The Art of being an Ostrich

I’m done with talking about politics*. The whole business seems to be in free-fall and it’s making me feel ill. I feel like Chicken Licken and I don’t really know what I’m talking about. Sometimes, you just have to accept that there is not much you can do about the wider issues (beyond signing an infinity of online petitions, joining a union/continuing your membership to a union) and hunker down. With that in mind, I’m going to list some of the things that I’ve used as distractions from the whole monstrous business this week.

1. Watching the incredible Game of Thrones finale then reading everything I could about it: programme blogs, Interviews with cast members, fan theory memes, articles discussing Jon Snow’s parentage….http://www.zergnet.com/news/1010617/the-jon-snow-reveal-may-be-more-complicated-than-we-thought
2. Playing Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit. I won! But I don’t like to crow (much). Some might say that I have an unfair advantage, having read all of the books at least four times. I’m a geek, alright! It worked, as a distraction so now to see if there is a Game of Thrones version...
3. Watching Pointless. More quizzing, but this is nothing out of the ordinary, business as usual!
4. Reading Agatha Christie. There is something about reading about a time where women (even the maids) travelled with hat boxes that makes it seem like a totally different world. This must be why people read fantasy - to escape from the mundane and familiar. Of course somebody always dies (in Christie) but they’re usually an out and out bounder, so that’s OK.
5. Reading 'naughty' stories (not very effective). What is it about sex in books that, in the wrong hands, manages to turn it into something numbingly tedious? Yeah, yeah, yeah, then he did that...skip, skip...Perhaps it is all about quality rather than quantity - too much cloys the palate.
6. Skimming through social media and trying to avoid anything that mentions the B word, or politics in general. If not avoid, then just glean the salient points.
7. Eating chocolate - Kit-Kats, specifically. Kit-kats are ace - the right ratio of chocolate to wafer, a satisfying crunch.

Why does comfort eating get such a bad press? The clue is in the name, y’all, it’s comforting! (I am kind of joking here…)

8. Walking a lot - to counteract the paralysing fear. See previous blog post about walking. http://msmuddles.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/the-joy-of-walking.html It helps if you get lost (see previous FB status update). Also, to counteract all the comfort eating you might be doing.
9. Pretending that the children are babies again and rocking them in my arms, whilst singing ‘See-saw-margery-daw’ in a dreary monotone (they seem to like it- although I do like to try and keep the sMothering to a minimum).
10. Meeting up with friends and balancing Brexit talk with talk of other things - books etc.

*Disclaimer: Please don’t think this means I don’t care - I care deeply, about all of it, but it is making me ill and I need to take a step back and, thinking about the serenity prayer, ‘accept the things I cannot change’. Some people think that you should face your fears head on but this feels very much like a battle to which I haven’t been invited!