Rest and recuperation, or R and R for those who know, is so underrated in these modern times where being busy is seen as being a virtue and shows how very productive you are, and yet it is vital and something we so badly need.  Yes, I’m talking to you burnt out millennials who are just seeking validation by being so into your careers to replace the love you didn’t get from your baby boomer parents.   You’re still not as screwed up as Generation X who are experts in coping with mental health. When we were kids, we just didn’t talk about it and it has led to a generation of very “interesting” people.

Anyway.  Rest and Recuperation. The clue is in the name.  For those who don’t know me, I’ll bring you up to date.  I suffer from Arthritis in my right knee and have been limping for what seems like forever, and it hurts like buggery.  I gradually have got into CBD oil in a big way and enjoy the relief it gives me, but it’s just enough to keep me vertical.  I know I’m rambling, but I want to give you a little context, or even a large context, for the rest of this article.  I also live in France and we enjoy quite a few public holidays, a majority of them being religious holidays, which I always found a tad strange for such a fiercely secular country where “laïcité” is the national religion!  So the 1st of November is All Saints’ Day, where the French will go to the cemeteries to put chrysanthemums on the gravesides of the dead, and remember what the people were like and reflect on their own personal histories.  Note to self, if I ever get flowers for my mother in law, it might be wise to get anything but Chysantemums…  I might be sending the wrong message otherwise.  In the UK, they’re a flower like any other but here they’re just for dead people.  Halloween isn’t as big over here as it is In Ireland, the UK, or the US, but Gen Z have worked out the trick or treat thing and are well into it!  So it might decide to stay after all.  In the John Mc Byrne pub, they had a right old knees up and were all dressed up!  I decided to decline.  I was resting.

Now we’re getting to the crux of this article.  As of Thursday, I have been suffering from a cold.  That’s bollocks, I’ve been dying of Man-Flu.   My nose turned into a water fountain, and for two days the tap was open and I felt awful.  Thank you brothers for your solidarity and good wishes.  But I was able to get into the car and get to work and therefore not dead, and able to work, even off my head.  Fortunately, I wasn’t working on Friday afternoon, so, was free.  My wife had left on Thursday morning to go and see her mother, minus the chrysanthemums, and would only be coming back on Sunday.  Feeling like death I thought the best thing was just to go to bed and stay there for as long as possible.  Fortune shone on me again, and there was no Friday night OHC rehearsal (insert plug here for our concert “the Planets” on the 14th of November, tickets still available here, and don’t forget the comfy seats…)  I had my dog sleeping next to me in her basket on my bedroom floor.  I would go down from time to let her do her two p’s.  Pees and poops. 

I had a call from my son asking if he could come home with a couple of friends for a soirée.  I agreed on the basis that there would be no noise and they would leave the living room (which was to become the drinking room) spotless the next day.  The friends would kip on the pull out sofa in the living room.  At least nobody would have to drive.  I drifted between sleep, going to the loo in the middle of the night, and then back to sleep.  I had a Vicks vapour stick, and by then my nose was leaking less and was staying relatively dry.  I took the dog down at 10 am to let her do her business and saw two of my son’s friends asleep on my sofa and I could not get into the kitchen.  The huge sofa bed takes up quite a lot of space.  It’s always delicate when people are staying over…

I went back down at 3pm feeling a little peckish, but they were still out for the count.  There was only one thing to do.  Get in the car, and go to MacDonalds to get my lunch.  I got back and saw my son coming out of his room looking somewhat delicate, he asked where I had been and explained why, and he just said, oh yeah and went back into his room.  I must have gone back to sleep because when I woke up they had taken the dog with them but the living room was spotless!  #DadGoals!

My wife and daughter arrived on Sunday at what seemed like mid-afternoon, and so it passed.  The house was no longer quiet.  I still rested though.  My daughter went out with some of her friends in the quest for sweets, and my wife filled up a whole bowl with sweets for children coming ringing at the door.  I was shouted at for eating some of those sweets but the return to childhood was immediate.  Emotion and food isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Monday came around and I was worried about going to work, and not feeling up to it.

Monday came and went, and on Monday evening that I wasn’t limping and hadn’t taken any CBD.  Maybe Rest and Recuperation go together