I didn’t have to go to work today. I suppose I don’t have to go to work at all, nobody is forcing me; all I have to do is resign and become destitute rather than facing the daily struggle to drag my ennui out of bed, into the shower and into the office.

For the past few weeks, since returning after my medical leave, the journey into work has been very challenging. Not because of the usual dreadful traffic, but because I’ve been suffering from a weepy left eye. It’s at its worst in the morning and about twelve hours later in the evening. I’d have assumed this was hayfever if both eyes were affected, but it’s just the one that feels as if it has a growth manifesting itself under the eyelid twice a day.

It’s got the stage where I have to drive to work with a tissue over my left eye; other commuters looking at me in puzzlement through their rear view mirrors. “God, love, we all hate going to work, but there’s no need to cry about it.” Once at a place of safety, eye drops or an Optrex eye bath bring momentary relief, but soon, the itching and stinging returns.

What I could do with is getting a pair of swimming goggles and filling the left one with Optrex. Genius.

My day off
So today I didn’t have to go to work. I’d booked it off to take my car into the garage and I wasn’t even going to pretend to be doing any work like I have to when I’m in the office.

After being given a lift back home from the garage by mother, I figured that, since it’s boiling fucking hot and nobody wants to be inside, I’d spend the day on my little bench in my little yard. After pegging out a load of washing – all gussets aligned neatly, all facing the same direction – I sat down and attempted to actually read an actual book on my Kindle.

Yes, I have a Kindle even though I hate reading.

Shut up.

As I sat down on my bench, it struck me how much noise people can make, just by being there. I’d expected my peace to be interrupted by the fucking cockerel, but there was a constant toing and froing as my neighbours, their two children and one of their friends went backwards and forwards from the house to their garden via two gates, both of which slammed shut with a wooden “BANG!” followed by the metallic rattle of the two sections of the latch closing shut. This happened every two or three minutes. For three hours.

Do you know what it’s like when you don’t notice something, but when you do, that’s it, and it makes you want to kill things. For example, people who don’t close doors by hand who instead let the fucking things slam shut every fucking time they go through them every fucking minute! What is wrong with people that they can’t hear the same noise as me?

I started to feel resentful. This is a day of my holidays that you’re disturbing; it’s ok for you, you’re a teacher and you’re off anyway, for six weeks, but I’ve actually taken today off as leave and I can’t relax because I am oversensitive to your gate.

They’re lovely people, a lovely young family who’d do anything for anybody, but days like today make want to go and rip their hearts out with my bear hands. Bare hands. I don’t have bear hands. Bears have bear hands.

Withdrawal
Perhaps I’m feeling a little bit tetchy because I’ve decided to stop smoking and drinking. I’ve not had a cigarette since last night and this, coupled with a half hour walk in 25ºC heat to my parents’ from the garage this morning, followed by an hour at my parents’, followed by the journey in a non-air conditioned car, all with a drippy eye and terrible hair, I think the combination of factors made me a little more sensitive to the banging gate.

So yes, when I say I’m going to give up drinking, I’m actually lying. I don’t think I’ll ever return to being teetotal, but I’d like to be just an occasional drinker rather than an habitual one.

Buzzy things, flappy things, bitey things
I discovered “Very British Problems” on the Twitter last night and, scrolling through their tweets, I found this:

It made me laugh, but as I was writing this, I was distracted by the sound of a miniature helicopter trying to take off from the shelf above my front door. Of course, a massive moth had managed to make its way into here under cover of darkness and was undergoing its death throes in the heat of the sun as its every fibre and every last molecule of oil in its stupid flappy wings evaporated in the heat. Moths are fuckers with their stupid drunken flapping in the “sort of, not quite, oh maybe” direction of people’s heads, bumping into lightbulbs and general ugliness.

The house is full of bluebottles too. They come in through a massive open doorway, only to spend hours trying to leave by bashing their heads in against double glazing. I particularly like it when they manage to get caught between the blinds and the window, that constant “bzzzzzzz, bang, bang, bzzzzzz, bang” does wonders for my nerves.

I need a lie down. I’m going to take to my bed and count how many times I can hear my neighbour’s gate slamming over the next couple of hours.