Over the last couple of weeks I have – rather under protest – morphed into a couch potato, albeit a reluctant one. In my real life I am probably about the least couch potatoey person you could imagine. My bottom barely ever touches a seat or stays there for long. I am a flibertigibbet of the first order and if I’m honest I don’t think I actually even know how to stop and do nothing.

Of course the knee has rather put the kybosh on my normal antics – and with a great deal of effort I have put my be sensible hat on – and hence the prominent role in my life that the sofa currently plays. I am reading, knitting, listening to Radio 4, dreaming up ingenious ways to avoid having to go up or down stairs and developing a highly effective barter strategy with my children. The latter has been a real eye opener…

“I will drive you (at great distress to my knee) to your tennis lesson if you will put all the recycling into the car and put it in the recycling bins by the supermarket on the way back”. “Muuuuuum I don’t want to do the recycling”. “Fine, but then you’d better get going if you’re going on your bike”. “Oh all right then”.

Highly effective. I can recommend it even if you don’t have a smashed up knee.

On the other hand, the downside of sitting on the sofa with my leg up all day is that I can see how much housework and general chucking out needs to be done. As I anyway want to simplify my life and my home and have a good clear out I am taking it very slowly, but plodding through it. Today I’ve hoovered under all the sofa cushions….finding teenage son’s missing wallet as I did so (which to be honest makes the whole thing worth it anyway just thinking of the hassle I have saved myself in not having to get train passes and IDs reissued) and have started to make a ruthless – but slow – move on the kitchen cupboards. I seem to be in a chucking out mood – which is good and the bits I’ve done look massively improved ie. drawers can now be opened and closed and the baking ingredients drawer is no longer swimming in flour that had escaped from a bag with a hole in it. I’ve even liberated some elderly and never used gifts, which I have no doubt will make someone happy at the church bazaar.

All in all, my occasional gentle forays have had the effect of preserving my sense of sanity.

I really need to feel that I’ve done something, that there has been a forward movement in my day. Even if it isn’t a very big one. There is also something about having a few tidy, uncluttered kitchen drawers that makes me feel insanely, euphorically happy.

Which, if I wasn’t feeling so happy against all the odds, would probably mean that I was a sad individual!

Helen

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 19th, 2012 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.