Pause. Press Play.

Pause. Press Play.After more than three weeks off work with a lumpy haematoma on my leg, I am finally off my sofa and raring to go.

When I tell people I work for my builder friend, they raise an eyebrow, look me up and down and say, ‘Oh, really?’ They might have visions of me driving a large white van, chucking plasterboard around and fitting worktops in my spare time.

Years ago when I helped my friend set up his company, this was probably true. He taught me how to use a drill and I became an excellent tiler. Those days are long gone, although I can still tile if I sit on a bench and the boss applies the adhesive for me first. It’s a bit like mosaic craft work. Until the tiles fall off.

My boss is the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes and reluctantly agreed to let me work with him after I was sacked from my job. I begged, cajoled and consented to listening to commercial radio all day long. Obviously MS has put paid to most of the things I used to do, so we have ‘adapted and overcome’. Well, I have. The boss may well disagree.

So now, my duties consist of – making tea and coffee, putting the radio on, tidying up the boss’s toolbox (not very well, as you can see from my picture), sweeping things in to little piles everywhere, gossiping, yelling out a countdown to lunchtime, making more tea and coffee and spending hours nattering to the owners of whichever house we are working on (or ‘skiving’, as the boss calls it). I call it good PR. If there’s a job where my presence is more of a hindrance, I work from home, writing up quotes, sourcing materials and helping him with his website, so I’m not completely useless.

When I asked the boss if he had missed me when I was off, he looked bemused and paused mid-way through drilling. ‘Missed what?’ I flounced (limped and stumbled) off, but he has a point, I suppose. He rattled off the facts – ‘you keep dropping the nails, you trip over everything, I find you dozing off in quiet corners, you can’t lift anything heavier than a hammer, and you talk non-stop. What’s to miss?’

Tagged , , , ,

7 thoughts on “Pause. Press Play.

  1. Hi there,

    Some of your blogs raise comments and some don’t. Do you know in advance what do and what don’t.

    One cannot be creative all the time. Do you find you write things because of the commitment or deadline?

    Sorry this does not quite make sense. Just had a lovely, evening, cooked a wonderful BBQ. I made the marinades and did all the initial work and a friend or two cooked it + a glass or two or three were consumed – great evening.

    Patrick

    • stumbling in flats says:

      Hi Patrick!

      I think it was a creative post – but there’s not much for people to comment on a post like this. This post was more of a ‘catch-up’ post, about what’s happening in my life, rather than my thoughts about MS, which provoke more comments. A bit like the recent ‘Mixing with the Literati’ post.

      I don’t think I have ever written a post just to fill a space/because of a deadline. I chose to change from blogging every day to every other day due to studying commitments and also the legal case I went through which took up four months.

      Hope this answers your question! And yes, I knew that this post would raise no comments – how could it??? But it was nice to see it re-tweeted and favourited on Twitter.
      X

    • stumbling in flats says:

      p.s. the day I run out of things to say will be the day I stop blogging…

  2. Perish the thought! Don’t you dare stop blogging. I found this one (as all the others) charming, whether I have a meaningful comment to post or not.

    p.s. Is that really a picture of a toolbox you organized?!

    • stumbling in flats says:

      Hiya!
      It surely is – I gave up halfway through after I chipped a nail. Boss wasn’t best pleased, lol.
      X

  3. James Pagram says:

    ‘I flounced (limped and stumbled) off’ has got to be one of the best blog lines ever. Great humour.
    From a fellow MSer who would rather laugh than cry.

    • stumbling in flats says:

      Hey James,
      Thank you for your lovely comment!
      Life is hard enough with MS, you’ve got to find the humour. Wonder why my boss calls me ‘Half-Shift’??
      x

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *