I am done. I realised this on Monday when I arrived in the office. I am ready to just sit in the garden now. Or possibly upstairs, with the air conditioner on. I’m imitating the actions of the flopcat. Probably the world number one expert in flop.
The good
Useful appointment with the midwife. The infant is aligned optimally. We shall see what happens next, and when.
Jolly gin-tasting (tonic-drinking, for me) evening with colleagues.
And a blessedly joyful, joyfully blessed Ultreya yesterday to welcome the new members from our most recent Cursillo. People had to keep putting out more chairs! Afterwards we sat in the churchyard and ate our sandwiches and chatted, with swifts (maybe housemartins?) swooping overheard.
The mixed
Excitement and apprehension, wanting to sit down and rest but also to catch up with everyone while I can…
The difficult and perplexing
I’ll probably be saying this every week until September, but I’m so hot. It did rain a little bit this morning, but the forecast thunderstorms didn’t materialise.
What’s working
The air conditioner, which we have had since about February, but which as of yesterday afternoon is installed and functioning.
And the cargo bike, in which one can transport quite remarkable quantities of stuff. I am looking forward to being able to ride the thing myself.
And filling a washing up bowl with cold water and sticking my feet in it.
Reading
Keeping on with The Third Policeman, which continues to be utterly bizarre and really quite charming. Nearly there with The Chronicles of Count Antonio, who is no match for a bargain basement Milady de Winter (spoiler: he gets away with this due to her turning very feeble).
A couple of lovely blog posts: this, on food and fellowship, and this, on compassion and clarity and miracles.
Out loud: the second lesson this morning, which was the apostle Paul at his most snide.
Writing
Keeping on with Don’t Quit The Day Job, which, ironically enough, has proved impossible to finish while doing the day job. We’ll see if maternity leave can sort it out. (There is quite a large section on when you can’t bloody well write – oh, I read a good blog post on that this week, too.)
Watching
I returned to Detectorists, but mostly I’ve been watching the Critérium du Dauphiné. Mountains, and people working harder than me.
Cooking
An Instant Pot risotto variation with broad beans and spring greens. Not bad, though it needed something to give it a bit more zing. Maybe lemon juice? Also, I have decided that life is too short to double-pod broad beans.
Today, lamb in dill sauce from Slow Cooking Just For Yourself. The sauce refused to thicken despite the use of both cornflour and egg yolk, but it was very tasty nonetheless.
Eating
What I should have done was pretend to be vegetarian when I signed up for the (not) gin tasting, as the keynote edible offering was a charcuterie selection which mostly looked off-limits to me. But I did quite nicely on crisps and nibbles and leftover vegetarian bits.
Today, for lunch: a Krakower bacon and cheese sausage from the German sausage cart at the market, followed by a pomegranate gelato on the way home. Not bad at all.
This evening I took my lamb in dill sauce out into the garden and ate it off our new blue metal table. I did feel a bit like Shirley Valentine drinking her wine alone at the edge of the sea, but it was very pleasant.
Moving
People seem to be impressed that I’m still cycling. Look, once I’ve got up the hill (and I gave up trying to ride up Back Hill several months ago) the rest is easy.
Noticing
Swifts, I said, and there was a dragonfly briefly hovering outside the church yesterday morning. A spotted brown butterfly and a few little blue ones. And a large woodpigeon landing on a very slender birch bough, which swayed most entertainingly.
Just now, a spider – fortunately before it crawled inside my dress.
In the garden
We spent last Sunday afternoon getting rid of the annoying willow tree. (I like willows, in their place – which is not our tiny back garden. I don’t know what the previous owners, or the ones before them, were thinking.) This gives more space to a sad morello cherry tree, some raspberry canes, and a couple of self-seeded hollies. My current thinking is that I’ll let the big one of those stay and take the other one out, but we’ll see.
I’m having to be rather more cautious with watering than I’ve been in previous years, because even with the watering can only half-full I can feel my back complaining, but most things seem to be surviving so far. There is one rose on each of the three bushes. My favourite is still the white one, but I do appreciate the way the pink one is so unashamedly out there, being a rose. And the peony, far from being dead, has flowered! Only one flower, and I think it will stay that way, but it’s a proper bright pink cheerful blowsy peony and I am very pleased with it.
Appreciating
The outpouring of love and encouragement and support from the Cursillo community. Tony, who is willing to cart all sorts of paraphernalia around for me and set up air conditioners while I’m snoozing on the sofa. I have excellent people in my life.
Acquisitions
A bottle of gin. For future reference, you might say.
Line of the week
From Havi’s piece on Loving Clarity:
I love Loving-Kindness for its poetic feel, and I love it as the translation to an impossible-to-translate feeling, something warmer than Mercy, sweeter than Grace, kinder than kindness, an enhanced kindness.
Sunday snippet
All my books are really written for myself, but this bit in particular is me writing what I need to read:
And I think that what it comes back to is this: writing is not easy. It won’t just happen, particularly not in a time-environment that’s crowded with other projects and priorities. Therefore, you have to choose to make it happen, over and over, word by word. Sometimes the choice is easy; sometimes it disappears entirely. You won’t always choose writing – and that may be because you want to meet up with a friend you haven’t seen in years, or it may be because you’re too tired for anything but a pizza and whatever happens to be on telly. You don’t have to choose writing all the time. You only have to choose it often enough.
This coming week
… is my last week at work! It contains one session in which I attempt to train some colleagues on the use of the learning management system, one regular training session, further efforts at clearing my desk, and some frivolities. At least, that’s the theory. We’re already well on the way into the great unknown.
Anything you’d like to share from this week? Any hopes for next week? Share them here!
Kathleen Jowitt 