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We don’t go passing round the wafers, if that’s what you are thinking. But in terms of a Sabbath, as a day of rest, our main shot at resting does seem to coincide with Saturday mornings. Time to sit with Dan and chat, drink a coffee, unpack the week, hold out a little longer, drink another coffee…
For those with kids, where days of the week start at pretty much the same time every day, I don’t mind if you feel you need to turn away. It is a bit indulgent still to have this space. And it’s not so much about not doing as the chance to talk, and say where our thoughts and feelings have been going over the previous few days.
Resting is all about recharging, if you get a shot at it. Similar to a post about learning to relax, that I wrote a month or two back, it’s about things that are consistently good in enabling you to unwind, and feel better afterwards. Or be ready to tackle a bit of life again.
Part of the treat, for me at least, is also having some time where there’s nothing written against it, in a real or mental diary. I need some headspace to explore, to pick things up and put them down again. These things may not form part of a ‘to do’ list, but that’s their very appeal.
Was remembering about The Idler - can’t quite tell whether it’s now a book, or a blog, or multiples of all of that. http://idler.co.uk/ - see what you make of it. But part of what they are talking about is giving yourself time to think, rather than just doing.
For someone like me, who can be fairly said to be a Protestant with a work ethic, it’s invaluable to be reminded to find this space. I enjoy doing, of various kinds, and I’d never claim we can get through life without doing, but I am certainly thinking more and more that just being is a pretty good pursuit.
When we think back to treasured memories, holidays, that kind of thing, often what we’re remembering is the space to be; to idle; not just to let our mind work out what is really going on, but to allow our heart to be part of that too.
Too much gobbledy-gook? Well, I’m good at that too. But along that path, sooner or later, some wisdom comes out, something to help me be happy in my own skin and at peace with God. I’ll raise a mug of coffee to that.
November 29th, 2008
It’s not something I want to promote about myself. But a little bit of virtual aggro, via the Heroes application on Facebook, does seem to help when winding down for the day. (I can at this point blame David Wilson, who invited me to try this application. It all started with fast cars, too. It’s a slippery slope.)
Something funny seems to happen in your thirties, when it comes to letting go of what’s happening in the day. There’s not much of the day left to disconnect from, by the time you get home. How do you do it, without taking the evening over it?
Not being much of a drinker, alcohol got left out of the picture as a way to unwind, for a long time, but I think it’s trying to make more of an appearance on my weekends. That sense of ‘phew, got to the end of the week’ seems to need more celebration as I go on. (Food is clearly enough of a companion to my days, as you already know, so it’s not necessarily helping me hit the ’stop’ button in the same way.) Let’s say I appreciate the treat when it comes.
Gardening started trying to enter the race this year. And yes, coming home from work, and saying hello to the plants (watering them too, on occasion) was a good option. But now it’s wet, or cold, or both, and the garden is back into that phase of being left to its own survival mechanisms for the next few months.
There is blog writing - though perhaps I need a new injection of ideas. Perhaps time to start listening into other people’s mobile phone conversations a bit more. (As if. I could probably write a new radio show a week on what I ‘overhead’ (without trying) on the bus each day.)
And for points of trying to make mind and body agree to slow down in the adrenaline rush, there can be su doku. A nice long bath is a winner in this department.
Recently, I have been feeling more and more that my earlier ambitions to make a difference in the world, to contribute, are getting worn away in the need to keep up - and then recover afterwards - day by day. No claims of special workplace trauma - we all have it, in fairly intense ways for many.
Is the solution to find a ‘quicker’ way to unwind, so that I can make the most of time outside of work? I’m coming to the conclusion that letting go of one set of lists at work, only to pick up another at home, doesn’t seem that attractive.
Probably the thing that cheers me up, and therefore helps me let go of work, is finding out how other people are doing. Ergo Facebook in general. I might even finally put up some photos of my own, given how much I like seeing other people’s.
Perhaps it comes down to holding on, rather than just letting go - holding on to what is important to you, day by day. And on that note, I’m off to hug the hugsband.
October 6th, 2008
Shock and amazement - sunshine two days running! Pretty much sun all day today! Any time now someone’ll suggest it’s a Scottish summer (apart from the normal three-days-in-May kind of summer we come to hope for).
