a strange feeling

Yesterday i got up at the fairly respectable hour of 8.30am-ish. Those childless readers (hello? any body out there?) amongst you may recoil in horror at the thought of getting up at that time on a Sunday. I, however thanked both my lucky stars, and Little Companion, as it is down to him that i was allowed my lie in. To be fair, he had refused, point blank to go to sleep at his usual 8pm on Saturday night, interrupting my gleefully planned dinner of a wedge of Gorgonzola, rice cakes, and red wine. I did the sane parenting thing of ignoring the first noises i could hear emanating from his bedroom, but when he started to say, loudly, woefully, while in tears, 'Mummy - gone... Daddy - gone.... Didi [what he calls my dad, his grandpa] - gone... Granny - gone...' in rotation, i could ignore no more. He came down and we waited for Naked Chef Husband to return home at the fairly respectable, for a Saturday night, 9.30pm. i do not call Naked Chef husband that because he bares any resemblance to Jamie Oliver, but purely because he's a chef and he likes being naked.
Anyway, i digress. my point is, i had an albeit small,  but very appreciated lie in yesterday morning, before i headed over to my parents house, where i left Little Companion so that i could go for a run. In September I entered the Reading half marathon, which is on the 20th March. Back then I had Plenty Of Time, and I said that a lot, feeling absolutely sure that everything would be great, I had a couple of months to get my 'base mileage' (so they call it) up to 8-10 miles per week, as suggested by my beginners training schedule from Google. This was of course all before I THREW MYSELF DOWN THE STAIRS. Well, I say threw - that sounds like i wanted to top myself which i didn't and don't, i actually fell like a proper dramatic fall down a pretty steem, adn unfamiliar at that point, set of stairs.
I was bringing Articulate down stairs as one of my friends was visiting me in our new house (Little Companion, Naked Chef Husband and I had moved into our grown up house the day before). I was walking down the stairs and our big, stupid, gentle and nervously afflicted cat, Leroy, was lying across one of the very steep, newly carpeted, and therefore already perilous stairs. He was hidden from my view by the Articulate box, so i trod on him. He slipped from under my foot like silk, and I ended up rocketing down the stairs much to my friend's horror. The result of this minor drama was that my knee was completely buggered, and could well still be - but I'm currently choosing to ignore and conquer.  Instead of getting my base mileage up slowly over October, November and December i decided the best option, as i couldn't run with my knee problem was to drink as much alcohol, and eat as much carb/fat/sugar/dairy food as humanly possible. In light of that i have had a mildly panicked feeling in the low part of my stomach since January (must be all that booze- i hear you cry), as I'm not exactly the fittest or exercisy person in the world. In fact i would say that while i like a lot of exercise, i like it most when I'm sitting on my couch, watching telly, eating ice cream and thinking about it fleetingly every couple of days. i have never entered a race, and i have never run more than about 3 miles or so. Having said all that, training is going well, i have done a lot of runs over the last 2 weeks, i ran 5.39 kilometres on Saturday, something I'm hugely proud of, but am also acutely aware that its only a quarter of what I'm going to have to run in about 9 weeks. gulp. oh well - It Will Be Fine.
Once I'd finished my run Little Companion and I went home again, and i strangely still had a lot of energy, so i decided to clean the house. I put some music on, a mixture of Ministry of Sound Electro House, George Michael, Byonce and Erykah Baddu This all went well until i went into the living room, still humming along to the jumble of music, using my awesome new Black and Decker Dust Buster (a revelation gadget present form my clean/neat freak parents, trying to drop a not so subtle hint i think...) i start to hear something. it sounds something like 'mumble mumble' THUD 'COMPLAIN COMPLAIN' THUD! I stopped my dust busting, went into the kitchen to find that Little Companion, who had been happily playing outside, was now inside, and had emptied the mopping water all over the kitchen floor, and was now attempting to swim/dive into it. I sprang into action, stripped him on the spot and we went upstairs for an early bath. He still smelt vaguely of Flash this morning when we woke up, but all in all no tears, no terrible burns or rashes, so i think he's fine.
After finishing the cleaning while little companion slept, i chilled, spoke to my parents and invited them over for dinner later that night. I watched a bad film on telly and waited for and Naked Chef husband to get home. When Naked chef Husband did get home, (Little companion was awake again by this point, while waiting we'd watched the end of Beauty and the Beast together in that wonderful post afternoon sleepy hue that toddlers have, where they want to be wrapped up, warm and close to you, and for about half an hour aren't intent on launching them selves off or climbing up furniture, and he loved it) i had an amazing shower, actually blow dried my hair and i cooked some dahl - my current obsession, its just so yummy and good for you!
I went for a smoke while the dahl was cooking. I sat on a chair outside feeling this amazing feeling, a feeling that i haven't felt for a long time. I was clean, rested, i was surrounded by my family, waiting for my parents to arrive, so much  I'd done stuff this weekend- I'd seen one of my best friends for dinner on Friday night, been for my 5.39km run on Saturday, on Sunday I'd done exercise AND cleaning (almost unheard of on the same day), I'd successfully been in charge of my son all day, flying solo, had lots of fun, and managed not to kill him, and we only had to look in the direction of the naughty step once. This is what i call a rip roaring success of a weekend. It hit me. The emotion that i was feeling was happiness. Contented, warm, clean, fuzzy, happiness, and it feels much like the first time you put on a new, luscious, woolly winter bobble hat - the wool is fresh and smells of shop, the hat doesn't give you hat hair, because you're just trying it on for a bit. That's how i felt last night, like a brand new winter bobble hat, and it felt good.