I’ve been a bit ‘off the boil’ this week, mainly due to giving myself food poisoning via some unpasteurized, soft, sheep’s milk cheese that I thought would be fine if I scraped the mould off the top, as I would with yoghurt, or some cheddar, for example. It turns out that the ‘best before’ label on unpasteurized cheese is deserving of more respect and a significant chunk of time has been spent on the sofa with Betty, much to Rhys’ amusement.

Anyway, from this, as well as other occurrences this week, I have come to the conclusion that, actually, I am just not meant to feel that ‘together’. Neither am I meant to look it. It seems that whenever I think that the opportunities to appear more ‘together’ offered by 21st Century advances won’t pass me by entirely, I am reminded that it’s not meant to be. And last Wednesday was the perfect example.

For months now, Rhys has extolled the virtues of those little Apple Bluetooth jobbies – ear pods – or something of the like. Mainly, I believed it to be born of the frustrations he felt whilst living in Shanghai and attempting to communicate with me via FaceTime. The time difference meant that he spent more time staring at a stable roof unable to hear a word whilst I shouted apologies for needing to crack on with mucking out. He insisted that at least if I had these pods, he would at least be able to hold a conversation even if he was still staring at a roof. Meanwhile, I refused to consider that they would make my world that much easier to negotiate than, for example, jamming the phone against my shoulder.

Credit where it is due, though, they are a little bit brilliant. At this point, I’m going to hope that Rhys continues to not read my posts due to their slightly ridiculous nature and his preference for serious matters such as the news, excel spreadsheets and other such dry stuff. Because if he does decide to, he may become a little but smug. Not least, due to the fact that he has also introduced me to the humble pod cast, another surprisingly enjoyable addition to my life. Before any of you say anything, I know that I am about 45 years late getting into them but I had always assumed that I wouldn’t enjoy listening to them because usually the only bits of the radio I like listening to are the music bits. Nevertheless, I do remain resolutely of the opinion that he shouldn’t be listening to them in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep and should instead, be making more of an effort to… errr… sleep, and not least because his shoulder-shaking giggling whilst listening wakes me up. But I can now appreciate the odd appeal of someone speaking in my ear continually during DAYLIGHT hours.

So with these two revelations in mind, I made a pledge: to listen to inspiring and educational podcasts using my ear-pod-thingys while walking the dog and riding the ponies. Except that what I failed to foresee was how I was to take in anything truly stimulating whilst brandishing a poo bag. Take, for example, Angelina Jolie talking about sexual violence against women. Her speech was made with the gravitas that such a subject deserves. Only Betty chooses this time to have diarrhea. You try concentrating through the nausea that induces and you’ll see my problem.

Fast forward a few hours to a job interview. It was all going well – I thought – until I realized upon leaving that my belt was undone, flapping gaily about my waist, the entire time. Whilst I have recorded on here that I am most definitely feeling the post-Crimbo bloat, I hadn’t planned on suggesting it in such a visual manner at such an entirely inappropriate hour. So you’re beginning to get my drift, right? I may well be an educated, reasonably intelligent youngish woman, I’m just not meant to feel or appear it.

Who knows, perhaps London will eventually manage to shape me into something that vaguely resembles ‘together’. For now though, it seems I am just the way I am.