December 23, 2024
Chicago 12, Melborne City, USA
Dear Diary

This Week I….

Well, we’re back to normal, almost, as I’m writing todays diary post from my bed.

I’m writing from bed as I haven’t managed to get up yet as every single muscle in my body is hurting, but we’ll get to that in a bit. This week has been a week in which multiple small things have been sent to try me. Yet I have made it to the end, the sun is shining, and today I am planning some light walking and to watch the first episode of Season 9 of Drag Race.

Just in case you didn’t know, Netflix UK is showing the new season just 24 hours after it airs in the US. This is incredibly exciting and I need to decide whether to have a cup of tea while watching in my Drag Race Quotes Mug or the Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve & Talent mug. Decisions, decisions.

Anyway, before I get on I shall take a brief pause to wish my Mum a Happy Mothers Day!

She’s a bit poorly at the moment, having had an angiogram last week, so although I can’t be with her today I hope she’s resting and other people are making her cups of tea. Though they do have one of those boiling water taps, which seems to make making cups of tea seem a lot less of a pain.

Happy Mothers Day Mum šŸ˜€

Anyway, this week I……

Got a nosebleed

I did mention that this week things were sent to try me. Last Sunday saw our first game of the season. It was a closed door, so scores aren’t made public, but we did win, and played really tactically, so I was super proud. I also managed to get a nosebleed about 10 minutes into the game. I came off track, calmly sat on the bench to grab my water bottle, and then went, “hey. what’s that dripping?”, only to find my nose had decided to dramatically gush blood.

This has happened to me once before in a Roller Derby game. On looking it up I notice that it was the end of March 2016, so maybe this is my annual Roller Derby nosebleed?

I spent a few minutes in the corridor stemming the blood with tissues till it stopped and then went back on track. In the end I only missed 2 jams, so it could have been worse!

I failed to take any photos at all this week, so this week will be short of photos, though I do have this one I accidentally took of my knees in the car on the way home from this game.

Handwashed my clothes

Oh yes, things in my house have impeccable timing. They work perfectly for years, and the minute we’re short of money and not in a position to replace them they decide to immediately die. Our dishwasher died very shortly after Mr Chick was made redundant, which wasn’t too bad as we at least had the redundancy money, though spending it on dishwashers wasn’t my plan. Then this week our washing machine decided to give up the ghost.

To be fair the washing machine was 10 years old, so we should have expected it to go eventually, but you just don’t think about it while these things are working fine do you? Fortunately we found someone just around the corner on Gum Tree who was selling a washing machine for Ā£20. I am funny about second-hand washing machines, but one lot of hand washing was enough for me, and Ā£20 is cheaper than a couple of launderette trips. The new washing machine is possibly older than the old washing machine, and definitely not as good. It has no timer so it’s a bit harder to take advantage of our cheap Economy 7 electricity for one thing.

It does actually work, though, which gives it a significant advantage over the old one. Which is still sat taking up space in the dining room.

Got fed up of being responsible

By Wednesday I was having a bit of a meltdown. I was tired of being grown up and being sensible. I was tired of thinking about washing machines and budgets,

So we went out to take outfit photos and accidentally fell into the pub on the way back. It felt irresponsible. I enjoyed it immensely.

Found out the car wasn’t dying

Yes, that was another thing this week that decided to fail with impeccable timing. The engine light on the car started flashing and the manual warned that this was a VERY BAD THING and we should immediately spend the remains of all our savings having it fixed.

I worried about this constantly while visions of four-figure repair bills danced in my head. Mr Chick took it to be serviced and they said all it needed was a new coil and we could fix it ourselves.

So that was a waste of some perfectly good worrying.

Got Whiplash

Srsly, it’s been that kind of week. Our second game of the year (another closed door) was on Friday night. Despite winning by quite a lot it wasn’t a great game for me for a number of very dull reasons. In the last jam I managed to quite dramatically fall on my back. I was blocking the jammer, the jammer stepped back and I was over committed and just fell.

I am very proud that the first thing I thought was to drag myself off the track so the Refs didn’t call the jam dead as we were trying to run it as long as possible. The next thing I thought was “Ooh, that must have been bad” as I looked up and saw my bench coach running towards me.

(apologies those of you who know nothing about Roller Derby as those last 2 paragraphs probably mean absolutely nothing. Short story, I fell over backwards on roller skatesĀ and everyone who saw it happen went “OOOOOOHHHH!!!”)

I gave my head a bit of a whack, but fortunately I don’t seem to have managed to give myself a concussion (this time). I do, however, have whiplash.

Yesterday I made it through most of an awesome training session with a guest coach Kitty Decapitate from LRG and Team England, but I could feel more and more muscles stiffening up, and by the end I had to sit out.

Today it’s like ever smaller muscle groups are trying to join in to inflict pain on me. All the muscles in my ribs, shoulders, neck, throat and even my face hurt. It hurts to swallow, laugh and cough. This means todays plans include ibuprofen, and tomorrows plans definitely don’t include going to the gym.

We did get this awesome group photo at the end of the training session though.

And that was another week in my life.

How was your week?