Clarity

It's my special day today, and I'm feeling remarkably chipper about it, despite forgetting to book the day off as annual leave... As Oscar Wilde once commented, "Thirty-five is a very attractive age: London society is full of women who have of their own free choice remained thirty-five for years."

It sounds like a plan, and a good one. Cheers everyone!

It's amazing what you can pack into four days when the weather is feeling friendly. There was lazing around and jobs about the house to do, sure, but there are also some nice places to go just down the road from where we live.

We've been meaning to visit Clandon Park for a while now. We've visited the grounds, but have not been in the house until this weekend. It's well worth a visit - the artwork contained in the house is stunning. There are several examples of the type of very old family portrait which I find intriguing, those with extremely dark backgrounds and faces and forms just brushed with light, so that they seem emerge from the gloom only briefly before sinking back again.

The grounds are lovely too, especially at this time of year. They have an abundance of my favourite flower:



And when I say an abundance, there is a custom-planted whole field of my yellow lovelies:



How wonderful. We returned home much rested and refreshed after that visit. Our visit to Syon Park to see the London Butterfly House was not quite so successful, due to the horrible traffic and the abundance of horrible, rude people, but I did enjoy seeing the butterflies and tropical birds (for as long as I could ignore the bratty children doing everything that the signs said they should not do, and their chav parents blithley ignoring their behaviour) and learned that they are very happy to socialise with you as long as you sit still and quiet!



This butterfly took an extreme liking to Ian, re-visiting him several times, Doesn't he make a lovely butterfly ring?!

So in conclusion, we've decided that visiting things close-by on a Bank Holiday is fine, but travelling anywhere close to any major city is a no-no. We're also considering having our version of Bank Holidays at a different time to everyone else; maybe a week or so later!

...... to have hot cross buns and Nutella for supper? Morally, it's Very Wrong. But it feels so Right!!!

Well, it's not an auspicious beginning. The Humes Hooosehold have been recycling religiously for quite some time now, washing and taking aluminium tins, steel tins, plastics, paper, glass and cardboard to their respective recycling points on the way to and from work. It's been organised, efficient, and has worked very well.

I was pleased and excited when Waverley Borough Council delivered a couple of boxes to my door and announced that as well as collecting paper and glass, they would now collect tins and plastic as well! They urged me to read the leaflet, understand what I could and couldn't leave out for them to collect, and then to leave my correctly-filled boxes outside my front door at the appointed time, twice monthly.

So dutifully we collected and washed and boxed, and got up early this morning to make sure the boxes were put out and not forgotten. I took the cardboard and put it in the car to be taken to the recycling bank on the way home.

I came home nice and early this evening, and expected to find my boxes, empty, at my door waiting to be taken in. However, I found a muddy, broken paper box with the bottom broken out, and another paper box full of someone else's tin and plastic waste!!!! Disgusting!

I went in and called the Environmental Services and left my details on their answerphone. I'm going to insist on this box of waste I don't own being taken away - it's not coming into my house. I will also insist on being provided with new boxes..... and then I won't be using their collection service until they can collect competently.

Very, very poor show Waverley.

I did actually have a very productive day today which has left me feeling good. I am much more tired than I would usually be after a normal working day, but I think I'm on the mend. So! My 5 things for the day. I'm not going to blog these every day; just when I feel like it, or struggle to find any.

1. Rabbits. Seeing them munching on the grass in the early-morning light on my way to work at 6:45am.
2. Haze-free views across the hills. Wind may make cycling a pain, but it certainly clears the air nicely.
3. Porridge and honey. I swear, there's no better comfort food in the morning before work begins
4. Being able to have photos and evocative trinkets in my work area. I know of plenty of employers who don't allow this.
5. Sunshine in the evening. If I were up to it, I'd be able to cycle until about 8pm if I wanted to. As soon as it warms up a little, I will be!

I have to quote daffodils again. They're glowing at me right now in a vase on my table bathed in sunshine. They are quite simply gorgeous.

I've got far too used to constantly being in a negative or fretful state of mind, I think. I have no Winter S.A.D excuse to fall back on, not in April! I've not been feeling at all well for the past couple of weeks, but even so....

I'm spending most of my time in a state of low-level anxiety. My muscles across my shoulders have been tense enough to go numb, and lately to cause spasms down one of my arms on occasions. I'm very, very tired most of the time. I'm sitting in a sun-flooded room on a comfy chair in a quiet house and I can't relax. I'm thirsty and my head is hurting. I can't understand why my head is so "busy"; all it's doing is going round and round in circles trying to find a reason for my current unhappiness.

I wonder if my expectations aren't just far too high. Take this weekend, for example. In these two days (well, still only one and a half really!) I have done all the housework, all the washing, gone out for a ride, cleaned the bikes, watched a significant number of "Lost" episodes, had a nice Sunday roast, fixed the Epson 4000 printer upstairs, taken Ian to PC World and slept a lot. That's not bad for a weekend is it?

OK, my brain is now telling me that I should have got the garden cleared too (daft as it's been raining on and off and you can't cut grass when it's wet), done some knitting, sewed up a pair of cycling trousers, done some more drawing, started on my pastel practice, had a bath by now and eaten much, much less than I have. And now it's saying that I certainly should have ridden more than 10 miles.

Who is this speaking? It's not me, as I like a quiet life and would much rather potter in a slow and pleasurable way than dash from activity to activity as if I'm in a race or trying to prove something to someone.

Now I'm worrying about my job too - I'm used to being an expert on my subject and as I've moved into a more senior area last year, my learning curve has been more of a cliff face straight up and I still am very much aware of all the things I have yet to learn, and the environment is changing all the time. Still, I got a very good grade in my appraisal the week before last, so I must be doing OK.

I need to try to get out of this downward spiral of negative thinking. If something is annoying me, I need to deal with it. I'm going to start with converting negative thoughts into positive ones when I catch them, and noticing 5 things that bring me happiness every day, starting now.

1. Daffodils. They make me whoop with joy whenever I see them.
2. Cats to cuddle. I love the way they smell and their warm paws.
3. