The Best Laid Plans .....

There I was .. full of the joys of the new year, the start of the rest of my life, the beginning of great hopes and plans. My heart filled with optimism, my head doing flips and somersaults in anticipation of the opportunities that lay ahead, I made a very small list of my aspirations and dreams for 2008. Even putting words to the hopes was exciting! I had another week of indulgent, no-work days.... Bliss.

Then, as usual, life intervened.

I should really start at the beginning. Just before Christmas, 3 days to be exact, there was a major hiccup in the water supply to the Palace. Her Highness was not one bit amused. "No water!!" she shrieked and immediately had a fit of the vapours. We soothed and cajoled, made tea and offered half-lies as a means of preventing a major burnout. All to no avail. She fretted and moaned. She let fly about the council's lack of consideration for retired people until we were all fit to expire gracefully. She refused to understand that it was not the council's responsibility since the guilty pipe was on private property. We did our best to get a plumber - Irish plumbers are like gold dust, not a one to be had for love nor money. So, we hauled water til our bodies screamed in protest, we took the daily laundry loads, we trawled buckets up the stairs to the loo, we traipsed backwards and forwards from the most obliging neighbour's house, struggling under the weight of the overfull buckets - I now sport shoulders that Arnold Schwarzenegger would ogle with a degree of the "little green eye". Eventually, GB, aided and abetted by one of his brothers, dug a 2 foot drain, found the culprit pipe, installed a temporary, overground hose and all was acceptable and semi-civilised in the royal domain once again.

Christmas came and went. The Old Year skulked out the back door and the New Year flew in the front. Hope and optimism was alive and well. The visitors were plentiful and jovial, distractions too numerous to mention and all was right in the Kingdom.

And then she did "something" to her "bad" knee.

She doesn't know how it happened. But January 2 blew all hopes I had, of mending my blogging ways, of grasping back some sanity, of catching up with long neglected friends, right down the toilet.

For the past week, Her Highness, when not reclining in the royal boudoir, has been ensconced on her throne, immobile, with quavery voice to the fore, endless requests for needless tasks to be done, no visible improvement, querulously vocal to the saintly Larry and I am quite close to furthering my education by googling "hara -kiri". Strangely enough, GB sees none of this. When he returns from the nightly visit, he tells tale of how sprightly she was, scampering up the stairs to bed, cheerily bidding him "Goodnight!" No moaning, no quavery voice, no tears brimming - ready to fall - no "poor me" carry on. GB has a very low tolerance level for the "mi-adhs" of the world and I think Her Highness is quite aware of this fact. She knows what side her bread is buttered on.

But what kind of an eejit does that make me?

Anyway.

An 18 carat plumber is due early next week "to have a look" and hopefully come back later to perform miracles. The weather is due to settle over the weekend. Daughter no.2 has her driving test in the morning, the psychotic wonderdog has acquired some less than desirable live in tenants and GB has given up the dreaded weed.

Life is truly wonderful.