilizer smell from the garden...

With the classic Boomtown Rats hit, ‘I don’t like Mondays’ playing in my head... I wish you all a Happy Monday readers!