At any rate, it allowed for a bit of gardening yesterday, aided by my parents. With all the rain of late, I had pretty much given it over to snails, but lo and behold, there were some potatoes to crop, and a new plant to put in the side border. We may even be able to gather a whole three beetroot, and perhaps the odd carrot or two…
Back in May, I had a bit of a garden breakthrough. I got into planting vegetables from seeds, and tried lots of different types. Perhaps not the full Good Life - still had to be in the office during the week - but a bit more sense of progress in the garden.
Sadly, the slugs and snails appeared to have eaten more than their fair share. My pea and bean seedlings were completely nobbled. Lettuces did OK, but sweet peas (a favourite) also got eaten, and as a result, the borders remained good on leaf, but not much on flower.
Perhaps I have to take heart on what worked. I learned that I can raise plants from seed. I just need to work on helping them to survive…I also discovered that the attic is pretty good as a greenhouse, as long as I can keep watering things enough. We sat outside more than before. I learned how to make elderflower cordial, which worked fine with elderflowers hanging over the back of the garden. These are steps forward.
It’s the creatures great and small that are needing taking in hand - both the cats which pursue any bare earth, and the smaller beasties that can clearly identify flourishing seedlings much faster than I can.
Hopefully, my rhubarb cuttings and I can fight back a bit next year. And perhaps there will still be some brambles left, if the sun remains, and I can manage a walk down the cycle paths near to home.
September 22nd, 2008
That’s Valentine’s Day to you. I just fancied writing it. “Valentinky” has quite a nice ring to it too.
Why Walentynki? I don’t really subscribe to the common concept of what Valentine’s Day is about in the UK.
As a teenager, you just kind of sulk about it (though there are so many things to sulk about as a teenager, I’m not sure how much others perceive the difference on this occasion).
As a young adult, the pang increases a little. Now people possibly have some money to spend on the day. But as much as anything, it’s just a reminder that others have someone in their lives and you don’t. Which is not always a good thing to dwell on. (At this stage you dwell on things, rather than sulking, possibly because you only have one main room to hang out in, so you can’t exactly run off to your room when it gets too much.)
In this stage of life, I happened to be in Poland during Valentine’s Day. Both times were memorable, for different reasons. The first time, I received a Valentine’s fax from a family friend.
Firstly, receiving a fax made quite an impact in the boarding school/convent where I was staying, and secondly, it reminded me that a world existed beyond the one in Poland I had joined just a week before. (My family didn’t hear from me for a fortnight, the length of time it took to me first to remember and then to work out how to post my first letter from Poland. Life pre-mobile eh?)
The second time, a sudden change in circumstances. I had someone, I hadn’t been together with them the previous Valentine’s Day, and all of a sudden, this year, I was engaged. And he was in a different country. But I learned to be upbeat - particularly aided by seeing the enthusiasm with which Poles had taken to Valentine’s Day.
This was a holiday adopted after the end of Communism. The flashy thing to do was take your true love out to McDonalds. In fact, the drive-through McDonalds round the corner from where I lived had a photo montage of happy couples in McDonalds over Valentine’s Day.
From a UK perspective, it doesn’t seem very romantic. But I liked the enthusiasm, the sense of rising to the occasion. Rather than a slushfest, Valentine’s Day had become fun, cheerful even.
I didn’t take myself out for a McDonald’s that year, you may be pleased to hear. I did buy myself flowers. But I developed a liking for a sense of what a particular day could mean in a new context.
Walentynki. You can’t just buy it in the shops. But it’s what every relationship needs from time to time.
(Footnote: despite telling my colleagues that Dan and I don’t really ‘do’ Valentine’s, I returned home to a little parcel of Italian deli goodies that he had happily selected. There’s another good aspect of Walentynki - having your expectations changed. It’s a wise man that knows that a woman also appreciates the ‘way to one’s heart is through one’s stomach’.)
So, I salute Valentine perspectives with Peroni beer - and will save mention of the outcome of the other ingredients for another day.
February 14th, 2008
The home improvements continue…well, not apace, but at least they continue.
Part of the grand plan is to get more storage inside our wardrobes, and thankfully, the powers that be at IKEA foresaw that people would want to shift things around at different times, and created lots of nice holes to move new shelves into.
I wouldn’t put us as IKEA frequent flyers - it’s more like a once a year military operation, once we have secured someone’s car to make it worth our while. But I do love a good kit to put together. I do obviously let Dan have a go too, but I will even volunteer to put other people’s IKEA units together.
Why the appeal? Kits are good news for those of us who aren’t so hot on drawing, or cutting things terribly accurately, but still want to make things. It’s also quite fun to see things assemble gradually, particularly if they are a) big and b) handy for moving stuff off the floor/bottom of other wardrobes etc.
I tend to think that liking kits is also part of learned behaviour. Dad was very into model making when I was little, and I graduated to this myself in various forms: plaster of Paris moulds for various things you could then paint, peg dolls, soft toys.
Best of all was a model theatre - first you made the theatre from card, then you had a full opera and ballet with backdrops, bits to move on from the sides, fiddly characters to cut round, the works. I even learned the story of ’La Boheme’ from the synopsis they included with the kit, which comes in handy for watching ‘Moonstruck’ in later life.
Recently, makers of kits have been staging a comeback. Makers of Airfix kits - model aeroplanes and so on - decided to run an ‘experiment’ where one group of kids got to make a model, and the others got to play on their Playstations, or something similar. At the end of the time, those making models were asked if they would do it again, and if they liked it more than their usual computer game type hobbies.
I’m never too sure with tests like this how representative the findings are, but evidently a good number of the kids said yes, they’d give it another go. Besides, there are still kit cars you can make (and get a Q at the start of your number plate - a definite incentive), and even kit houses for those who want to build their own but fancy a bit of help. Onwards and upwards, see.
February 12th, 2008
Honest, ossifer, not even once. But I couldn’t resist the title.
Little by little, the Frydman decorating project moves on, and the next stage is to get some rooms replastered. This gives us the opportunity to move furniture from room to room in order to clear the rooms that need plastered…Thank goodness for a spare room at the moment, otherwise we would be struggling a bit to find space to put things into.
So far, it’s mostly the bookcases that are getting moved. I’m quite pleased to see that the study walls stay up without their usual counterweight of books. With the annual bookfair in Peebles next month, it’s also a good time to do our usual book cull, and decide what can be donated for the fair.
The biggest excitement will be getting the kitchen replastered, which should mean we can finally paint it white, and banish the last trace of terracotta paint. (Apologies if you are of a burnt umber persuasion. It’s nice and warm, sure, but in small dark spaces lit by a still pretty dark Scottish winter, the desire for more light is going to win out.) But it seemed like a good opportunity to tidy up the sitting room and the study at the same time, so we’re hoping to get all three done around the same time.
But the final aim is an even better one - get the plaster and paint done, then finally replace the carpet. If terracotta walls get me down, don’t get me started on the sitting room carpet. Hopefully we can now get something we’d like. It was good enough getting Mum to make us curtains of our choice - carpet as well will be tremendous. (You’ll be pleased to hear we aren’t forcing Mum to make the carpets as well. Talk about nose to the grindstone.)
Is it all needed? Less than the leaky bathroom project. But learning from the enjoyment we have of a bathroom that we actually chose, I think it’s well worth it, particularly for the sitting room which we spend a lot of time in.
You never know. I may even learn to upload some photos, finally, to show off the finished product. A few more bookcases to move first, though.
February 11th, 2008
Eat leftover cake at as many meal times as is decent.
Continue enjoying high quality bread made by friend: olive, seed, walnut etc. Yum!
Leave book boxes and toy boxes accessible for a while longer.
Enjoy sitting room in new format; lack energy to put things back as they were.
Sit at dining table and admire birthday tulips - and feel that spring might even be somewhere at hand.
Has anyone got an extra weekend I could tack on to the start of this week??
January 28th, 2008
I had great hopes of introducing a few of my gentle readers (and even some less gentle ones) to a little Scots this evening. But a spot of searching of online dictionaries led me to suspect that I had got the word I wanted wrong.
Yesterday saw a scene of great domesticity: a bit of Star Trek on repeat by way of background, a mound of socks before me. It was the day of the Sock Amnesty, when errant socks meet their partners again, and some sense of order is restored in the sock drawers of Him and Her. (On occasion, the event is upgraded to a Sock Cull…you can guess the rest. My mending skills are not always what they could be.)
A friend of mine is particularly swift at matching socks with their pair, and even has a small (I think home made) certificate to prove it. I was positive that what she was doing was ‘flyting’ socks, but when I looked it up, ‘flyte’ mainly seems to mean scold. I guess you could stand over the mound of socks and harrangue them, but it hasn’t worked for me before.
