School Holidays Syndrome

     I am lying immobile, prostrate since early this morning when I bent down to pick up Ollie’s wet rugby shorts that had fallen off the clothes horse in the garden, and stayed there writhing on the terrace next to the Oleanders in my rose pink M&S nightie (that reference is another for you Adam).  Luckily the clothes horse was under the bedroom window where Mr. J. was still dosing so he ran down into the garden in his boxer shorts (pale blue Ralph Lauren I think - that’s for the ladies and any gay men readers out there).  Our garden, slap bang in the middle of this ancient Swiss village, is overlooked on two sides, and within ear shot of the bottle bank frequently visited at that time of the morning by my Swiss neighbours.  So it must have looked and sounded very strange indeed: Me sprawled on the ground amongst wet washing, shrieking and Mr. J. rushing in stage left, half naked.

     I think it is a combination of the driving in Spain, the mad gardening on return, and walking around Geneva in white killer stilettos yesterday that is the cause although I’m not blaming the colour.  My back, now that I have started listening to it, begs to differ.  It tells me that we are six weeks into the school holidays and it is the same old, same old, rush, rush, push, pull, go, go, go and it’s had enough.  Maybe I just need to slow down a bit, take some me time. 

     Mr. Jules carried me to bed then watched me down some horse-size anti-inflammatories before I made him go to his meeting.  Ollie had the ignoble task, on his 18th birthday no less! of carrying his mother to the bathroom.  I resisted the urge to jokingly ask him to pull down my knickers as that was too weird even for me. 

     My legs are supported by six large pillows so that my back can lie flat and with rest I should be up and about in a day or two.  This is not the first time.  Typing this I get an inkling of what it must have been like for Jean-Dominique Bauby who, suffering from locked-in syndrome, wrote The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by blinking his eyelids. 

     Apart from the nasty warm, humming sensation in my lower back and an inability to move, it is rather pleasant lying here listening to the goings-on in the house, which go-on perfectly well without me around, alternatively reading and writing, listening to my podcasts and ringing Lexi’s cow bell whenever my big toe needs scratching or I have a sudden desire for a square of black chocolate.

 Copyright Julesritter August 2008