A Christmas Digest (Part 1?)

Another digest of sorts, covering the entire week. It's been eventful.

It started off badly. Fresh off returning home from KfW2's house, I was in bad form all of Sunday. It was nothing but tiredness. Well... not really. Something resurfaced on Saturday night that hasn't shown its face for quite a few years - my non-platonic feelings towards KfW2. While that in itself is not an issue - they were put back in their box sharpish and I don't feel guilty about these feelings nor do they trouble me - the issue is, unsurprisingly, this put me into a funk.

But it was mostly tiredness.

On Monday, while I was having coffee with KfW2, D called. That's never a good sign - we usually email or text. Friction Guy's father had passed away and the funeral was on the Wednesday. In addition, D had a couple of tickets that he and Friction Guy were going to use on the Tuesday, would I mind going instead? It wasn't my cup of tea, but it might be interesting enough, so I agreed. In addition, and out of the blue, SG messaged me on Whatsapp. Some small talk for an hour before she went quiet again. Why bother? It's a little sad - we were close. We messaged a lot for about 6 months and got quite close. Our conversations were quite personal - opening up to each other. For it all to go quiet almost over night has been frustrating and disappointing.

As I was taking myself off to bed, I wasn't feeling 100%. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew something was wrong. An hour after I went to sleep, I woke. Every fibre in me ached. When I lay still, it hurt. When I moved, it hurt. I was also running a bit of a temperature. There was a feeling in the pit of my stomach that, again, while it wasn't queasiness, was definitely not right. I tossed and turned and lay still most of the night. I don't think I got a lot of sleep - the odd fifteen minute doze here and there, but nothing significant or refreshing.

Soon, it was time  to get up, to get ready to go into work. I'd already decided to work from home on the Tuesday, but wasn't going to let work know until after I'd had a shower. Maybe a long hot shower would wash away this, well, whatever it was. I wouldn't find out. As I let the shower run through, I felt the need to make an urgent detour into the toilet where the previous night's dinner made a surprising reappearance. Urgh.

So, working from home then. I was only twenty minutes into my first batch of emails when I knew that I'd have to take a half day. The lack of sleep and general not-wellness was proving to be too much, but that led to a dilemma. I had planned on taking a half day on the Wednesday for Friction Guy's dad's funeral and to get ready for the Xmas party. If I were going to take a half day to try and rid myself of this awful virus thing (Norovirus had been suggested, though it seemed too mild to be that bad boy), then I'd not be able to make the funeral. It wasn't really a decision I could make though - it had been made for me. I spent all of Tuesday afternoon in bed, but thankfully started feeling better around 8 PM.

I was nearly back to normal on Wednesday morning. I wasn't sure if it were simply lack of sleep or the virus, but I was hopefully on the mend. I had to be - that evening was our works Xmas party. Ultimately, while I usually enjoy these things, I was underwhelmed this year. I think it was mostly because I was coming off the back of the 24-hour virus and a lack of sleep that had been plaguing me, for various reasons, since the previous weekend. A couple of the highlights/more interesting points to note:

• CH was there! She doesn't work with us anymore but was there to pick up OK and MFF - her old coffee clan. That in itself says it all - while I would have to fight to get CH alone, she used to do coffee with these people twice a day (as well as car share twice daily). We chatted for about ten minutes but it felt a little forced, at least from my perspective. Remember, I'm still waiting for her to arrange a coffee from our last contact at the end of August.
• KfW2 was as stunning as ever.
• I had suggested to KfW2 that if she wanted to stay at mine, then my spare room had finally been decorated and furnished. She had been due to stay at CC's, but CC had cancelled for personal (and understandable) reasons. KfW2 refused a couple of times before admitting that she had issues with people talking and what they would think if she took me up on my offer.
• Some of the HR girls scrubbed up really well. KfW2 disagreed.
• A cute, albeit horrendously drunk girl tried to chat me up as I was leaving for my pre-booked taxi, so I couldn't follow through to see what happened. Stories emerged the next day from IG that the drunk girl had subsequently ended up kissing some other bloke.

I was meant to be at a friend's house on Friday, but WhatsApp was a hive of activity on Friday from SG, GM, S and FC. The upshot was that SG, GM and S all went out to the pub on Friday night. I didn't get involved in the arrangements because I had my friend's thing, but that got cancelled at the last minute and I simply couldn't face the crowds in town. Plus... I find it hard to give SG any time these days. It's the fact that she's effectively disappeared off the face of the planet since she got together with GM with only the odd snatched conversation in between.

I have had a couple of days off though, my sleep is almost back to normal and this week, at work, I've pretty much nothing on. By the end of tomorrow, I hope that my Xmas shopping will be done and I can get it wrapped and forget all about it.