Aggravation and excitement

Today was aggravating.  Not particularly busy, but everything was... aggravating.   I could feel my frown lines deepening as the day went on and the headache lingering in the background. We missed our goal for this month by 8 boats which was mainly due to one person being off sick, and all my stuff being AGGRAVATINGLY time-consuming and confusing.  But never mind, 8 boats is ok, and we have caught up since last month so that is A Good Thing.

And tomorrow is a half day, Mr H is due back at lunchtime-ish, together with Django and a new colony of bees he is picking up on the way.  So I am only working in the morning, in the afternoon we will be sorting out the new home for said bees, I'm rather excited!

Mr H has kept bees for 29 years and carried on when he moved down here, but we've had bad luck losing them over the winters recently. So for the first time ever we have decided to buy a new colony, and start anew with them in a better location and within walking distance.  They are quite expensive to buy, so they will be molly-coddled for fear of losing them over the very first winter which would be Not A Good Thing At All.

So, a relaxed evening this evening is called for - easy supper and a good book should do it.

But before I go, here is a gratuitous photo of our local lighthouse which is next to the castle I walked out to the other evening.

Edit at 9pm.  So much for sitting with a good book, I couldn't. Having driven to work today I NEEDED to do something.  Went for a brisk walk exploring some new footpaths down the lane, 3 miles later...

Contentment

When I got home today some new sports shorts were waiting for me (eBay bargain, naturellement), they are just chuck-on for bumming around but designed for running which I thought would be useful later.  Anyway I tried them on, stood in front of the mirror and thought "I feel fat".

Oh well yes - what woman doesn't do that occasionally, whatever size she may be?   But in the next split second I thought "But so what.".  I know that at certain times I feel more fat/bloated/ugh than at others, all for the same poundage.

And I'm content.

Which means more to me than worrying about excess curves (is there such a thing?). I don't want to get on the (metaphorical) treadmill of forever striving to be however many inches / kg lighter.  Interestingly, I converted from knowing my weight in lbs/stone to kg when I started going to the gym many years ago. Now I hate the gym but am forever converted to kg; but measurements still have to be in feet/inches.  And in the States isn't it lbs and metres/centimetres?  how fickle we humans are.

So, getting back to the excess curves, it's not that I want to get any bigger, definitely not. Out of the females in my family I am still 'the slim one' but there is always the reminder it could all go wrong.  But I'm a healthy weight and as long as I'm maintaining that, or if I lose a bit Just Because, that's fine.  At least I know I'm getting exercise and I eat healthily - the calories aren't coming from alchohol and kebabs.

And I'm content.

If a physiotherapist ever tells me to go the gym, I will say No.   I used to enjoy it and know how satisfying the effects can be, but now I have developed a loathing for it. All sweat and no pleasure (ignoring the exercise endorphins). I'd rather get my exercise and strength from gardening, walking or cycling, or sailing once I get back into that, the view is so much better.  Not that I have anything against people who choose to go to the gym - each to their own, live and let live - and for some it is a choice of that or pounding city streets.  Not everyone has the countryside or garden that I am fortunate enough to enjoy on the doorstep.

So I ignored the fat-feeling, made a cup of tea and came out into the garden to write this and decide whether to mow the lawn this evening or wait until Thursday.

And I'm content.

Shorts: bed

... well today I feel just fine, yesterday must have been it so that's a Good Thing.

Last night I decided to chuck half the pillows off and sleep in the middle of the bed. Usually even when Mr H isn't home I sleep on My Side because it feels normal, so I felt a bit of a rebel.

A strange feeling day

Tomorrow is 27th June, a date that has been etched on mine and Mr H's brain forever now. A date that has been written over and over in statements, reports, forms, diaries and numerous other documents over the last year.

27 June 2010 was a Sunday, so today is the day that I feel strange.  It was warm and sunny, just as it is today.  If Mr H and Django were here instead of in Scotland, today is the sort of day we'd say 'let's go out and sit by a river with a picnic', just as we did last year.

It's almost 4.30pm now and I feel as though I'm waiting for something, almost as if it is some kind of premonition.  It feels as though the day is being repeated somewhere in a parallel universe; as if every day is going to go round again on the same cycle, but without us in it.

I know that feeling 'out of sorts' (that phrase makes it sound like a bit of indigestion) is normal on the anniversary of trauma.

I also know that I (and Mr H) have come a long way in the last 12 months, and many things in my life have changed for the better, that might not have done otherwise.

So after this discomfiting couple of days are over, I will be back on the track - onwards and upwards. I reckon that I'm currently about 75% towards my 'normality' (a subject for another blog post), so just another 25% to go...

BONs

I just glanced through the Blogs of Note for the first time in months.

Is it me, or... well I just don't get them.  I find them either weird or uninteresting (compared with the ones in my favourites list anyway).   And one of them hasn't been posted on since 2010, I guess whoever chose it missed that little detail.  Or maybe the whole concept has just gone tits-up (as they say)

Stuff you kid.... 6WS

Stuff you kid, sticks and stones....
Six Word Saturday

I walked into town today in shorts and a t-shirt - it's overcast but warm and I have a dodgy thermostat and tend to overheat.   Halfway down the road a bunch of teenagers drove past and the passenger leant out of the window and pretended to retch in my direction.  Yes they are pleasant lads around here.

