Tuesday 14 October 2008

What To Do With Time on Your Hands

As regular readers will have spotted by the reduction in frequency of my posts, time is at a premium recently. So with a week of relative ease - well a week away from work at any rate - I have lighted upon a few things I have neglected.
  • I have sharpened all the knives in the kitchen - a task I enjoy and, for the boy scouts among us, a topic of great interest. There are many fascinating methods of achieving razor like sharpness, I prefer the DMT Diamond sharpening system myself, with its angle guide for those of us whose free hand angle maintenance is not sufficiently confident.

  • I have baked bread using the time consuming, flavour developing, old fashioned, sponge method rather than the 'speed is everything so chuck a ton of yeast in it' bread machine method.Yum!

  • We are cooking properly for every meal. This really is a luxury; I hoyed off to Sainsurys and picked up a copy of Delicious magazine. You are always spoilt for choice with Delicious, with more than enough recipes - if you have the time. Usually we avoid the magazine like the plague because it just makes you feel guilty as you chuck a jar of pasta sauce in with the mince on an average work day.

  • If the weather picks up, I am going to dig up part of our middle lawn to make a raised veg bed. We had to give up the allotment because we didn't have the time; but with a bed just outside the patio door we should to at least be able sow garlic this autumn, and then perhaps some beetroot and other easy crops next year.
And here is where, with the smoothness of a Radio 2 DJ, I move onto Catherine's kind comments over at her New Zealand based blog. You see she flattered me by recommending my blog among her favourites. Why is this relevant to my week off? Because the other thing I've been doing is catching up on my blog reading, so, by return, I can recommend some of my current favourites too:
  • Adventures of an Urban Cowgirl: This, together with my second choice, was one of the first blogs I read. It's the engagingly written account of a woman who moved to New Zealand. Like all the best blogs, it's the writing that does it.
  • Blunt By Name: Bill Blunt is an institution and his wry look at life through the spectacles of an aged, enbittered hack make this an enjoyable read (especially if you need to know a decent Wetherspoons near you)
  • Occupied Country: a fellow Mancunian with a great taste in music and always great pictures
  • Mr Woppit: Takes life seriously; in his own words - Emptying the nose of life into the handkerchief of derision
  • Mystic Veg: What I'd like to be able to do in the garden and more, from a fellow Oldhamer (a displaced one that is)
  • The Toy Cupboard: I like blogs that take a different twist on blogging. This is one of those, and my next choice is another. The Toy Cupboard features, well, a cupboard of childhood toys, memories and anecdotes - makes you feel warm all over (that is assuming your childhood memories haven't cost you thousands in therapy bills).
  • Diary of a 70s Teen: Exactly what it says - read it and remember what you were doing when...
  • Olga The Travelling Bra: An uplifting travel blog, great fun!


Wednesday 8 October 2008

Relaxing


Readers who know me, and who have a particular talent for visualisation, might want to steel themselves for the following account of relaxation and work at not imagining the scene in any detail.

Trying to soothe away the incessant chatter in my head, I remembered a relaxation technique I had found useful before; it is particularly good if, like me, you live in a frenetic household where distractions abound and the chances of drifting off into any form of meditation are slim to none.

The idea is that you simply notice the sounds around you, so lying in a warm foamy bath with the water lapping round my shoulders I closed my eyes and listened. You start off with the sounds closest to you: the gentle crackle of bubbles popping over the surface of the water; then the sound of breath slowly drawing in and out through my nose - a sort of hiss as I inspire and a broader deeper sound as I expire. Next. as I extended my awareness away from my warm pool, I noticed the plip, plip, plip of water in the toilet cistern and the pinging of expanding water pipes as hot water coursed through the radiators.

As I slipped lower into the deep water so only my head was above the soothing suds, I heard the gentle murmour of conversation against the muted sounds of early evening television. Even those normally urgent sounds seemed relaxing as I noticed that I couldn't make out the content of the conversation, just the general tone.

I heard the front door open and mused that T had returned from the gym, sure enough moments later came the dulled whine of the hand blender as he whizzed up his protein shake. I smiled to myself as the waves of mundane family life washed over me - it was good that the things that sometimes can make up a hectic family life were now the backdrop to a lovely deep relaxation.

I allowed my mind to drift out of the house. There were fireworks in the distance - what were they for? A special birthday? or just for the fun of them perhaps. Cars passed nearby with a sigh as I lazily submerged my head and enjoyed the altered muting of sounds, and drifted wondering when to bring my reverie to a gentle close...

Bang, Bang, Bang!


"Jeez, dad. 'Ave you died in there? How long you gonna be, I'm bursting - hurry up"


My heart tried to climb out of my throat, as I tried to climb out of the bath, depositing most of the watery contents onto the bathroom floor.

Deep breaths - in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out...

By way of a post script, I was hypnotised yesterday by Georgia - now that was relaxing I recommend it.