Yep that is the story of my past 2 weeks. Work – lots of it. Along with repointing – which is more work. The garden looks like a bomb has hit it, as last week I started cutting back the wisteria, but while I got it cut I’ve not had time to collect all the trimmings together – well let’s be honest I’ve had the time but not the energy. I just feel like I’ve been flat out. I would love more energy – to be able to keep going all week and then all weekend, but the reality is that I just don’t have that level of fitness or stamina now. Getting old I guess?
However, I did take out some time for myself over the last two weeks. One thing I did a couple of weeks ago was to write a list of the things I like doing. Some of the items on my list are below:
Painting / art work
Reading
Walks with Pat and Siena
Laughing
Walks on the beach / being beside the sea
Having a chat with friends over coffee
It was an interesting exercise to do. I did it partly as a reaction to something I read (or heard, I can’t remember now 🙁 ) but also I’ve noticed that as we get busier with doing stuff – the things we love to do are the things we let go of. So my challenge to myself was to see how I can make sure that I do something that I love, at least every day.
One of the obvious ones is going on walk with Pat and Siena (our wonderful little dog). But when I get really busy with work, this is the first thing to go. So even though I have been flat out over the past two weeks, I made sure that I did this every day (one exception). It was great to give myself that break during the day. I also made sure that I get to my art class now that, that has started again. This was the painting I finished last week (started at a day course during the summer – I’m really happy with this).
I also got to go for coffee yesterday with one of my class mates (from my Tuesday morning French class) who I haven’t seen over the entire summer. We went into our local town to the café and sat by the open fire and had a really good natter and catch-up – 2 coffee’s each later we decided that we really did need to get home, but we both said that this is something we need to do again as the brief catch-up we have at French class really isn’t enough.
So this week going forward I am going to endeavour to add more things to my life that make my life fun and enjoyable, because as we know all work and no play makes (insert relevent name) a dull person!
Until next time, and don’t forget Pat’s blog next week – http://patblog.patbell.co.uk