weekend worrier

Many people wait for the weekend with great anticipation, as someone who works most weekends I am not one of these people. This weekend my holidays ended with a bang or rather an outrageously early alarm call as I debated the merits of more sleep versus a pre work shower. The shower won and I hastily made myself look vaguely presentable and threw together a quick lunch before deciding to forgo breakfast in favour of more lying down in preparation for the day ahead. Despite the towel on the pillow, lying in bed with wet hair  was not my smartest plan and when I was finally forced to drag my sleepy ass out of bed, my hair was rather fluffy. It would be fair to say that my hair style resembled the gruffalo which was only fitting given that I was going to be having a Gruffalo party in the shop later that day.

It was a disorganized sort of day with not many of us in books I didn't get to finish sorting out the children's section before I had to run out and get treats for the party and then suddenly I had to start getting everything ready and just like that it was lunch time and after the rest of my work day passed in a bit of a blur as I made up goody bags and blew up balloons and hung banners. As a last ditch measure I even tied a load of balloons to the sign we had outside advertising the party. I admit I might have been mildly concerned that it would be like my where's wally event a few weeks back and I might be left standing alone in the children's department for a good while before any party goers turned up. Admittedly even children's event I have hosted has been a mix of panic that no one will come to panic that I will end up with far too many children and \I'll be over run. When the kids started arriving well before the start time I panicked and immediately took in my sign. I didn't want more children than goody bags. And then a girl turned up to do face-painting and the children's section slowly turned into organized chaos. I don't think anyone realizes how difficult it is to keep the attention of and entertain a large number of children in a bookshop with all the shelves getting in the way so there's no one big open space to gather everyone in but I did my best and hoped it would all turn out okay.
I started things with a gruffalo story and it was loud in there, I swear only half of the children were even paying attention but some of the smaller kids had been waiting a good twenty minutes to hear the story ( the down side of turning up early) so I thought it best to start soon or risk losing them. Those that listened enjoyed it and after we played pin the tail on the gruffalo (pretty much pin the tail on the donkey),some gruffalo colouring, a pinata filled with jellies and then goody bags for everyone as they started to head off. One of the parents worked for a local paper and brought a photographer a long, I can't even tell you if I'm in any of the pictures or if the whole thing went well but the kids seemed happy so let's just call it a success. After that I only had an hour of tidying and it was home time. Obviously the positive of this is that day went very fast and I think my event went pretty smoothly.The flip side however is that after any event like that all I want to do is curl up in a dark room and not talk to people. Plus I hadn't worked in 10 days so I had all of that plus that just back to work tiredness. So let's just say I was exceptional company for the evening. If anyone reading this had a very exciting Saturday night then rest assured my night is not going to rival yours. I was poorer than I usually am at this point in the week thanks to the whole Ryanair debacle so I wasn't planning on going anywhere. Stephen was to call over so we could watch a movie. Unfortunately for him when he did show up, I was still lying on my couch watching a show, my dinner not yet started so it was a while later before we sat down to watch a film. He picked because I had already admitted that all I really wanted to do was lie in a dark room by myself and did not have the head for watching a movie. We weren't long in to it when I complained of restless legs so we moved the laptop in the room where I promptly fell asleep for large parts of the movie, waking at the end confused because it had ended and I didn't know what was going on. I fell asleep for the night shortly after.

I woke this morning cranky from a dream where my parents bought me a very expensive tv and I was trying to find a way to tell them I don't actually watch tv. Ah first world dream problems. A much shorter work day loomed and no children's parties but I still didn't manage to greet Sunday with any sort of grace. I headed into work feeling like I was doing some sort of penance and spent the few hours trying to tidy, answer all of the queries as well as get through a ridiculous order and naturally I didn't manage to do them all which left me feeling very tired and stressed. I don't do my best work multitasking, that's for sure. A few hours later I left feeling tired and a bit like I needed someone to buy me treats but with the small bit of hope that tonight I might actually stay awake a little after 10.
In the morning I  will head to Clonmel to rest and train and rest some more and hopefully by the time next weekend rolls round, I will be a little less boring.