My Head Hurts

I had a shocker of a weekend. Actually, in one way it was dreadful; yet not so bad in another.

The shocker part was due to waking up Saturday morning with a splitting headache and this swiftly morphed into a full blown migraine by Saturday afternoon. Aaarrrgggghhh but the life of a partner/mother/stepmother never stops, not for a little thing like a migraine; so it was onward as planned to pick up a “rent a van” which is another term for renting a heap of crap that had no tread on the tyres.  It spun out and squealed at ever corner; not to mention the Squeeze that couldn’t find gears but could certainly grind them.

The day started out with breakfast, followed by securing the van in between swallowing handfuls of headache tablets in an attempt to keep the monster at bay.   We got back to the house where the Squeeze tried to coax the kid out of the spare room to help with the lifting.   His plea falls on deaf ears until fed up, I flick  off the power to the house and I hear the endless racket that is the television, go dead.

Then, like a mouse sneaking out of its hole for a look around, he sticks his nose out to mention that the power went off.

This is where he made his mistake as the Squeeze directs him to assist with lifting and then we go through the “I’ve got no shoes on” followed by the run off to get shoes, never to return.   Then at a Squeeze bellow, answers: “I can’t find socks!”   And the Squeeze’s shout of “Stuff the socks! Get out here!” answer. And all the while I feel like walking into the kitchen, pulling out my sharpest spoon and stabbing them to death with it, because a knife would be too damned quick considering the torture they are putting my head through!

Eventually, the van is stacked and we are on the road; a cosy little trip with the Squeeze in the driver’s seat, me in the passenger and the Kid sitting cosy in the middle between us. I do pause in my wishing myself dead to mention as we sit at the lights that it would be quite amusing if a group of kids from his new school went past at that moment in time; and spied him sitting up in a rental van. He was not as impressed by the idea which only made me find it funnier.

I suffer the 1.5 hour drive to the sound of the Squeeze grinding gears and the Kid fiddling with the volume on the radio and I closed my eyes and chanted “I won’t say a word” to myself for the whole trip down there. And just when I thought I would have to turn it down and scream at them all that I was dying over here, the Squeeze got jack of his inability to hear if anything was wrong with the antiquated heap we were driving and swivelled the knob to the off position – which suited me fine.

We arrive at the beach. I already know that this won’t be a relaxing romantic trip. We have the Kid and my brother and wife have their 2 kids – all the same age. Instead, we actually do manage to acquire some down time.  There are enough kids on hand to help with emptying the van and then we sit in the warmth and watch movies until it’s time to go out for dinner.

I managed to down 2 glasses of red in the hope that if nothing else, they’d help the drugs to work, but instead, my head just decides to thump even louder; so I slink off to bed at about 9pm.  On a Saturday night.  What a wowser.

The next morning my alarm goes off at 7.45 so that I can prepare for the breakfast I organised with my niece, hubby and two darlings. And they arrive to me preparing a breakfast feast that would kill a lesser person, there are calories upon calories. And the kids are on me – like fat kids on a cupcake!   But I have to say that being the ‘bestest cook in the whole wide, wide world’ did relieve my headache slightly!

My niece turns up with orange juice and champagne as instructed. Testimony to my headache is that I can’t swallow a drop of champagne.  This basically means I am clinically dead.

We have to be on the road by 9.30 am to take the rent a hack back and the girls manage to extract a sleep over promise before they depart.   This in itself will be fun and I may coax my daughter over for an evening of “girl” time as it usually ends up with them doing our hair and makeup to the point where we look like five dollar harlots; but is endlessly amusing!

We get home and drop the van back and at last... at last... I am home! I can go to bed. Finally. No one wants or needs me for the next 12+ hours!
I swallow a handful and slump into slumber... Heaven... (Although today feel like a cat that has been through the washer.)

So what was the good part of the weekend..?

Well when I have a migraine, I’m quiet. So the Squeeze got a blissful weekend with barely a peep from me! He must have been in seventh heaven since the silence was golden!