Pizza, cake and drawing on the tablecloth

Gail moved to Lancashire, about five hours' drive from here, last August. We've seen each other three times since then, once being my wedding, but Tuesday was the first time we have been on our own for a few hours since she left. We drove out to Chipping Ongar, a lovely little village about half an hour away, where there is a pizza place that does a ladies' lunch - a glass of prosecco, olives, pizza and salad for £10 a person. Of course we had to follow that up with dessert (see yesterday's photo). 

Paper tablecloths and crayons - an excellent idea for keeping children - and my slightly tipsy friend - occupied.

We ate, drank, chatted and laughed our way through lunch, then went for a walk around the village.  

Happy Days.

Home Again

{every year, when they get back from their week away, i always have a card waiting on their bed for them}

It's quiet.  I expect that my girls could walk in the door anytime within the next half hour or so.  Right now the house is clean and still.  I know soon though there will be shoes, bags, dirty clothes, stuffed animals, new things to find homes for spread across the floor here downstairs.

I've enjoyed this time alone.  Nights with movies. Mornings with only myself to get ready. Eating whatever I want when I want.  It's been nice to slow down.  With no children there was not much by way of demands outside of getting up to go to work each day.

But I'll be glad to see them home where they should be.   It will be nice to know they are asleep across the hall.  It will be nice to feel my little one's arms wrapped back around me in a hug.

I am wondering how long it will be until I'm exasperated?  How long until I lose my temper?  Probably not as long as I would like.

I'm on my way to learning though.  What I thought I should learn which is take it slow.  Don't think too far ahead.  Enjoy the moment.  Accomplish one task at a time and then be happy you've done it.

And don't take things so seriously.

That's a tough one.

Hope you are having a good week.  The days are going by so fast.

a moment this week: ladies' lunch

Debbie: carrot cake for Gail, cheesecake and ice cream for me

Right Now: 7.6.2011

Jennifer:  Girls Return Tonight

Slow days

Happy fourth! I can't believe it’s July already. This year is running away from me. Maybe it's because of my wedding in April, but the months seem to have gone by in a blur. Years ago, my auntie told me that the older she got, the quicker the years went, and I am starting to realise the truth of that. The days, the weeks, the months all speed by.  I’m sure Christmas comes around three times a year these days. I would really like to slow time down a bit. 

Sounds like you had a very busy weekend. It must be lovely now, having your living room as you want it. It looks really cosy and calm. 

It’s been a sunny day here, warm but not too hot which is exactly how I like it.  I am a chilly mortal, so cold weather doesn’t suit me, but I wilt in the heat. Today has been lovely.  I had a lazy morning, as most of my mornings are, these days. I get up when I wake, today that was 9.30. I've been writing, drinking coffee and enjoying the quiet, at least until one of the neighbours put on the album he has been listening to every afternoon for the past week, but it wasn't too loud, and I like Black Sabbath. I've done some laundry, and it’s blowing in the breeze on the washing lines outside.  For lunch I had a bowl of couscous with some olives, for dinner this evening a baked potato with butter and cheese. Simple food.

We had a good weekend, we visited my auntie on Saturday and had strawberries and cream, very fitting on the weekend of the Wimbledon final.  I took some photographs in her garden, and sat on the steps of her patio, watching bees on the lavender. One got a bit annoyed when I got too close with my camera but I escaped unscathed! We did a little shopping on Sunday, I had gifts to buy for my brother's birthday next weekend and treated myself to Hugh Laurie’s album and the film Shutter Island, which we haven't seen.


In the evening we had dinner with friends, and then a very leisurely drive home through the Kent countryside again.  I love these slow days and I find lately I am finding it easier to just relax rather than stressing about what isn't getting done.  I am savouring the slower pace, and taking time to enjoy things instead of worrying.

I am trying to focus more on the here and now. Usually my head is full of noise, things to do,  too many tangled thoughts. With the help of my notebook and my little point and shoot camera, I am making the effort to notice things around me and to just be. I like it.  

Fourth Of July and Furniture

Well, here I am on Monday, it's the 4th of July here which means Independence Day, or the day we declared our Independence from you Brits.  I guess I may be unpatriotic because my Grandfather asked this morning why I didn't have my flag out and I thought that the only flag I do have is a Canadian one the girls brought back from vacation last year.  So what of the 4th of July?  I am escaping the madness of heading to the beach or smooshing in for the fireworks and enjoying a bonus day.  I don't have to go to work and the children are still away at the ocean so for me it means I get to sit here in the back corner at the bakery and write this with a toasted bagel and a fresh orange juice.

