Comfortable Nub

I don't know what it is about winter but year after year it never fails to transform me into a raging hippy.  Aside from the previously mentioned candles taking over the house I also have accumulated Himalayan rock salt lamps for almost every room in the house over the years - all purchased over various winters, and I love lava lamps so much I even plonked one in each of my children's bedrooms from an early age.  Still, I think I reached new hippy heights recently when I was hit by an overwhelming urge to listen to Pink Floyd on a rainy Sunday afternoon.  The fire was roaring, the soup was simmering, the lamps were glowing and all was well in my little world.  'Ohh!  Comfortable Nub!' Ali remarked appreciatively as the soothing vocals of Roger Waters helped me through an enormous pile of ironing.  Liam however was not so impressed.  'What's HAPPENED to you Mum?  What is this gay music anyway?!'


Honestly, when I was growing up gay meant nothing more than happy but even 30 years ago I think we would have struggled to call Pink Floyd's music gay.  In fact, quite the opposite as I learned a couple of days later.  I cannot drive without music, the louder the better, much to my kids' embarrassment and faced with a two hour drive to the city I thought Roger and Dave would provide the perfect soundtrack for my journey.  How wrong I was!  Isn't it amazing how music affects your emotional state?  Only a couple of minutes into 'Hey You' I found myself wanting to hurl myself off the nearest cliff.  Which was worryingly easy to do considering I was driving over a winding mountain road at the time.  I was late, I was frazzled and these poor unassuming legends of rock just were not helping my state of mind.

Yet amazingly, on the journey home the following day they were exactly what the doctor ordered!  I was happy, I was relaxed and positive and I sang along joyfully at the top of my voice all the way home until my voice literally conked out and Dave Gilmour had to be a lost soul swimming in a fish bowl without me.  What a difference a day makes! 

I have to say that now the dust has settled, the grieving is over and I have got over the shock of no longer having the job I thought I was going to have until death, I am surprised to find that I am actually happier than I have been in a very long time.  I have discovered I can get through life quite contentedly without all sorts of things I used to buy without thinking.  After taking a carload of hulking great teenage boys to their rugby game at the weekend I realised how if I had still had a job I would have thought nothing of shouting them all McDonalds on the way home and not even noticed the $40 or so coming out of my bank account.  Now however that seems incomprehensible to me.  $40 is HUGE!  In comparison, the biggest luxury we've splurged on in the past week is a jar of tartare sauce to accompany the fresh fish we caught.  I don't really need anything - and I don't care.  Although I do admit to struggling a little at morning tea time without my Russian Fudge Yoghurt from The Collective Dairy but as it was rightly pointed out to me, I can't justify spending the same amount on a pot of yoghurt just for me when it costs the same as a whole frozen chicken to feed our entire family.  I daresay I'll survive...

What does make me rather miffed however is that even after a whole week of not spending anything - and I mean ANYTHING - there is still money haemorraghing out of our bank account.  Oh curse you direct debits and automatic payments!  It may be convenient and it's nice to know the bills are being paid but it's pretty soul destroying when one minute you're patting yourself on the back for a job well done and then you go and check your bank balance only to find you've got almost $2,000 less in there than when you last looked and you haven't even left the house or got as much as a stick of chewing gum to show for it.  Still, I refuse to lose any more sleep.  We're all doing the best we can and can take comfort from that - and better still, we're happy! 

TODAY I LEARNED: Money is magic - it disappears without a trace and nobody has a clue where or how it went.  And I still emphatically believe you can never have too many salt lamps.

PS: Ali's interpretation of 'Comfortably Numb' made me chuckle but not as much as my friend's eight-year-old did at the weekend.  Happily plugged into his dad's iPod he had his parents in stitches at his loud vocal pleas to 'Free Nelson Nutella!'