Daily May # 8

Day 8 :: Thursday

A day where I woke up with no plans as such, a day where I had the usual school morning routine but after that, a day for me to simply be Me. What a huge luxury that is, and believe me when I tell you I appreciate it massively.

I felt a bit aimless at first, wandering around downstairs, tidying up a little, seeing to laundry, taking the recycling out to the bin, watering plants. I looked at my very dusty mantle and thought about doing some housework and then came to my senses. No, no not today......

.....so I pulled on a scarf and my lime green coat (it was chilly today) and promptly took myself out for a coffee. It's true, you simply can't do housework if you're not in the house, and I felt quite good about that.

I stopped on my way home to pick up some groceries....

....and enjoyed walking slowly back along the side of the canal. No need to rush, this is a day marked clearly with a SLOW sign.

Ten thirty and I'm home again. Walking in the door I realised that in my haste to run away from the dusty surfaces I forgot to eat breakfast, and my tummy was rumbling loudly. I dithered for a stupid length of time in front of the fridge, trying to work out what kind of food my brain wanted. Sweet or savoury? Hot or cold? In the end I was tempted by a perfect avocado half (Little Lady cut and ate the other half for her breakfast), and some juicy little baby plum tomatoes.

I toasted a slice of seeded sourdough bread, smooshed the avocado onto it and seasoned it with a heavy hand. Added some weeny fresh basil leaves to my tomatoes and felt fancy. Berries on the side because the brain suddenly wanted both savoury and sweet. I lit a candle, because breakfast/brunch is my favourite meal of the day and I like the idea of making it feel special.

I am hard pushed to tell you what happened between 10.30 and 12.30 but I'm pretty sure it contained laundry, a quick run to the coffee shop to buy a flat white for J who was stuck at his desk doing complicated work things, and some chit chat with the eldest man-child. I'm sure the morning had more stuff in it, but I just cannot recall what it was - oh, I did some faffing with yarn pegs, and caught up with my emails I think.

It's early afternoon, and now I'm settled comfortably upstairs so that I can see to the important business of Self Care. I've made myself a mug of spiced ginger tea with lemon, and have a modest two-chunks of Rhubarb and Ginger dark chocolate to go with it (please note the impressive self restraint here. T-w-o small chunks only). I've got my crochet to hand, but what I really feel like doing is losing myself inside the pages of an inspirational magazine. I'm a relative newcomer to The Simple Things magazine and honestly it is an absolute and utter delight. The May edition is out and is full of beautiful spring imagery, flavours, recipes, outdoor gorgeousness and beautiful creative interiors.

I love everything about this magazine - the seasonal nature of it, the focus on slow living and enjoying simple every day pleasures, but mostly I love the sublime photography and styling. It's visually very beautiful and every page holds something to inspire. Isn't the above photo a thing of beauty? There was a credit given for the photographer Holly Jolliffe and I spent a wonderful time finding her on Instagram and then falling head over heels in love with her sense of style and beautiful photos. I drank in image after image and felt so uplifted and inspired, what a talent she is.

The rest of the afternoon was spent hooking, faffing with colours, photographing the faffing of the colours so I don't forget my thought processes, talking to the kitty and then catching up with Little B when he came home from school.

I can say that during a seven hour school day (8:45 - 15:45) the time passes extremely quickly. I can also say that I felt so much happier at 4pm than I did at 9am so I am marking this day of Self Care as a success. Slow walking, mindfulness, good coffee, wholesome food, creative inspiration and colourful yarn all worked their magic, as did the chats with the kitty and kids. I feel like my equilibrium has been restored and now if I can somehow manage to sleep well (got some crazy hormonal stuff happening at the moment) then I shall be very happy indeed.

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ps I'd love to know how you go about finding your own self care, does it look similar to mine? Is there yarn involved? Chocolate? A walk? Chat to me in the comments, I'd love to know your remedies xxx