Wait, what social anxiety?

I seem to be getting better at this going into shops thing. Sunday I rushed into town to get a last minute surprise present for Daddy - who turned 30 on Monday, shhh! Don't tell anyone - and after staring in desperation at the bottles of sherry in Oddbins admitted to the shopkeeper I didn't have a clue and he pointed out the only sweet sherry they had in. We also discussed the possibility of port, but unfortunately the only bottle of that they had in appeared to be leaking, so that ruled that out. Still, I bought the sherry (a sweet oloroso) and it was much appreciated.

Today, I finally caved and decided we should "waste our money on cough medicine", despite the doctor's advice. Daddy has been struggling with a cough for some weeks now, and it's worn him out utterly. His reluctance to take things easy to start with probably didn't help. Last weekend I did manage to persuade him to spend most of the days in bed and he's only been working part-time this week and crashing out in the afternoons. Having done a little research, I went to the local pharmacy and asked for cough medicine. Explained a bit, chatted and decided to get the strongest non-drowsy dry cough syrup. We'll have to wait and see whether it actually helps or not.

So it appears the trick is to be too tired or stressed to worry about saying the right thing. Whether this works as well on the telephone as in person, only time will tell. Although I still have to resort to being rude to cold callers: "Sorry, I'm not interested," hang up before they have time to start talking again. I feel a bit mean as they're only doing their job, but if they're paid on commission then they're just wasting their time on me. So maybe I'm doing them a favour....

In other news, I'm being tired and irritable all the time, although this might be due solely to having more to do while Daddy has not been well. Work is also not going well. Social life (such as it is) is full of tension and other tired and irritable people. The Terror is still pushing although that might be because he's tired and irritable too. Solution - spiking the water with laudanum.