Cheese omelette, chips, salad

This morning started not long after yesterday ended. One minute I was asleep, then there was a moment of disorientation, and I found myself hanging off the side of my bed.

One arm was twisted painfully against the grab-rail, the other was stretched behind me, hanging onto my mattress, to stop me falling any further. My bum was hovering six inches off the floor, and both legs were on the floor, tangled in the duvet which had accompanied me off the bed.

For a few uncomfortable moments I was very unsure how I was going to get myself either all the way onto the floor or back onto the bed. I managed it in the end, quietly enough that mum didn’t realise anything had happened. (Her light came on, I could almost hear the shrug through the wall, and the light went off again.)

A quick peek at my phone showed me that I had been asleep for less than an hour.

Apparently I didn’t sleep that well for the rest of the night, as it’s barely 4pm at the time of writing and I’m already at the depersonalisation stage that indicates my spoon count for the day is nearing negative figures. Both arms are feeling achy and sore, and I’ve got a nice bruise on my shoulder. Other than that, I’m fine. 🫤

Last night, just before bed, we were watching Kirstie and Phil (Britain’s foremost property tv presenters – I watch their stuff because mum likes them, then end up engrossed so when mum says she’s had enough and is going to turn off the tv I protest “but I’m watching it!”) and I took the opportunity to mention the idea of converting the garage into living space for me.

I was expecting mum to have to be persuaded into the idea but, to my surprise, she agreed almost immediately. I went to bed with a head full of possibilities – perhaps that’s why I tried to fly out of bed 🤷‍♂️ – then woke (the second time) this morning to mum refusing to get out of bed.

I think she thought I would fuss over her and try to persuade her to get up, but I just said the polite version of “suit yourself” and carried on without her. By lunchtime she had had enough of languishing dramatically without an audience, and got up.

Not long ago, mum said something about me moving out, and it seems that my talk of converting the garage had somehow got twisted in her head to me ‘abandoning’ her¹. When I clarified that I would be merely a wall away, she was much happier with the idea!

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Given my profound lack of spoons, my plans for dinner had to change to one of the lowest energy options in my mental cookbook: an omelette. Mum said that was fine as long as there was cheese in it, which of course there was.

Whenever I have a cheesy omelette these days I get an instant flashback to a point late in my period of hospitalisation when I had tried all the menu options for a particular day and didn’t care much for any of them.

One of the nurses told me I could request something different, as long as it wasn’t too complicated, and I suggested a cheese omelette, perhaps with a bit of salad. What arrived was an omelette the size of a dinner plate, filled with oozy cheese and accompanied by a small mountain of chips.

I went to bed happily stuffed that night.

Tonight’s omelette was smaller, because it had to be cut in half to serve two of us, but was, if anything, even cheesier². The oven chips were oven chippy, the salad was salady, and I’m writing this some time before cooking dinner so it’s good that it’s all pretty basic stuff so I can finish this paragraph.

Now it’s time for an evening of watching sport (for me) and complaining there’s nothing but sport on tv (for mum). Then it will be time for bed.

I just hope I can stay there this time.

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1. Her anguished wail every time I suggest doing anything that might point to me trying to have a life of my own. ↩︎
2. One of my favourite anecdotes of my sister: one night before she got together with my BIL, she called me to say she was making pasta. In it was cheddar, red Leicester, cream cheese, and mozzarella, and she wanted to know if I thought that was enough cheese. Before I could respond, she answered herself: “of course it isn’t. I think I’ve got some vegetarian parmesan in the fridge.” Call over.🤣 ↩︎