Finding Pleasure In The Simple Things
It’s been another unsettled day, lots of rain, wind and hail, interspersed with glorious sunshine puncturing the clouds to create magnificent vistas and I’ve been lapping it up for most of the morning, but I over-tired myself by mid afternoon and started with a migraine that’s been difficult to shift. I’ve let my dietary discipline slip a little as well these last two weeks, eating too much cheese and wheat, so I need to sort that out tomorrow, the only wheat I will be eating is from the home made cheesecake base and Toby’s.
The day started early, before 6am, I could tell Debbie was awake and trying to stay quiet. I soon got back off to sleep, but I guess she didn’t. She’s been waking early for a while now and it must be quite frustrating. I recommended that she spend the time meditating, which would be a very productive use of the time, but she’s never keen to follow my suggestions. I then went to Caffe Nero as per usual, in my full rain gear and met Andy again, he was pretty exhausted having ‘enjoyed’ most of the day on delayed trains trying to get to Leeds and back yesterday. Just before Paul was scheduled to arrive he messaged to say that he’d decided not to walk today, a good decision, given his back of waterproof trousers and shoes.
I decided to still walk though and headed out on the golf course, high school route to Fairhaven lake and I was very pleased to find the cafe open. Apparently this is a new experiment for them and they will be open all year round now, except Mondays. I’d just arrived when the heavens opened and for the next hour there was quite the storm. I stayed there reading until the sun came out. My reading material for the hour was Lancashire Life and to be honest the magazine made me feel a bit sick, the opulence on display, was too much. How people justify spending so much money on things that add almost nothing to their quality of life, while depriving so many others is beyond me. It’s not that I’m against capitalism, I think it’s important that people are motivated to improve their lives, I’m just for restraint, for recognising that you have enough and that the point has come to focus on giving not getting. What made it worse were the groups of “big hearted” people in the glossy photo’s who had attended this charity function or that, while decked up to the nines in jewellery and expensive clothes.
Walking home I was ‘cleansed’ of these negative feelings by the gale I had to hike into, but rewarded by amazing views and watching lots of dogs having the time of their lives. Dogs always bring home to me the fact that we should be finding joy in the simple things in life, like they do, and boy are they expert at it. I walked back into town and stocked up at Sainsbury’s. Jennie was the only one home when I arrived and the house looked like a branch of the post office, every surface in the hall was covered by parcels for the kids (their Christmas shopping) and deliveries for the neighbours, I pity the poor postal workers on the run up to Christmas this year as ever more purchasing moves online.
I had a bit of a treat today, fresh granary bread with organic tomato soup, one of my favourite meals and I watched the last episode of Harvest on TV. I then had a nap, did a whole house vacuum (the last of the daily flea eggs vacuums), replaced the latch on Jennie’s window and did the washing and washing up. I finally got around to washing all of the cushions too (more flea egg precautions). Finally I made a special fried veg omelette for Debbie, we were the only ones eating at home tonight.
My migraine is now fading a little so I’m looking forward to watching a couple of TV shows with Debbie!
