Wednesday 17th June 2020 - This week will be different

That is, this week will be different to (or should that be from?) last week.

How so?

I'm just determined to be less bleah, less grey, and more upbeat through the day!

My to-do lists are lloking more cheerful as I'm adding little pictures;

Monday

 Tuesday

Wednesday

which cheers me up when I look at the list, and I am trying to do a bit more exercise, eat more fruit, leave the cake tin alone at least one time in three approaches - nothing radical or extreme, but just buck my ideas up a bit.

Three days in and I'm sort of still there - I'm blogging now instead of walkinng round and round the garden because the heavens have opened and dumped a cloudburst of thunderous rain. So the 'walk' and 'exercise' boxes haven't been ticked yet.

I am amusing myself by doing a 15 minute beginner level workout using resistance bands. The phrase 'going through the motions' takes on added meaning when you learn that I do not possess resistance bands; I did a quick browse through amazon and discovered that there was too much choice, so bought none. I still get puffed doing the exercises; maybe I should wait a while until I have worked up to that level? I like the sound of that.

The walk; well, it takes 120 steps to walk down to the bottom of the garden,

along the back fence, up the path past the patio tubs which should be full of flowers but actually contain runner beans and courgette plants

Up the driveway towards the road, round the car, back through the gates and past the pot of nemesia (who planted those there? Self seeded from some plants bought back in 2015!)

and head back to the table and chairs where I started from (from where I began? I think I am channeling Morecambe and Wise; 'the play what I wrote')

I drop a clothespeg into a flowerpot on the table (to keep a tally of the number of circuits) as I pass, and round I go again.

120 steps is about 75 metres.

Many famous people like Darwin thought their best thinks as they walked around a circuit. I'll let you know if I have any inspirational thoughts, but don't be holding you breath now. 

My main thought at the moment is 'How I want to go and see the sea!' but that is going to have to wait a bit longer.

Sunday 25th March - another week goes by

Just one week before the end of term. Four days, not even a whole week.

Yesterday, Saturday, I taught my last ever keyboard ensemble sessions - for which I am mighty thankful. They have been extremely hard work and I really struggle with the little concerts/presentations to parents at the end of each term.

Afterward we hurtled along the roads to visit daughter's new flat (very nice, I'd be happy there myself if it wasn't up all those stairs). It is made from the attic rooms in what was quite a grand Victorian Villa, converted into five flats.

The first part of of the week ground on in the way that the final weeks of term tend to. Too much teaching, too much all-in-mental-wrestling with smart-alec ten- and eleven-year-old boys, will be my memory of this term. I amused my self by writing some sample reports, but in the journal that Never leaves this house, and the contents of which Never appear on the internet. So you will have to use your own imagination.

In between times, I finished reading the book club book ready for the meeting on Easter Monday

which was a fascinating read. The story is good, but it is the writing style and the language and the choice of words that has filled my head.

I'm also knitting. The blue jumper is waiting for me to get round to casting off the ribbing; I need to learn a special stretchy method and don't have the brain space at the moment. The yellow jumper is at the sewing up stage, and again, I've not enough concentration to risk tackling that.

So, I'm doing something that I've wanted to do for ages; knit a kind of cheat's fairisle, using yarns that change colour. I picked a grey/black colourway, and a multicolour, and just knit whatever pattern I feel like until I've enough for a scarf. I'm very pleased with how it is going. The two yarns started with tawny and grey (not enough contrast in tonal value, perhaps), but improved as I went along.

I struggled quite a bit with the dark green/black pattern. (The one that is hidden so you can't see it properly.) It is a sort of baroque curlicue pattern. In the end, the only way I could work out how to remember what colour came next was to turn the chart into  a song;

which is what the pencil marks on the chart sheet are. I sort of sing the pattern (in my head, obvs. I wouldn't want anyone to think I was mad) as I knit.

I think I got the tune wrong on one row - I shouldn't have tackled such a complicated pattern this close to the end of term - so my curlicues are slightly more idiosyncratic than intended.

Oh, and I finished the Autumn Story. Little Primrose is safe home, in spite of foolishly venturing into a maze of tunnels. Tunnels and caving and lost in the dark underground have always been too scary for me.

And mazes, any mazes with walls or hedges where I can't just walk over the top to get out. Ugh.

Monday 4th January - reposting from 23rd November 2013

Here I was, at the end of my first day back at work, relaxing, (mine's the sherry, and ALL of those cheese straws)

and idly looking at the "stats" for my blog, and the following post came up as the most-read post today:

http://a-letter-from-home.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/friday-22nd-november-5-stages-of-change.html

Here's the opening section:

If you have anything to do with Change Management in your working life, then you will be familiar with the following summary of the 5 phases that people faced with CHANGE go through;

1. Shock (Denial)

2. Emotion (Anger)

3. Bargaining (If I do this then I achieve that - a kind of personal horse-trading)

4. Grief at loss (It isn't fair)

5. Acceptance (in two parts; Intellectual AND Emotional)

And it is worth a re-read, as we are basically going through the whole thing again.

Like I said. Mine's a sherry - I'm not keen on whisky. Hey - who ate all the cheese straws? Me? Really?

The dinky little jug is an Emma Bridgewater "Tree Decoration" - it holds exactly the right amount of water for His whisky.