Failing.

I have just walked half an hour to the local supermarket, only to find that it is closed. I kick myself and head home, my mentally-compiled shopping list of salmon trimmings, lemon sole, potato, and full fat soft cheese quashed by the sunday trading hours. There is a small Tesco Express around the corner from my house, but my measly few pounds won't go very far in there. I had been so excited about 20p nectarines, about lemon sole for less than a pound, about being able to afford good food, I am kicking myself as I trudge home, legs tired already from the effort, and dreading tomorrow's phone call to work. No, I'm not coming in, as I have been throwing up for 8 days now and the Motillium-10 the doctor gave me the first time round is doing nothing for me. Of course, I will fail to mention that I'm not actually taking it, because it is harmful to pregnant women, and am instead relying on dry toast and peppermint tea to ease the nausea. Play dumb, don't even mention the P-word until it has been confirmed by a doctor, and I can go and wave a piece of paper at them and shut them all up. Maybe I will take the whole week off work. That would leave me thirty pounds to eat with all week. Thirty pounds. That's a fiver a day, easily lived off, especially with my super budgeting ability.

I bite my fingernails, trying to not piss work off too much, knowing that my contract has not been renewed and that that will be the whispers in the canteen, that I am hiding from a contract that has run out and the possibility that it may not be renewed. The possibility of losing my job now frightens me. I need this job more than anything now, for the maternity leave, for the stability. I will book tomorrow off and gauge a reaction from there, but I am sick, and hopefully following the sickness procedure correctly this time. Phoned in every day, went to the doctors on the second day but they were fully booked for appointments, so went to the family planning clinic, but they closed at midday because it is a Friday; haven't been able to get an appointment all weekend as it's not one of those super-surgeries that is open weekends, and am off to the doctors first thing on Monday morning. I will phone them at 6am, and let them know, and hopefully nobody will wave procedures at me and tell me that I have failed to follow them. Hopefully.