I should never have got out of bed today.

I should never have got out of bed today.

Oh, it started off all right.  Quite good actually.  Up early and in the outdoor swimming pool before the sun had come up over the horizon and chewed out a good 2.5 kilometres of swimming.  Followed this with an enjoyably lazy, well earned and long post-swim coffee before heading home to an unusually whole day being at home to finally get some catch up work done – in all areas.  

Had already scheduled myself a timetable for the day, to run as so:

• ·         1 hour – the first hour - to get some boring and dreaded housework done as loathe sitting in a house seeing basic cleaning that needs doing.
• ·         1 hour – the next hour - to spend outside in the yard to get something out there done and then feel good for having done so.
• ·         All other hours in the day to be spent in front of the computer to catch up on long overdue communications, research, accounts, speech making and training programmes. 

Figured that should have some of the ‘monkey-on-the-back’ stuff analysed, sorted, clarified, classified, closer than yesterday to being completed and thus leave the mind clear and free for an hour or so of evening exercise – preferably at a spin class where the heat, body odours and noise will take the mind off any other pressing concerns.  You try worrying about anything serious when the bloke on the spin bike in front of you reeks of stale body odour from wearing the same cycle garments he wore the week before and shoved back into his bag last week, to be brought out again this evening and put on and worn for yet another hour of total sweat producing exercise.  My logic and thinking brain cells brain cannot operate under such circumstances as they are totally over exerted by the brain smelling cells and thereby means the thinking cells goes into total evacuation mode – a positive then for stinking men as they managed to take my mind off any worries.

So that was the plan.

Until I pulled up outside the house this morning, after the prolonged coffee break, was unloading the big van and noticed I had a flat tyre.

                                             

Now, I had a flat tyre – of the most dramatic type – only a couple of weeks ago when I pulled into a parking spot along busy Mt Eden Road in the Mt Eden Village. As I pulled in there was an enormous “BANG”  that was so explosive and loud that every pedestrian walking the streets of Mt Eden Village jumped and almost dived into the shop doors for fear it was a bomb going off.  It certainly startled the butchers in the butcher shop I parked adjacent to.  I saw them both jump with fright.

Almost as instantly the left front of the vehicle did a delicate drop.  Clearly I had managed a big puncture.  The first motor vehicle puncture I would have had in decades.  But it was a good one.  A really good one, helped by the fact that I had to call the AA and let them know I was about to be parked in a Clear Way zone within the next few minutes, at peak hour, of course.

The friendly, very friendly, AA man came and fixed the problem and made me feel ever so much a lady by reassuring me that no woman should have to do such a dirty, messy job as changing this particular vehicle’s tyre.  Sometimes it is nice to play the woeful, useless female.  I rather enjoyed being so on this occasion as he was literally covered from head to toe in dirt and dust by the time he finished the repair.

This morning I looked at the very same wheel and see the tyre is flat.  This time I can see the lead headed nail that caused the puncture.  This time the AA man was not quite so ‘friendly’ but nevertheless he was just as efficient at changing the damn thing. 

Now one must bear in mind that whilst this was happening today, only yesterday I had to wait a minimum of 2 hours at the Novus Auto Glass Repairs shop, as a few days earlier some stone or rock had hit the windscreen of my vehicle which resulted in one very long, and growing longer by the day, crack going directly from left to right of the entire windscreen.  Only at times like this does one feel grateful for all those thousands of insurance dollars we pay out.  All in all the Novus trip used up about 3 hours of my day yesterday.

Hence my better planning today. 

But, due to happenings, the first 1 hour of today’s scheduled chores did not get done. That was spent on calling AA men, talking to AA men and then taking same punctured tyre to the tyre-fix-it place, where yet another smelling-of-body-odour-man fixed the repair for me.  All in all, that took up over 3 hours.  It was whilst there I happened to look at my wedding ring.  The very special wedding ring that Tony placed on my finger on our most romantic wedding day.

                              

I have told anyone who listens that I have only two fears in my daily life, one is the fear of losing any of my teeth (due to the cost of replacement), the other is losing my wedding ring.  Why the wedding ring?  Because this wedding ring has meant more to me than any car, house or other personal property I have ever owned, such is the personal and emotional meaning that the ring has always held for me.

Sitting in the waiting room at the tyre shop I look down at my ring finger and notice… the ring is there, but main, central diamond has gone.  The ring is just one ugly big claw. 

My immediate thought is that it must be sitting at the bottom of the Parnell swimming pool and no amount of friends performing hypoxic breathing exercises to the bottom of the pool would ever find it, no matter how often or for how long I sent them down there.

On the other hand – it certainly would be great swim training – all that hypoxic breath holding.  That would extend their oxygen uptake improvements.  Immm….

I digress….

A smart trip home, dive into insurance files, ring insurance company, they ask the obvious, when did I last have the diamond valued.  Err… maybe nearly 30 years ago…. ??  yep, about then … this wedding ring was designed to emphasize a diamond I had been given over 30 years ago and never had done anything with. What better than to use it for something so special – it was nice to have my wedding ring designed around it.  Made Tony’s putting it on my finger seemed that extra special.

Cannot find the diamond valuation but do find an original diamond description. Into town to a jeweler to take the next step and ask what would be the next step. Only problem is, most of these jewelry shops do not always have their jeweler in store. Only sales staff, with the jeweler coming on on certain days, but not today as he is at another of their stores, so that was useless. 

I exited the shop, dejected, rejected, chin sitting loosely on my chest in a forlorn-type droop. Stepped out onto the pedestrian crossing to walk back to my car on the other side of the road.  Was so dejected as how the day was turning out that as I took my second or third step onto the crossing I look to my right to see one great, big, red bus fast bearing down on me.  For one tiny, momentary nano-second I thought about throwing myself under it.  Uhhh… that would literally put to rest any concerns about lost diamonds, blown tyres, house work, paper work and commitments. 

But it was only a nano-second.  In that same nano second realised that when commiserating folk visit the house they would see that I didn’t do the housework.  That would not do.  Priorities girl.

Drove ever so carefully and directly home. Without incidents.  My refuge.  Demolished half an iced Christmas cake.  Literally. Felt good at the moments of demolishing. Doesn’t feel good now though.

Am staying home for the rest of the day and night – everything can go on hold – I will not go to spin tonight - I have closed the doors, will not answer the phones – I am safe, secure and hiding from the world  … until my 8 pm massage arrives nothing else can go wrong.  I shall sit on the PC and achieve something.  That is, once I finish procrastinating doing the PC chores by off loading this drivel/moan onto the screen.  But just before I do, will go into the front room to look for something in the cupboard – it is dark in the cupboard so I turn the room lights on.  Boomph… the lights have blown…. hang on  ... there are six little bulbs in that light fitting and the whole lot are not going .... grrr...  try the other switch  ... nothing.   Grrr......   Damn it, has to be something wrong with wiring - argh, another smelly man to be involve??

Stomp out of room; and straight onto cat; cat screeches; I jump;  I trip; I land on floor and hurt my wrist.

Where is that great big red bus?