So, a few things went through my mind:

Oh my god, do I look that bad?

Why do teenagers feel the need to be hurtful to complete strangers, just to impress their friends?  there's no way he'd have done it if he'd been alone.

"I bet I look better than you will at 45, sunshine."

"One day you'll realise that real women aren't Photoshopped."

"Your legs wouldn't look that brilliant if they'd been crushed for 90 minutes - shall I show you...?"

Ok, my legs don't look the best - cellulite and not much muscle tone to speak of just now (but I'm working on that one). And they are odd, I mean not matching, not just 'odd'.

For about 10 seconds I thought "maybe I shouldn't wear shorts" - very rapidly followed by "Fuck them, I'll wear what I damn well like, if they don't like it, they don't have to look."

At a flick of the points, that of course took my train of thought off to how much we judge what other people wear, and we women are particularly bad at this.  "Oh my god look at her, she SO shouldn't wear that top, what does she think she looks like?"

Now there are some fashions which I personally don't like, but it usually isn't personal to the individual wearing them (except that they should perhaps think before following fashion so rigorously). At the moment it is black footless tights and skirts/dresses, and those stupid little pump shoes that no-one over the age of 10 ought to wear (in my ever so humble opinion).

I do think over the last few months I have become a lot more accepting of other people, maybe it is the studying that is making me think before I judge.  As soon as someone makes a 'Daily Mail'* type statement I will be considering the other viewpoint, and even - if I'm feeling brave - voicing it.    (*UK readers will understand what I mean).  But it still needs work, there is something inside us all that likes to make ourselves feel better by denigrating others, whether spoken or unspoken.

Anyway, by the time I was walking home I didn't care if people were looking at my legs, it makes a change to them looking at my breasts at least.

A challenge..

We all know, or have heard at some point in our lives, the Serenity prayer or some version of it:


"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."


This evening I sat outside in the garden, thinking how incredibly calm and fulfilling life would be if we lived by that. I have read before about how a simple acceptance of things we cannot change can bring peace into uptight lives. 

But why do we find it so difficult?

There is always something to complain about - our jobs, our friends and family, the weather, 'the nights drawing in', the pile of ironing, bad drivers... I bet there are none of us immune to it.

Often when I am ranting, inwardly or outwardly about something, I realise the futility of it. And I don't often feel that much better afterwards either.

I challenge each and every one of us, next time we are about to open our mouths (or have thoughts which put more frown lines on our faces) and whine or rant about something, to remember the Serenity prayer and decide whether there is a better way of handling whatever it is winding us up...

Tuesday's gone with the wind

So, that was Tuesday.

Monday was full of e-mails, it took me all day to get through them all. Today thank goodness I had only a few so managed to get some work done (yes I know e-mails are work, but you know what I mean).  I've been trying to work out how I feel - at one moment like I've been run over by a steam-roller, at another relaxed and happy.  Last week took it out of me, or rather the last few weeks of really busy work mixed with revision.

This morning I turned the alarm off in my sleep and woke up at 8.27am - oh bugger - I had stayed up too late finishing a gripping police novel so it was my own fault. And then I lay awake worrying about psychos breaking in.  So then I had a mad rush for breakfast (can't face the day without some) but still cycled to work because I had promised myself not to use the car unless I have to. So I arrived at work a bit kerfuffled.

I felt a bit down this evening, I just felt limp and my leg was hurting which must be because yet again I've been considering cutting down on the DHC. I walked fast into town to catch the 6pm post with my letter to Mr H, and sat on a bench for a bit watching people before ambling home in the sunshine. I then cheered myself up by picking a pile of vegetables to go with the local sausages I got from the market.  It feels so good to eat fresh from the garden, it makes all the digging (thanks Mr H) and planting and hoe-ing and waiting worthwhile.   I even managed to mow the main lawn before it rains again.  'The main lawn' - that makes it sound as though we live on an estate with multiple lawns and water features and acres of vegetable garden.  Well we do have a fake stone bird bath.

My sister and her partner are coming down later this week, they stay at my parents' a couple of miles away.  So I'm going over on Thursday and we're all going out by the sounds of it; I'm not really in the mood but it will be good to see them.  Typically my great plans to start driving around visiting family has coincided with me deciding that I really need to cut down my expenditure.  But I do need to take a weekend trip soon, to see how I get on with the driving. I wish I had the van because I feel invincible in that... but will have to make do with the Golf for now.  One would think that I'd be more uncomfortable in the van because of the associations, but it's quite the opposite.

Now having rambled enough I am going to make a cup of tea and start reading "Zero Degrees of Empathy - a New Theory of Human Cruelty" which is a cheerful book by Simon Baron-Cohen.  Let's hope it doesn't give me nightmares....