Posted By Laura in Featured, In the Home, The Four the Laundry the Life | 1 comment

It’s Monday. It is.
And whilst I have managed over the last ten years to engineer as much Monday stress out of my life as is humanly possible for the non-mega-rich person to do – it’s still Monday.
I work from home, so I have no Monday morning commute to deal with. We’ve been Home Educating for three years now, so the hideous Monday school run is thankfully a distant memory.
But it’s still Monday.

And there are several inescapable truths about Monday that no one can avoid…

1 – The alarm clock.

No matter how much I try to balance it out, I simply don’t quite get enough sleep all week, so come the weekend I gleefully refuse to set the alarm and enjoy those longer sleeps. Of course that means that come Monday, that evil box of blurping going off on the other side of the room feels like a Noise of Satan that’s personally out to get me.
AND I have to get out of bed to make it stop (admittedly that’s self-inflicted tactics. If I can reach it from under the duvet, I just go back to sleep).

2 – It’s Back to the World.

The weekends are a joyous anti-tech bubble. I try really hard to switch off the Mac at weekends, and I revel in reminding myself gleefully “No! You won’t do that today, because it’s Sunday.”
Sadly, that excuse doesn’t work on Mondays. I really do have to go do That Thing.

3 – Remember That Thing you put off on Friday?

Yeah. It’s back. This one follows neatly on from Point 2; now it’s Monday you have to do That Thing before you get to all the Monday stuff you have to do, because you sloped off early on Friday, and refused to work all weekend you slacker.

4 – Too Much Coffee

And thanks to points 1, 2 and 3, the coffee pot allure has never been so strong. Lorelai Gilmore has nothing on me on Monday morning. Coffee serves a perfect purpose – you can avoid doing That Thing because you need to walk to the kitchen and go make it. It also makes you feel like you’re going to be waa-a-a-ay more productive in just ten more minutes. Or, y’know, in ten minutes you might just need to go and make more coffee…

5. Everybody you talk to is Monday-Grumpy

There’s seriously nothing more depressing on your own mood than being surrounded by other grumpy people. no one smiles on a Monday morning. No one stops to chat. Oh, they might stop – to moan. To say how brilliant their weekend was – and therefore how grim their Monday already is. Lovely, thanks for sharing. I think I’ll go make a coffee.

But fear not. For I have a total Sovereign Specific cure for all ills. NO really, I do.
Ever since I was little, there has been one thing that makes everything feel better.
Growing up I was horribly prone to tonsillitis. Regular bouts that took an age to clear and left me feeling hideous – but the one thing guaranteed to make it feel just a little more okay was a scalding hot drink with some marmite toast.

One plate of perfectly toasted bread (white is best, wholegrain will come a close second), crisply golden on the outside, still a little fluffy in the centre. Add butter (real butter, no imitations thank you), and make sure there’s enough on there to soak in and go all the way to the crust. Then the marmite. Not too much, mind. Just a gentle spread, turning the buttery toast a soft warming shade of goodness. Eat… and feel better.

This one simple cure has never let me down throughout my adult life.

Rough start to the day? Take just a few minutes for a couple of slices of marmite toast. It’ll help.

Woke up and you’re out of milk? Marmite Toast.

Have a cold/sore throat? Marmite Toast will fix it.

Indulged a little too much last night? Marmite Toast is the answer.

The threat is very real. But the UK is not yet aware of just how badly the country is set to suffer from ‘The Mondays’ should we not begin to address the problem immediately. Therefore, in its first move, the Ministry of Marmite has issued a Public Information film that highlights ‘The Mondays’ and the symptoms to look out for (all of which can obviously be cured by eating Marmite on toast).