Some days I marvel at how much I move. I fidget. I walk faster than most people I know. I'd much rather go and see someone than pick up the telephone, which leads to endless pacing of corridors at work.
It's not just my body - my mind is also constantly on the move. I play out old conversations, and imagine new ones. I rake through my memory for things I've forgotten to do. I feel a constant sense of having missed something important.
For years at work I've used the Getting Things Done system. This functions like a second brain, and leaves my first brain free to get on with the current task without having to think of the others. I do like a system - as much as I like to think of myself as spontaneous and free, I work best with structure and lists. But I've yet to make the same system work at home, and so my home brain whirls and skips and runs.
It's exhausting.
Last Monday I woke feeling rough. This is unusual for me - I'm quite robust and not at all inclined to be poorly. But last Monday I was, and rather than fight it, I spent the day on the sofa. Once there, I realised I couldn't go anywhere else, and I could barely think about anything else. No internet, little tv. I read an entire book, stared out of the window, drank tea, and watched the sunshine move around the room.
This week all that was forgotten. Work is an eddy of endings and beginnings, with obligations and an uneasy sense of not knowing where my responsibilities lie.
Home is, well... home is home, but we are looking towards the day when home might be elsewhere, which is exciting but very quickly became overwhelming, with banks, solicitors, estate agents to consider. And then the physical reality of plaster falling off walls, appliances breaking, and too many things and not enough cupboards to hide them in.
I'm learning new skills. I've learned to fit tiles to a wall - a skill I now need to practice more after the plaster came off another part of the shower. I've learned more about plastering in the last week than I ever knew in the rest of my life. The contents of my bathroom are in the bedroom, and the contents of the bedroom are strewn around the house. The kitchen is full of varnish and paint and two gas cookers, and all of a sudden everything is Too Much.
And so today, we stop. The estate agent can value the house another day. The plastering has waiting this long - it can wait again.
A nourishing meal. Lunch in a cafe. A bath. An early night with a book that has nothing to do with buying houses and self improvement. If I am mad how can we ever make a sensible decision about where to live?
First things first.