What a contrast from today compared to yesterday. Not only the weather by also my energy 🙂
Yesterday (Day 141) the weather was cloudy and cold all day, heavy rain in the evening followed by thunder storms. Today, it has been really warm, deep blue sky all day, with the sun shining. Hot in the sun, cooler in the shade.
I have also had lots and lots of energy. After the last two days of little energy, it has all changed.
Last night I got to bed about 11.30pm, woke a few times in the night. But finally woke up at 7am before my alarms going off at 8.10am (onwards). So I got up early and went for a 5km run with Honey the Dog. Then dry skin brushed (part of the detox I am doing), had a shower, made breakfast and arrived at Chi Gong on time at 8.45am!
Honey was delighted to see ‘Honey’s Pond’ (Hunters Bog) now was deep enough to swim in 🙂
All that rain yesterday!
The rest of today, I have had loads of energy, only just starting to fade now. Did lots of things today, one of which was to move my table back into the living room. I converted my spare room into an office during lock-down. So my living room is now my ‘office’ and my spare room will become a bedroom again. But first I need to paint it! I can then sleep in it, when I am painting my bedroom 🙂
As I ran up Easter Road this morning at 7.40am and back along it on my run home at 8.20am, I anticipated there would be lots of people out on the way to work.
Before lock-down this was the time I would go out for a long walk or run with Honey, there would always been lots of people on their way to work, waiting for the bus or just walking to work. This is what I expected today, but in fact it was really quiet, hardly anyone out on the streets. I guess everyone is still working from home, on furlough leave or have been made redundant.
There was a lot of traffic about, which was a shame, as it wasn’t quiet streets. So maybe everyone has turned to their cars to drive to work?
It made me think about what I was saying yesterday. How it feels like we are now out of lock-down and returning to “normal”, when in fact that is clearly not the case. I haven’t been out of bed so early since lock-down, so wouldn’t know. Oh apart from Hannah’s Birthday present on Day 71 (the last time I cycled on my bike 🙁 ).
I was talking on messenger to Helen about this today. She said it was interesting how my lack of energy can be accepted depending on the context we put around it. It was okay to feel lethargic in full lock-down, as there was an “excuse”. But yesterday, I didn’t have the same level of acceptance, when really nothing has changed except the context!
I think if I knew no one was going to work each morning, like they were before lock-down, I would have been more accepting of my low energy day yesterday.
It’s a really interesting point. As Helen said, if we can change the context, “…suddenly a whole new light is shed on the situation. The thing we were breating ourselves about is suddenly ok”.
She shared a story with me about a Swedish guy who had bought an old house and needed a lot of work on it. He had said he wanted to update the old 70s kitchen. He said is was perfectly functional, but with all the other work needed doing in the house he did this first, as the kitchen was not a priority. As the kitchen is such an important room in the house, it would be easy to get down and disheartened with the drab 70s decor. Later Helen asked the guy what he had done with the Kitchen. He replied that it was easier and cheaper for him to “change his style” rather than change the kitchen.
Helen said “that always stuck with me. Before long, retro kitchens were fashionable again”.
So perhaps the lesson from all this – life is not about trying to change the physical environment or context, but to change your mindset? Then a “whole new light is shed on the situation”.
Of course, when one has no energy, it is easy to get stuck in the head and not look at the bigger picture!
After Chi Gong this morning, Honey was harassing me to go out. We usually do our morning walk after Chi Gong, but with our morning run, I thought she would be happy not to go out. But I guess it is her routine. In fact, it is her ‘context’ 🙂
So we went out for our normal morning walk routine and dropped by to Mo Beans Coffee Shop for a hot water and honey – I can’t drink caffeine on this detox and his herbal teas were not appealing.
I was very impressed that he had Track & Trace cards on each of the tables. When I asked him about this, he said as from Friday all sit in places have to Track & Trace. I thought it was only pubs/bars, but completely makes sense. I was reflecting on this on Day 137, saying if pubs/bars have to Track & Trace, why don’t cafes too? I am glad the government has taken note from my blog 😉
Two guys came in and got smoothies, so I decided to have one as well.
As I was drinking my smoothie, Mo announced that today was the first day of the ‘Eat Out Scheme‘ where we only pay 50% and the government pays the other 50%. Wow!