I was then going to put another word as a title to show that I felt a bit stuck at getting the wrong word. So I looked up that one, and it didn’t mean what I wanted either…
It’s all very well having had 25 years as a MacKenzie, Scottish relatives, around half my life living in Scotland…but I don’t really come across as a native when I speak. English mother, most of the rest of my life in England, and I sound it.
The more you stay around here in Scotland, though, the more extra words creep in that don’t get much use down south. (Though ‘minging’ seems to be doing quite well for itself now in the rest of the UK, I see.) Ever the linguistic magpie, I enjoy adding them to occasional, or even everyday, use.
Only difficulty is when I overextend myself, thinking I’ve got it right, authentic even, and it’s not. Though I just tried a different search, and the term ’scunnered’ (or ’scunnert’) turns up as I thought it did, meaning frustrated.
Ahm a wee bit scunnert but ahv no goat ma heid in ma hauns yet. In my next search, I found scunnert as fed up, but I also in turn came across www.urbandictionary.com so I can track down a few more words, Scots and other. Mair anon.
January 15th, 2008
Not the green ones. Sorry. Still can’t acquire the taste. But as a way to build myself back up to some gardening, am starting pretty much as basic as I can, and trying sprouting seeds.
One of my colleagues is a long way ahead of me in this, and has given me some tips, including germinating them in the airing cupboard. Last week, I managed to grow some alfalfa sprouts - having invested in my alfalfa seeds as part of the Grand Esoteric Foodshop at the start of the month. Probably should have left them a bit longer, but they happily leapt into Thursday’s stir fry, even if they were still fairly tiny.
Now it’s the turn of sunflower seeds. Both times, you add water, swill them about in their jar, and squint at them for the first day or so. And then - the first sign of something else growing. It’s that day to day change that’s particularly exciting. Being able to eat the fruits of my labours is - for once - a bonus. But I’m hoping to transfer that kind of bonus into a bigger activity this year.
Part of the problem is work. It tends to peak at just the time you need to put things into pots, let alone into the ground, and has, till now, kept up until the point when you’d hope to start enjoying the produce. But maybe this way, I can build up a little sense of achievement to keep me going in new gardening experiments.
Mustard and cress sandwiches anyone? You know it’s only a matter of time. And water.
January 13th, 2008
There’s been a shift in the Frydman tectonic plates. I find myself interested in playing games.
Lest you rush off to warn Dan, not those kind of games, but card games, possibly even the odd board game.
The world is split into various groups, it seems to me (and yes, there’s a board game for that too, which goes on all night). Those who enjoy board games tend to be on a different continent from those who don’t. (I think there’s probably a separate large island for jigsaw puzzlers. I may swim there some day.)
So to cross over into the game zone is really quite a shift in the substratum. It helps a great deal not to be fazed by losing. (I don’t think I will enter the ‘taunting other players while winning’ archipelago, though I must admit to taking a certain amount of satisfaction winning car races on Facebook.)
So why stay away? Sometimes what others have said, sometimes what I say about myself. I have long qualified as a ‘bad loser’, a state which it seems best to avoid mention of entirely, and the easiest way to do this seemed to be to avoid games. Equally, where others flock to be sociable, and to find activities to do with others, I am quite keen on the opportunity to curl up with a good book, and so on.
What’s changed? Sure, games are still about competition - nothing but, for some people. Again, I used to avoid having to be around others being hyped up when thinking they’re on a winning streak.
Now I guess I just think that these things matter less. I am more interested in the game as a way of being with people, possibly learning something new. (You certainly learn about friends and family in a new way when you see them play games…and what they do to each other in the process.)
So: having graduated to gin rummy playing, while on holiday with Dan, we played some more while in London with Jen. I lost all but one game, which was a little annoying, but not desperate. (Beating them at Star Wars Top Trumps on return was rather nice as a comeback, it has to be said.)
I found myself thinking it might be fun to get a book of card games and try out other ones. Reading “The Solitaire Mystery” and rewatching “Casino Royale” over the holidays does have to be factored into this thinking too, but there’s also a curiosity - 52 cards, meaning so many things to so many groups of people over the years. Whether for fun, to occupy most lunch breaks (computer solitaire being one of my former colleague’s habits), or just to try something new, it could be interesting to add another game or two to my repertoire.
So, gentle and not at all competitive reader, let me know if you’ve got any good tricks up your sleeve in this regard. We might even have reason to look for a charity shop tux to go with them.
January 7th, 2008
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