What do you do, on the first day of the rest of your life?

Day Plus One, and we are largely hanging around the apartment trying to do nothing and not quite succeeding.

Last night I had a magnificent pharmaceutical accident: for we have a few old tablets of Lorazepam with us, and after the night before I felt that I was due a proper night's sleep. Experience has proved that I can cut one of these tablets into four and feel the benefit with a mere quarter: so there I was with one of those and our magnificent little pill-splitter device, and I rather cackhandedly dropped the pill into the sink. Which was damp.

By the time I'd fished the pill out again, it was already starting to dissolve around the edges, so I performed my famous "what the hell" shrug and swallowed the whole damn thing. Last time I took a whole one, I famously slept not only through Karen's rising and showering and dressing and going off to Grand Jury, but also through the boys' breakfast time - I'm sorry, that should be I SLEPT THROUGH THE BOYS' BREAKFAST TIME! - and woke at ten with two anxious furry faces wondering if I was edible yet, or if they had to wait a little longer.

This time I slept like a delicious contented log till seven-thirty, when Karen needed me. Lord knows how long I'd have slept else. Sleep is good, y'all.

Karen's not feeling too good today. I have made one emergency dash to the pharmacy, and am poised for another as and when. Otherwise I read and poke about obscure corners of the internet and occasionally think I ought to be seizing this chance to work but. I got nuthin'.

Restless legs

I may be showing the first signs of cabin fever. After a fortnight basically withindoors, I suppose that ain't bad, but it is deuced inconvenient, especially coming today of all the days we've had so far.

If I twitch back the blinds on the full-length picture window at my back, I have a view of a car park, a tower block, the London Eye (well, actually it's the Star of Puebla, but you know what I mean), and Popacatepetl. And really I just want to be out there. I could shop - there are things Karen will need, tomorrow if not tonight - but mostly I just want to walk. It's how I experience any new city, foreign or domestic; I am the original flaneur. I like to walk unknown streets, peer into unknown windows, watch the behaviour of strangers on the street. Sit in parks, eat street food I cannot name, read signs in languages I cannot understand. Full immersive protocols. I'm good at this.

I'm here as Karen's helpmeet and caregiver, though, and it's very much part of the contract that I not wander off and leave her stranded. Today especially, when she's too sick to leave her bedroom and might want anything at any time.

I've tended people on their sickbeds before this, of course - in a sheerly practical sense, I'm rather good at it, tho' I remain the world's worst hospital visitor, because I can never think of anything to say - but never this intensively for this long on my own. When Quin was dying, it took a year and was kind of like a war - moments of high drama, interspersed with long periods of dull calm - including the whole army thing. There was a team of us, a dozen or so standing shifts, with all the back-up we could want or dream. Here, there's pretty much me. Lots of doctors and nurses on the other end of a phone, of course - but you know how I am with phones.

When I said I might need respite care when we get home, I may not have been kidding. Or I might just be difficult to deal with, or y'all might need to be extra-nice to me for a while, or... I just have no clue. You might find you have two patients in recovery.