... the new me is taking longer to emerge than expected. There’s improvement; I’ve relaxed a little, got off my high heels and tried gathering flowers and rainbows, but it's not quite the dramatic personal transformation I’d hoped for - I’m still clutching at a panapoly* of coping mechanisms.I’ve now diagnosed myself as suffering from empty nest syndrome. My home is actually quite a lot emptier than I’d expected, the size of the offices and the extra people meant that we needed to take most of our own furniture as well as
all of the things I’ve been collecting for the last two months. Removing the pictures from the walls has highlighted the damp issues that I’ve been ignoring for the last eight years.
I have a friend who tells me that his own house only stays upright because the woodworm are holding hands. Last week, I brought the picnic table in from the garden so I could have something to sit at and a place to eat - one of the legs has gone rotten at the screws and wobbles around like a six-year old’s front tooth - this turns dinner into a sort of circus performance.
I went to visit my nephew for a few days to see if the damp might just disappear if I stopped looking at it:
My nephew is three and has just started nursery school. A couple of days ago he asked if he could have a glass of wore-er
his mother looked puzzled and said
wore-er - I’m sorry I don’t think I know that word
my nephew replied
It means water, it’s the word they use for it in another country’
really what country is that?
Spain
* I particularly liked this definition of the wordpanoply1576, from Gk. panoplia "complete suit of armor," from pan- "all" + hopla (pl.) "arms" of a hoplites ("heavily armed soldier"). Originally fig., of "spiritual armor," etc. (allusion to Eph. vi); non-armorial sense of "any splendid array" first recorded 1829.
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