Gentle days

[dolorosa_12]

I had today off work, for yet another of the three- or four-day weekends I'm taking for the remainder of July and August, and it seems to have reset my mental health for the better. I suspect it was all the cleaning. Today's cleaning has involved:

Cleaning the bathroom

Mopping the floors after Matthias vacuumed

Cleaning the kitchen sink and counters

Defrosting the freezer

Wet-dusting the two remaining bookshelves (having done the other bookshelves last week)

I've also repotted a few of my herb seedlings into the container garden outside, made a huge pot of chicken stock to freeze in batches, and read three books over the course of the weekend, meaning I'm now 2/3 of the way through my reread of Aliette de Bodard's Dominion of the Fallen series and Samantha Shannon's Bone Season series.

I haven't done as much yoga as I'd have liked over the past three days, but I did at least manage one short restorative session focusing on neck, arms and upper back earlier this afternoon.

The big highlight of the weekend was going on a train to Ely to meet up with notasapleasure and her husband. They are the first people Matthias and I have seen in person, other than delivery drivers and shop assistants, since mid-March. Being on the train made me feel very nervous, even if was only 20 minutes and with everyone wearing masks (other than the two young guys behind us on the way back, who were drinking can after can of beer and talking loudly — and I suspect not entirely truthfully — about their Tinder conquests ... sigh). But it was nice to be able to go slightly further afield, and sit out on the patio of our favourite Ely cafe, and eat homemade Georgian food, and dumplings, and salad made from vegetables grown in our friends' allotment. I'm not sure we'll be repeating such adventures frequently (the train feels like an extravagence and a risk), but as a one off it was good.

And tomorrow it's back to work for another four days, and then another long weekend, and then the whole thing repeats itself.

Comments

[nyctanthes]

That sounds like a great long weekend. :)

And neck, arms and upper back restoratives are the best. I try to lie over my bolster a few times a week, and it does wonders for my computer/swimming hunch.

[dolorosa_12]

It was a nice weekend!

I do wrist and neck yoga at least once every day — essential as I spend my entire day standing at my standing desk. Although the standing desk is somewhat of an improvement from sitting all day (when I sit all day, I get excruciating pains in my back, wrists, shoulders, neck and arms, whereas from standing it's just the neck and wrists with no back pain), there is still some pain. Without being able to go swimming due to the pandemic (which is normally what prevents me from having the neck pain), I have to do yoga fairly regularly to make up for it.

[corvidology]

Your weekend sounds lovely!

[dolorosa_12]

Thanks! It was pretty good!

[aimedatthestars]

I am also 2/3rds of the way through Dominion of the Fallen now! (I have a 10 week wait for book 3 though, so I might end up buying it lol)

[dolorosa_12]

Oh wow, you've made speedy progress since we last discussed this! I'm glad you liked the books, and I hope you enjoy the third as well.

[aimedatthestars]

I definitely binged it this weekend, lol. I was waiting for the carwash with nothing to read, so I started book 1, and got sucked in!

[naye]

I'm glad you got to have such a good time in Ely! The weirdness of that trip feeling like an adventure... whew. It's a relief most people are adhering to the mask rule but still. Yikes.

[dolorosa_12]

Yeah, I'm not sure I'm going to do that again soon. Being on the train, even just for twenty minutes, for the purposes of visiting friends, seems a bit hard to justify as a repeated thing.

I really want to go to the beach, and it is possible to get to e.g. the Norfolk coast by train, but that really doesn't seem worth the risk.