Friday night blues

 If men fancy a night in the pub or just want to get out of the house, they don't need to find friends to go with. They can just up sticks and prop up the bar for an hour, even if they don't know a sole in there.

Tonight, that's just what I want to do! The kids are away and it's been a tough working week and all I really want is to see some people - whether I know them or not - and have a few glasses of Merlot.

So tonight I am home with a glass of wine, but I'd much rather be out, even though I am exhausted and a bit tearful and I can't help wondering if I have regressed 4 years or so. Back in Suburbia I felt very lonely and now here I am feeling exactly the same again. Maybe I keep making the same mistakes?

The company of a good friend would be wonderful this weekend. However my best friend is on holiday, most of my girlfriends are married with kids and spend the weekends - understandably - with them and my one and only single friend has gone awol - busy or in love - she's not been in touch for a while.

Is this is the 'lot' of the single woman who has kids one weekend so is unavailable and an empty life the next? I need more friends, more single friends, there must be some somewhere that aren't young enough to be my children!

Life in general seems to be a bit of a struggle right now and when my line manager asked me if I was OK at work today I started to cry! Perhaps I need to go to the doctor? Perhaps I need to blog more! Or just get a life!

What will you do this weekend?

Perhaps I just need a wife?

What a beautiful day it's been today? Like summer has returned. How many more of these days will we get before winter sets in? It was a beautiful day to plant bulbs and plan for spring. So I spent some time picking out tulips and narcissus from the huge selection at the garden centre and returned home to plant them, digging up wet clods of earth and putting the bulbs to bed in the damp, cool soil. I visualised them blooming, I could almost hear their contented sigh as the chilled earth embraced them like a blanket and switched off the light. Perhaps my age is catching up with me? Not that long ago I'd have had no interest whatsoever in being in the garden, let alone find it relaxing. Oh dear!

However I have gained much pleasure in my small patch of earth this year, it has been a place to relax and reflect and I have needed both in equal measure. For sometimes I feel that I can't keep pace with life and it's not just a feeling, it's my whole being knowing that living life at this pace is not sustainable, at the moment I am swimming as fast as I can.

Of course work is demanding, promotion last month meant stepping up a gear and I have enjoyed the challenge, be it ever so frustrating at times. However I guess the main pressure is sustaining a house, garden and 2 kids single handed. A colleague at work mentioned that her husband had been away working for a week and what a relief it was that he was home again to share the jobs and the childcare - mostly the childcare! I sighed inwardly. There are no colour coded jobs in this house, no pink for dish washing and blue for taking out the bins, nope, not here. And to be honest I'm not complaining, I like the independence- a lot, but that doesn't mean it's not exhausting. Perhaps I just need a wife!