Buried

Woke up this morning, as the blues singers sing, entirely free of the godawful bug of yesterday. More or less expected very little on the exercise front though, because today was 'Transport A Second Vanload Of Life To The Seaside' Day - incuding my book, CD and DVD collections, in more boxes than can comfortably be conceived.

The point is that the morning was mostly taken up in a panic of shifting stuff around so the new stuff coming in would sort of, vaguely, if you squint a bit, fit. And much of the afternoon was spent feeling not even slightly guilty watching the movers schlepp half a life up a flight of stairs.

By the time the mover, who also delivered The First Vanload to us, was done, he shook me by the hand and said 'I hope we never meet again.' It was a sentiment with which I could heartily concur - and indeed, we probably won't - Vanload Three arrives Friday, in someone else's van.

By the time they left, I also couldn't find my exercise bike. I mean, I knew roughly where it was, but there were boxes obscuring it no matter whichever angle you looked from. It was like the bike was practising the art of Box-Chaos Camo.

I'm perfectly aware, of course, that there would have been calories for the burning in the uncovering of the bike, but to badly misquote Jerome K Jerome, you'd be surprised how tiring it can be watching others work.

I buggered off for a walk instead, to the accompaniment of UNIT Encounters from Big Finish in my lugholes. I know, I know - there's a certain type of person who's now screaming at me that surely part of the point of going for a walk along a coastal path where the sea crashes up almost to meet you like a young labrador is to experience the sounds of the sea. And...well...yes, I suppose that's true, if you actually hear the sounds of the sea, and not the sounds of your own brain having 16,000 concurrent conversations and ideas the second you stop distracting it with Any Damn Thing Else. For now, me and UNIT, thank you very much.

Walked to Wiseman's Bridge and back, and it wasn't till I was coming back through the last tunnel into Saundersfoot town that I realised there was probably a reason I felt like I'd been hit with bricks. I'd had a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and then hadn't gotten lunch, more or less because I couldn't get to anything to make for lunch, and the movers were trooping in and out and up and down during the traditional lunching hours.

Due to a sliiiight oversight in which the movers had piles boxes up against the fridge in which we keep the milk, and the fair certainty that I didn't have it in me to hack my way through the undergrowth of boxes to liberate the cowjuice, I popped into Tesco. Came out with staples that could see me sorted for a day or two of box-wrangling - more oatmeal, milk, a tin of tomato soup, a loaf of bread, that kind of thing. Then I went to a local Chinese takeaway, and brought home some plain boiled rice and some fried onions.

Now - yes, technically, fried is off the list of acceptable stuff for me. But this is where my 'perspex boxes' get weird. They stretch, they change, irrespective of verifiable reality. For instance, I won't eat yoghurt at the moment, because in the wiring of my brain, that's a dessert, even if it's not eaten after a meal, and the way my brain works, once I've had one dessert, I could have another - and, while I know this is absurd and a slave to logic, I wouldn't discriminate between healthy yoghurt and a triple choc nut fudge sundae. Similarly, they may claim to be fried onions, but to me, they're 'just frigging onions for god's sake, how bad could they be?' - so my brain doesn't register them as being fried in the forbidden sense. Onion rings, yes. Fried onions, no.

Did I mention the perspex boxes are weird?

Ate my Chinese mini-feast at the newly-arrived table, and have more or less faffed about for the evening, just about getting this out to the world ahead of midnight. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...Tomorrow, there will be progress - if only because the next lot of movers arrive Friday...

Disappearing Tip #1 - Make space for the individuality of the way your brain works. Going against the grain of that will always feel wrong. 

Disappearing Tip #2 - Always rescue the milk before the moving men arrive.