Dwell

I just broke a glass while washing up. It slipped from my wet rubber-gloved grasp as I reached to put it to drain on the folded tea towel that serves as draining rack overflow, fell hard enough from high enough to break, though it only fell onto the worktop not onto the floor. A big chunky IKEA tumbler used every day, it will be missed, but at least that sort of glass doesn't break into a million tiny shards like the wine glass full of white wine I knocked over and broke a few weeks ago. I don't want to have broken a glass! I exclaimed wearily, if one can exclaim wearily.

I am on an email service from my therapists' organisation, which alerts you to jobs in your area. They emailed me details of one this morning. It's 6 hours a week managing a counselling service for people with HIV/ AIDS. There are many things about it that are unclear, but one thing that is already clear is that 6 hours is not enough time to do what is in the Job Description, though it is probably all they can afford. I have worked for many charities and a kind of weariness creeps over me. However, it is more the sort of job I expected to be doing than teaching medical students, and it's nearer to home, and and and. I do and don't want to apply. Mostly I just feel a kind of mental chaos at the idea of having to start yet another new thing any time soon. Could I cope with that and two mornings of teaching starting in September, one morning at the school and two private clients?

L meanwhile is busy preparing for this year's Handmade Parade. It's on Saturday, and she has been painting bees onto cardboard since last night (she did go to bed in between) and has now gone off to today's community workshop to complete her costume and help children and parents with theirs. We hope the rain will stay away...

The glass, and the turmoil about jobs, and the fact that I can never seem to be comfortable on any chair, that my lower back and my neck and shoulders, and my upper back all seem to be taking turns feeling sore or stiff, make me cross and impatient. I have to keep coming back to my new resolve to check in regularly with myself and remind myself to be kind, to be gentle, not to bully and criticise.

In just over a week's time we go on holiday and will dwell by the sea for a week in Northumberland. This feels timely.