The Misadventures of GaietyGirl

The last week has flown by in a flurry of knitting, frogging, re-knitting and refrogging, learning to count to 14 successfully, not setting fire to a chart (due entirely to my own inability to read it as opposed to some inate flaw in the chart itself) worrying about cashflow, trying to declutter, and catching up with friends who came over on Friday night because we can’t afford to go out (in honesty, they’ve been coming over every Friday for months, but they bring chocolate and whiskey and sympathetic hugs now too).

I went for a costume fitting, which was fun and productive, and holds promise of some days of work over the next few weeks. My final Wollmeise sock club package arrived, which was a truly joyous moment.

WWKIP day passed me by once more, as did SnB, as the moths started to fly from the wallet. This is vaguely better now, as my social welfare paperwork finally got stamped and authorised and all that jazz this week. (See you on Wednesday girlies!!)

Insomnia seems to be this weeks’ special though.

As much as I intended to have a regular sleeping pattern when I got the boot, it has been slipping gradually over the last couple of weeks. What’s one more pattern repeat or one more episode of Buffy when you don’t have to face rush hour traffic in the morning, eh? Quite a lot as it turned out.

HusBeast was the first to give up on the idea of sleep last night, and got cosy with the XBox at about 2am. I decided to continue tossing and turning and having those amazingly vivid dreams that you have when you’re not quite asleep, yet not quite awake (the kind that has seen me almost launch out of seats on planes on more than one occasion. Thank heavens for seatbelts, I say!). By the time 4am rolled around, it was clear that I was fighting a losing battle. I lay there for another half hour, listening to the dawn chorus and veering wildly between “perky and awake” and “so tired I could cry” before heading downstairs.

The adventures really started mid-morning. My trip to the wonderful land under the sofa resulted in my finding the remote control which went for a holiday there on Thursday. Having gotten lots of headway made on my cardigan, I realised that my feet were not filled with pins and needles from sitting on them, because they were that damn cold. Being the vaguely sensible girl that I am, I headed upstairs to break out the handknitted socks. I managed to keep my balance while hopping about and struggling with a sock. Score one for me. Not in a million years did I think that, as I tried not to fall over a runaway ball of sock yarn, that the simple act of HusBeast sitting on the bed would result in my having to stay up til midnight.

I realise that one of the perils of living in rented accomodation is that the furniture is mostly held together with the power of the Force or something. The flip side of that, to me at least, is that…well…being blunt, a double bed that is intended for two people to sleep (etc, etc, etc) in should really be robust enough to sleep in. Sitting on the corner of it should not be cause for concern.

It’s partly our own laziness (and lack of a toolbox), I guess. We bought a new bed ages ago, and have not put it together. We put the new, fab, orth mattress on the crappy frame that someone had gerryrigged together using a 4×4 and a tube of No More Nails. Still, it held up fine. We’ve been sleeping in it for months with no problem. It seems, however, that sitting on the damn thing was just asking for trouble, as the loud cracking noise attested to.

We mostly laughed it off, as the frame has been defying all laws of gravity and physics since we moved in. Tonight when I got into bed and noises came from the wood that you’d normally hear in some form of documentary on demolitions, I realised that it was just plain wrecked. I busied myself with emptying the dishwasher and making tea and trying to convince myself that my ass isn’t really that big while HusBeast and The Lodger got down to rearranging our room. This evening, we’ll be sleeping on our very expensive mattress on the floor. The frame is being coaxed into standing up against the wall in the downstairs hall as I type.

Tomorrow, there shall be photos to document this marvel of the modern age. There will be large amounts of swearing and blinding as we try to put the new bed frame together, and frustration as I realise that I couldn’t lift that mattress with an IronMan suit. I also get to call the landlord and get him to send someone to pick up the firewood old bed. I’m a little apprehensive about that, to be honest. The memories of Sparky the WonderOven are still a little raw. Almost getting electrocuted will do that to a girl.

Now, however, it’s time for sleep. Here’s hoping that the morning will bring productivity, good vibes, and a day of less than 22 hours.