In fact I was the first person in the coffee shop to use it 🙂
Creative / Gardening Corner
Another painting from Anna today.
Anna discovered The Paint Republic during lock-down. You can access free paint-as-you-go classes via their website or Facebook page. Or you can join for £5 a month to access over 60 classes! All online (virtual) rather than real world.
The second painting was repeated as a Birthday Card.
What a great Birthday Card to receive 🙂
Readers Corner
In August my friend Theo usually comes to Edinburgh for three nights for the Edinburgh Fringe. We usually go to lots of shows, mainly the Free Fringe, in which you don’t need a ticket, but give a donation at the end. Some shows are great, some are not so good.
We sit with various programmes and plan an itinerary which we write on a big white board in my flat. The second year Theo visited, we went to shows from 10am to 11pm! We saw about 7 comedy shows in one day, by the end I felt quite good at judging what was good and what was not.
It is great that I can “do the fringe”, when Theo is here, especially in the early years when he visited and I wasn’t an official performer. Living in Edinburgh, you can often suddenly realise it is nearly the end of the Fringe and you’ve only seen a couple of shows. With Theo visiting, I have 3 days put aside to go to lots of shows.
We sat through one comedian who was terrible for a whole hour. We both agreed afterwards that it was a waste of time. So we decided that if another show was not good, I would have a coughing fit, Theo would take me out the room to get some water and we wouldn’t return. Subsequent years we learnt to just get up and walk out, making sure we sat on the end of a row!
Anyway, this year Theo has not come to visit. Instead he went on a min-break with his wife Jane.
Theo
Theo shared some photos from his mini-break which was in North East Lincolnshire. Theo writes:
“Fab minibreak”.
Wow – looks great! Thanks for sharing. A good second choice to Edinburgh 😉
It Made Me Smile
I saw a quiz in a WhatsApp Group that I am part of. It made me smile as it brought back memories of the early blogs where we used to have lots of quizzes.
What also makes me smile, is that folk post these quizzes. I put them in my blog, get all the answers from the ‘Blog Community’ (Brayshaw, MJ, 2020) and then reply to the the person who posted it. Everything thinks I am a quiz genius 🙂
Can you work it out?
They are all biscuits in the Tesco online shopping list.
Music Corner
Helen shared another Spotify playlist.
Its called ‘200810 What I listened to today’. She describes it as:
“A quiet list of melancholy melodies for a quiet, downbeat day. The list (and my day) has a happy ending, finishing 3 hours later where I had intended to begin today’s musical journey”.
She says:
“The cover photo is lavender from my garden, because this was the perfect background music while I dug up weeds”.
For those who are new to Music Corner, please share whatever you want. Tunes you like in any platform (e.g. YouTube) or a playlist on Spotify.
This playlist is embedded into the website, although just plays little snippets of each tune. To listen to the whole playlist you need to log into Spotify, which you can do easily through Facebook.
Thanks Helen – I am loving the mellow relaxing tunes.
This is great, I now have music to listen to whilst writing the blog 😉
As I come to the end of today’s blog, I am now feeling tired. It is a little later than the last two days, not far from 11.30pm.
I can’t believe how much energy I have had today, compared to yesterday. Perhaps the sunshine helped, but also I think now I am Day 3 of my 30 day detox, perhaps that is helping.
I really enjoyed going for a run first thing this morning, so hope to do that again tomorrow morning. I’ll see if I wake up naturally in time, if not I’ll go for a run after Chi Gong.
The weather today has been sunshine all day. Not really hot, just about right. I was out in shorts and t-shirt all day, even on our bedtime walk and it was fine. It’s getting a lot darker now, our bedtime walk is about 9pm, rather than 10pm in June and early July. There was a lovely sunset tonight.
It’s going to be interesting tomorrow at Chi Gong as I no longer have my virtual background, instead my ‘real background’ of my living room! It’s feeling weird working in my living room!
I was thinking today how I love writing this blog and sharing my day with everyone. Certainly is a great record of my life.
Hope you’ve all had a good day and not found it too hot, especially those of you in hotter areas of the world/country. You should all move to Scotland 😉
Enjoy Life!
Jim xx