Rest And Recovery
I needed a rest today, I’m being sensible, but rest days are boring days too. I’m much happier active, but I tried to make the best of relaxation. I woke nice and early at 6:30 but then snuggled down for another 45 minutes or so, still getting up in good time to cycle to Lytham Caffe Nero. I’d planned to spend a relaxing couple of hours on my laptop, but it kept hanging and could only be recovered with a forced shutdown. this was intensely annoying as I was trying to write a personal statement sample for Anna and I kept losing my work. The problem was difficult to diagnose, no matter what I seemed to do the laptop would only stay stable for 5 minutes, then the disk would peg at 100% utilisation and from that point the laptop was unusable until restarted. Eventually I got a hint that it might be the Acronis backup app at fault and after removing it all was well and the laptop is rock solid again. All these restarts meant that I wrote my example personal statement four times, gradually refining it each time but rewriting even 400 words again and again was pretty tedious. Anyway I was happy with the result and I think Anna will find it useful.
Thankfully the battery on this new laptop is excellent, so despite all the messing around I still had a couple of relaxing hours there and then headed out for a walk, fuelled by a superb punnet of strawberries. I did what’s fast becoming my favourite local walk, through the park, along green drive and back along the two greens. it’s a good long walk, but still leaves me with enough energy to cycle home.
When I got home I was very weary though and so I settled into a leisurely afternoon of pottering and TV. Having finished SGU I’m trying to decide on another long running TV show, but in the interim I’m lapping up the River Cottage series, it’s a show to watch in the spring really as it’s incredibly inspiring for a gardener, but it’s filling the time nicely. I also ‘found time’ for a nap and a walk to Sainsbury’s as well as treating myself to a large bowl of bananas and custard – yum!
I’m finding it a bit sad that I rarely get the chance to do anything with Debbie at the weekends now, for years she’s been so absorbed in work that we rarely go out anywhere. I’m lucky that we do sometimes go to the cinema on a Saturday or for a meal out in the week , but it’s not like it used to be when the kids were younger and we used to travel more as a family. This time in my life reminds me of a time when we lived in Hull and weekends had become very routine, just shopping and cleaning, thankfully we managed to turn them around all those years ago and I’m looking forward to a time when we can do that again.
It’s a little disconcerting for me to be at a time in my life when I’m seeking to find home life more rewarding while Debbie at the same time is finding work life so absorbing. Just one of many challenges in life that I’ve faced over the years, at least I was prepared for it though as several friends with wives who are teachers warned me what it would be like.
Debbie and I are now watching Sleepy Hollow, which we are really enjoying, we watched the first two episodes last night, but I’d seen both of them before when I was test viewing the show to see if Debbie would enjoy it. Our previous series, SGA I’d also watched twice so I’m particularly looking forward to watching something new tonight.
I’m still struggling though this mild flare, it’s not too difficult, it’s just frustratingly constraining my ability to do much heavy work in the garden and the gym or much cardio work on my bike or the pool. Just another example of the need to appreciate what I have and resist being jealous of others.
