This Week I…. The Return

Hi, it’s been a while.

I feel like I ought to start this weeks post with a little catch up on the last few months as I haven’t posted since Christmas.

I have done fun things I could have written about, but my motivation was pretty low and I work on Sunday mornings and so, I just didn’t. Call it Lockdown fatigue if you like, or just general blurgh.

Self isolating in December really did a number on my mental and physical health and by Christmas Eve I was pretty crippled with back pain. I bought a TENS machine which helped a little, and had 2 very unhelpful calls with a physio, which made it worse, and then they refused to see me anymore as they could only see emergencies because of Covid. *sigh*. I took things into my own hands and opted to rest as much as possible for a month, before reintroducing some movement, and so far it seems to be tentatively moving in the right direction.

In January we also lost my Nanny, which was hard as I haven’t been able to see her in over a year. I was glad that she passed away peacefully at home with my Dad with her. But it was hard to not be able to visit and hug my family.

I’ve been slowly starting to feel better, my back is very, very slowly improving and I was starting to miss my weekly check ins. Then I got a message asking if I was going to bring these back, and I thought “yes, yes I am”.

I’m living through what is (hopefully) the end of a global pandemic, and one of the things I love about keeping this little personal diary going is being able to look back and see where I’ve been, how I’ve grown, and how life has changed.

So here we are, don’t expect high excitement, I’ve barely left the house since September, but, this week I….

Got a certificate

Last Christmas I signed up for #12in12, with big plans to make 2020 a year full of races and fun.

Well, we know what happened there, my last “proper” race was the Half Marathon during storm Dennis in February. But I cracked on with virtual challenges, even when it was so hot I couldn’t bear running and I injured my back.

Most of the last 6 months were runs or run/walks, or done over several days, but 1 got 12 months worth of events and a medal and certificate. So I achieved something in 2020.

And yes, that .9 on the mileage is annoying, but it was dictated by the fact that many of the events were in kilometres, so what can you do?

Saw a panther

Ok, it was a cat, but it could have been a panther and it made my morning walk more exciting.

Forgot to put my contact lenses in

So I spent a whole hour with a client peering at them through steamed up glasses.

I told you it wasn’t going to be exciting.

Refused to talk to the pugs

Because they are gits. I was looking forward to taking them for a nice morning walk. I had an hour before I had a client.

It was drizzling slightly so I put their coats on and then they both refused to move when we got outside.

So I went back in in a grump and Mr LLL said he’d take them out in the car, which is when we discovered we couldn’t find the car keys, so that’s probably the Pugs fault too.

I forgave them later because they are cute and fluffy and Peppa licked my nose.

Had Tech issues.

The first tech issue was Mr LLL Kindle giving up the ghost. It is over 10 years old so it didn’t do badly, but after several wasted hours trying to fix it I gave in an ordered a new one. Gosh they’re expensive, but I suppose at least they apparently last 10 years.

The next tech problem was a bit more stressful. I’m about to show you a picture you may find distressing. First I would like you to imagine you have spent 2 hours working on a spreadsheet, it is dull and you have collected data and spent a long time arranging it into a very specific order.

Then you try and save it and you get weird indecipherable pop up messages that the internet cannot help you with, and then suddenly your screen looks like this……

Long story short. I ended up having to shut excel, but thankfully there was a recovery version, but when I tried to save the same thing happened. So eventually I recovered a version, copied it to Google sheets and then restarted my whole computer and now it’s fine.

There that’s your drama for the week.

Drank some beer with friends

Over Zoom, obvs, because this is how we socialise now and it is kind of fun sometimes to be able to have a night out without changing out of your pyjamas or leaving the house.

I did not take photos of the beer, or the Zoom call, but at 10pm Peppa decided it was past our bed time and began to drop heavy hints that she was ready for bed actually.

So here’s a photo of her judging us from the end of the sofa.

And that, after a 2 month hiatus, was a thrilling week in my life.

Now I’m off to read a book for the rest of the afternoon.

How was your week?