Snow capped peaks
Last night I felt the pain creeping back and the brain fog starting to descend, so I decided on my favourite strategy in times like this, to spend time walking in the peace and beauty of the Lake District. When I woke up I was too groggy to drive so I spent 40 minutes meditating and then did a bit of housekeeping before heading for the hills.
I decided to spend the day listening to the book The 80/20 Principle, which is mainly a business strategy book, but with some lifestyle implications. I’m now almost finished and it’s a good book, although not the best book to listen to when feeling rough as it’s a bit complex to follow, in hindsight I should have listened to fiction. All is not lost though as I took in the key points and I have an eBook version (99p Amazon offer) as well that I can skim through to refresh my memory.
One thing that I liked a lot about the book was it’s discussion of chaos theory and the negative impacts of complexity in business and I liked the worked examples of applying the 80/20 principle to a wide range of real world business consulting situations.
The weather on the drive up to Windermere was good, but by the time I arrived the rain had started so I made my way quickly up to the #4 Cafe which is superb. I’ve been going there for over 20 years, and the same people have been running it all that time. It’s just been refurbished and they have lots of comfy seats now so after brunch I did some work research before heading out into the sunshine. Out of the 3 hours that I walked it only rained 30 mins which was great for January. The ground was very wet, slippery and muddy though so I was pleased to have my SealSkinz socks and semi-waterproof shoes on, the socks are crazily expensive but if you’ve ever walked for a couple of hours with wet feet you will know why I bought them (off eBay cheap). Throughout the walk I got to admire the snow capped hills which were jaw droppingly beautiful and worth the trip just on their own, it’s a shame the little iPhone camera does such a bad job of capturing them.
Today’s walk was to the south and east of Winderemere village, I’ve done it before but I usually do a longer walk than I did today, but as I’m not at my best I stopped half way and headed home and straight to bed for a nap. Debbie and I planned to go out for a meal tonight but our favourite restaurant was closed for the night so I baked bread instead and Anna made me a fruit salad to keep me going until it was ready. Tessa made me candles for tonight’s reading session in the bath, so its going to be a very relaxing treaty evening (can’t beat home made bread).
