Saturday and Sunday Roundup
I started this post last night but got interrupted.
Saturday
It has been very cold here today in Peterborough. Autumn has landed in a rush and I just do not know where this very peculiar year has got to. Lets just say it has passed me by a little bit to say the least. For many months I have been in my own little bubble not needing or wanting to do much just being on my own with OH which has been less stressful for me in many respects but it has thrown up other issues lack of self worth, not counting, having no real purpose. I have been trying to heal myself in a gentle fashion but also trying to re-discover who and what I am and what purpose I have to play in this mortal coil. Self-doubt and lack of confidence as well as not feeling 100% have not helped. I am a natural loner it is how I am built. Every so often I become totally overwhelmed and need space and time for myself to heal and regain some equilibrium. This is time out and something I have to do for myself for self preservation. It is about me and no one else although frequently other people do not see things this way. It is just how I am built. I am still not sure what my purpose is, but I am starting to sort out what I want to do.
I was up early this morning for a delivery and then it has been a pottering kind of day. I was up a good two hours before Oh this morning.
After the delivery I then pottered in the house sorting a few things out. However it has gone really cold again and the change in temperature always knocks me for six with some pain and feeling cold all the time. This is what happened yesterday and the rain did not help. In the end I did some recipe sorting in my folder and researching other recipes. In baby steps I am starting to organise myself a little. Still not there but each time I do a little it becomes a few steps nearer in theory.
Sunday
I ended up sleeping late and could hardly move when I did get up. However have had some pain and in the end curled up on the settee with a blanket around me and ended up watching the TV. There had been advertised on the TV a remake of three episodes of Dad's Army that had been lost and had been remade as near to the originals as possible. I really enjoyed this but half of the reason the original Dad's Army series was such a success was the actors and the characters sparked off each other. However a very pleasant afternoon which in many respects took me back to my childhood.
It has been a lazy evening too and I will be early to bed as I need to be up early tomorrow as have lots to do.
Sometimes doing nothing is just what is needed. However whenever I take time out why do I always feel so guilty.
Hope everyone is well and safe.
Back to the grind tomorrow.
Catch you soon.
Pattypan
x
www.jacquelinelesley.com I understand xxxxx
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear you're finding life such heavy going at the moment - I think we all have moments like that. Just reading about all the things you're putting up for the winter makes me feel exhausted!
ReplyDeleteYour posts always bring back memories for me. My 'uncle' used to make his own raspberry vinegar back in the 70s, when barely anyone remembered it at all. He was my father's boss, and a good family friend who often had us round for Sunday lunch, after his wife died. He would cook tremendous yorkshire puds to go with the vinegar, served before the meal in the traditional northern way, which I found very exotic. He really had perfected the whole circus of bringing in and carving the roast, usually something from a cow that looked like it would feed a small army, and I have wonderful childhood memories of these events. It's entirely fitting, and not sad at all to me that he died at the dinner table one Boxing Day, in the middle of serving up another wonderful feast (although it did put a bit of a damper on that Christmas season). Looking back I can't think of a better way to go.
This is all sounding rather maudlin but your talking about preparing Christmas cakes and puds also reminded me of the rituals of baking and decorating. I don't do them anymore because my husband doesn't like dried fruit and I shouldn't eat cake, but I used to make them when my father lived with us.
I have never been any good at making small portions of anything, and continued to make our family-and-friend sized Christmas cake from my great-grandmother's recipe, which lasted so long we were still eating it at Easter! I loved doing fancy icing (one grandpa was a baker and taught me swags and swirls and all that tarradiddle) so always wanted a big cake to work on... After my father died I switched to making small cakes for local charities and although I enjoyed making little paste Christmas trees and candy canes to put on the top of the single-serving cakes I missed having a great snow-white canvas to go at with my piping bags. That said, it was a lovely pre-Christmas thing to do which I thoroughly enjooyed, as I'd rope in lots of friends to come round and form a conveyer-belt of marzipan and icing and ribbons and decorating, and we'd do gift boxes for all the single oldies in the village. Whether they enjoyed it quite as much as I did was moot - it's hard to say no to a good cause, isn't it?
I hope you find lots of rose hips, sloes and acorns. I have never been much good at looking for such things, apart from rose hips which seem very abundant; I hope you have lots of golden autumn sunshine when you're out searching!
Like you I find I need quiet time on my own more than ever these days. In many ways the lockdown has been a calming and restorative process, although I do miss the pick-me-up quality of seeing friends regularly.