So, while she's lolling about in bed all day, feasting on free food and oxygen, I'm frantically trying to deal with both moves and the subsequent cleaning of two properties.
You would think at this stage, having three enormous teenage life forms would come in handy for just, such an occasion. I was stupid enough to think so too. They lifted a finger, all right ... and gestured to me what they thought of that idea, before they returned their focus to their respective computer screens.
It is at this point that I might be over-dramatising things, just slightly, to give you, my reader, the best possible experience. Let's just say my beloved life forms did make an effort, but it was the absolute bare minimum, coupled with the joy of having the clones at each others throat's the entire time.
Tensions were running at an all-time high, to put it mildly.
Lappy, too, appeared to have deserted me in my hour of need, letting me down repeatedly. Its keyboard sporadically throwing a tantrum, like a spoilt child, refusing to type certain letters in the lower case. Great fun when you're trying to write a column and update family via email as to the withered old crone's condition.
I was stressed to the max and was praying that the earth would just open up and swallow me, which, ironically, it just about did last weekend, with the quake.
Later that night, I was thinking how we seem to be living in a world of extremes. The old famine or the feast scenario. I went from a dead boring, uneventful existence to barely being able to cope, in little more than a heartbeat.
The examples don't stop there, they are seen everywhere, everyday. The gap between rich and poor, the weather extremes, the OTT addiction to social media, our drinking culture, even the way we parent our kids.Yet again it's one extreme or the other. There's either no parental control at all and kids get to run wild and call the shots or you're a helicopter parent, hovering and controlling their every move, in the belief this over protection will serve them well in the real world.
Where in our wonderful "Middle Earth" has the middle ground gone? Even governments, both local and national are dictating our lives to extremes. What we can and can't do in our cars, our homes - our own private property.
Some going so far overboard, they even control what colour our roof, fence or house should be. Where will it end, I wonder?
I'm hoping to relocate my middle ground, in the coming days. Maybe I have yet to unpack it, I'm hoping I didn't throw it out when I de-cluttered my life.
After the extreme events that I have endured recently, the only extreme I now have room for in my life, is an extremely large piece of cheesecake. I might even share it with the withered old crone, now she's home and on the extremely slow road to recovery, speaking of which, I best go check on the old bird.
Catch you next week and feel free to email me: investik8@gmail.com.
Kate Stewart is an unemployed, reluctant mother of three, running amok in the city ... approach with caution or cheesecake.
