Playing On The Dunes

2016-01-09 10.17.32

It’s been a lazy day today, forcing myself to take it easy after lots of activity in the week, but lazy days aren’t the best days, I’ve been itching to do something.  Baking has provided something to do though, so in between a few chores, I’ve made a couple of cheese cakes and two trays of bread rolls which has really brightened up the day. I also had a few digestive biscuits spare so I had those with thin slices of cheese, a treat I’ve not enjoyed for at least a decade and they were great!

My morning started at Caffe Nero and I stayed there for a couple of hours, mostly reading, tempted out by the sun I then went for a walk in the dunes, which soon turned into a run.  Running up and down the dunes is incredibly good fun, although I must have looked quite the little kid, sliding down the slopes and jumping around, who cares!  I then decided to pop into the cafe on the pier but it was closed so I ended up in my favourite eat at the Beach Terrace Cafe, sitting next to a retired lady and her daughter, the retiree was describing her small-holding life and I was transfixed.  While walking I finished reading ‘Islam and the Future of Tolerance’ by Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz, it was read by the authors and provided an eye opening look at religion and extremism and tried to find a way forward.  It was presented with sparking clarity, but covered an immensely complex and difficult to solve problem, still I finished it slightly more optimistic for the future, even if the statistics presented were worse than I’d imagined.

Back home I finished off the washing, cleaned up and did the cooking and then spent a bit of time reading and house hunting.  Much as I’m enjoying my retired life at the moment, I know I’m going to have to find something more productive to fill a couple of hours of my day.  Even though this is clear to me, it seems difficult to start, the activities I’m interested in doing all seem to be weather dependent or too much like hard work and every day when I try and motivate myself to do them something more interesting catches my eye, doing them on my own also isn’t that appealing I like working with others.  Interesting distractions in the short term, are not fulfilling in the long term though and so I do need to confront my procrastination.   Top of my lists of things to do are decorating jobs, finishing the raised beds in the back garden and preparing some of the front garden for vegetables and tidying up the rest.

I’m also continuing to be drawn to re-learning programming, but more time sitting at a desk is a distinct downside to this, even though I think I’d enjoy it.  The same can be said of more time writing.

Finally I’ve still not managed to start drawing, I think I’m going to get going by buying one of those fancy new colouring books, I will ask Jennie if she has one spare first.

Steve Richards

I'm retired from work as a business and IT strategist. now I'm travelling, hiking, cycling, swimming, reading, gardening, learning, writing this blog and generally enjoying good times with friends and family

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