Sunday’s Child Is Full of Sweat

Flatpack carnage, chilled wine, hangovers, a melting Victorian cat-dad, and one accidental act of journalism topped with some collaboration.

Not to sound dramatic, but I'm dying.

Photo by Abdullah Fahad on Unsplash

The heat is doing me in. Not in the sexy Mediterranean way, where you glisten and sip spritzes under a pergola. No. This is the full-flop, damp-elbow, lying-on-the-sofa-like-a-fading-Victorian-orphan variety. The sort where you stare at the ceiling fan as if it's your only remaining god, and contemplate whether you can survive another hour without removing your skin.

My husband, being a healthcare professional and therefore immune to theatrical suffering, has diagnosed me as "hanging like a fruit bat." He's not wrong. I am draped over furniture in ways that defy both dignity and vertebrae.

To make matters worse (or more heroic, depending on the framing), I spent the weekend assembling furniture. Not just any furniture. IKEA PAX wardrobes. For my study. Which, in theory, will soon become a sanctuary of calm and productivity, but in practice currently resembles a battlefield strewn with cardboard, discarded screws, and the echoes of marital bickering about which way round the hinges go.

He does the building, I hand the tools. It's always been like that - we know how to make things work, even when we're both wilting and slightly tetchy about Swedish engineering.

We did this during a heatwave. I need you to understand that. We built flatpack wardrobes in 30-degree temperatures. And we survived. Barely.

As a reward for our endurance, we went to dinner at a friend's house. They served Basque cheesecake - the good variety, the slightly burnt one that tastes like creme brelee's hotter cousin - and poured generous glasses of very chilled Gavi. I partook. Enthusiastically. Repeatedly.

This morning, I awoke convinced I was being punished by the gods. Not just any gods - the particularly vindictive ones who specialise in combining dehydration with existential dread. I was limp, dehydrated, full of regret and vague cheese-based memories that felt like evidence of crimes I couldn't quite remember committing. My head felt like it was hosting a small but enthusiastic construction project, complete with drilling and the occasional collapse of load-bearing structures.

And yet, the drawers still needed building. The doors still needed hanging. So we soldiered on, with me offering the sort of support normally reserved for fainting maidens in Mills & Boon novels - all wistful sighs and strategic positioning near furniture for emergency collapse. I held a screwdriver and whimpered, occasionally making soft noises of distress that my husband ignored.

Eventually - miraculously - the job was done. At which point I was sent out, in my fragile state, to Lidl. Armed with nothing but a vague shopping list and the determination that comes from knowing there's no food in the house, I ventured forth into the fluorescent wasteland.

It was… a lot. The air-conditioning was theoretical at best. The aisles were carnage - families with trolleys moving like slow-motion bumper cars, small children collapsing onto the floor in solidarity with my general state of being. The lemons were mocking me with their aggressive yellowness. Every decision felt monumental: did we need bread? What even is bread? Why are there seventeen different types of yogurt and why do they all look the same when you're dying?

I bought things, I don't remember what, paid with the glazed confusion normally reserved for people emerging from minor surgery, and fled. The walk home felt like a pilgrimage through purgatory, plastic bags cutting into my hands like tiny instruments of divine punishment.

Meanwhile, at home, the Fur Daemon - who is seventeen, slow-moving, and currently shedding like a wool jumper in a tumble dryer - has been staring at me with her usual mix of disdain and pity. We adopted her from Battersea a few years ago, when she was already twelve. And lately, I find myself watching her age and realising that I'm far more upset about it than I ever expected to be. She's old, yes. But she's ours. She sleeps curled against my side at night like a small, judgemental radiator. And even on days where I feel stretched too thin, she grounds me.

I mentioned last week that I wanted to start showing up here a bit more honestly - less super-serious debunky Bear, more human, clumsy, not-at-all-composed Bear. Well, mission accomplished, I suppose. Here I am: furniture-building, cat-worrying, heat-wilting, slightly hungover and entirely ridiculous. This is me being more me.

In less tragic news - or perhaps more, depending on your perspective - I accidentally did a journalism this week. After Zia Yusuf had a full meltdown about taxpayer-funded TV licences for asylum seekers, I reached out to a Kent County Councillor and got an actual on-the-record statement. Imagine that: evidence. He, predictably, did not take it well on Twitter.

Still no sign of where his original claim came from, and I'm not exactly holding my breath. But hey, apparently asking a basic follow-up question now counts as investigative reporting. Add that to the CV, I guess.

Speaking of writing: today also saw the publication of my joint post with the brilliant

Emma Monk

- a full-on myth-busting, science-backed, GLP-1 debunkathon. It's detailed, it's sharp, and it says the quiet part out loud about wellness grifters, chemophobia, and why people trust mysterious powders more than actual medicine. Emma hosts it on her Substack (link below), and I'm truly chuffed with what we pulled together.

Bear and Monk Debunk: GLP-1s, Hype and Hormones

So yes - I'm overheated, overworked, slightly hungover, emotionally fragile about my cat, physically battered from DIY, and probably dehydrated. But I'm also grateful. For cheesecake. For wine. For collaboration. For my Fur Daemon. For people who read what I write and send kindness instead of bile.

I'll be back next Sunday, ideally from a cooler, slightly less hungover and less furniture-heavy place.

In the meantime, here’s wishing everyone a lovely week next week, now please excuse me while I go drink my bodyweight in water.

Best,

Bear