You asked if I got my desk?  I did though it's not visible in this photo, it's actually behind me.  Nothing more than a table with a drawer really, but at least I am not crumpled up anymore at the computer on a stand with nowhere for my feet.   But you can see what else I did.  I hadn't expected to go furniture shopping and rearrange my living room this three day weekend, but I had a little bit of a windfall and decided it was about time I put together my living space and stop looking like I was living in a university dorm room. 

When I first moved into this house after my divorce I had the this and that's leftover from the marriage.  It looked fine and I've added and updated along the way.  In fact, perhaps the openness, the white and the sparse and the simple was what I needed at that time.  My old home, like the marriage was a mess.  The house was falling down (literally) around us.  I am lucky to have found this place to rest and be welcomed.

Like I said there was nothing wrong with the place before, but the mismatched dregs of furniture have been an annoyance to me.  So this weekend, I bought some actual matching furniture, mind you from the department store and we had to put it all together (my father and I), but it matches.  It brings a certain continuity and homeliness to this place.  I'm sure the neatness won't last much once the girls get home, but for now I will enjoy it.

So for the last two days it's been loading, unloading, assembling and taking out the old dilapidated bookshelf and piling books and toys and everything else up in the hallway.  Truly as of yesterday it looked as if a tornado had blown through and still this morning some of that remains.  Today after I leave here I will pop back to get a second bookcase to mirror the one you see here.

It's been a lot of work, and not much of anything else has happened, but it makes me happy.  It makes me contented and when I walk in I smile.  Saturday night I turned on that lamp and sat down with my book and a cup of tea and read by lamplight.  We only had the overhead before, no place for a lamp, so that in itself was a delight.

It hasn't been all work, I have taken your advice and read and I watched a movie every night this weekend before bed. And right now I am taking the time to write this from the bakery.

So I have been off the grid and I hope you haven't thought I have disappeared altogether.  It's almost 11:30 am here which means you are headed to evening before I even get this post up.  I panicked when I woke up and realized it was Monday and I hadn't written my post yet, but then I gave myself a thump on the head and realized it's your own blog, just take your time.  This is supposed to be the week to slow down and take things easy (HA!)  Perhaps I just don't know how to do that.

Look forward to hearing back from you.  Reading your posts is the first thing I do in the morning before I even get out of bed and start the chaos of the day.

And in the spirit of indulgence, I have gone back for a pumpkin muffin and a cafe mocha before I head out.

The World Tour List

I will travel Ireland in  a  horse drawn caravan, drinking  Guinness in roadside pubs. I will spend a few days in a yurt,  glamping. I will take photographs in Marrakesh,  visit the ruins at Pompei and Herculaneum, and go on a boat trip on Lake Garda. I will revisit my beloved Isle of Wight, where I have been many, many times before. I will see the hot springs of Iceland and the Northern Lights. I will visit my friend who moved to Lancashire. Once again I will walk beside streams on the North Yorkshire Moors, where I walked for hours and hardly saw another soul. I'll see the Rockies, and the Blue Ridge Mountains,  and have a long weekend in New York where I will ride in a horse drawn carriage through Central Park. I will stay in gîtes and visit the medieval villages of France. I will visit Greece again and drink a glass of wine looking out to sea, à la Shirley Valentine. I will sit with you on your porch.

All of these, and more, are on my World Tour List, a list of places I want to visit which currently resides inside my head until I get around to writing it down. Some are more achievable right now, others will be possible one day, I hope, as I hope yours will be too. 

I hope you enjoy your quiet week alone. I hope you can use the time to restore and rejuvenate yourself . Read, eat good food, and treat yourself to your favourite things. Try not to worry about your girls, though of course you will miss them. The Young Philosopher went on holiday with my parents for a week when he was seven. I kept his bedroom door shut the whole time he was gone, so that in the evenings it was as if he was sleeping there in bed, which made me sleep easier. 

As I have been writing this an idea has taken shape. I have a week alone coming up soon, as.the Prof is away at summer school, so it will be just me and the Young Philosopher. He is mostly either in his bedroom or out, which is how it is when they are nearly 20. I have a mad idea to go off on my own for a few days. It is just a glimmer of an idea at the moment, but it would be wonderful if I could. I am thinking of a little bed and breakfast place in the countryside, quite near to my friend in Lancashire. I could spend time with her when she isn't at work, and the rest of the time go for walks, read, write. Treat myself to some nice meals and just be alone with myself. I wonder if I could.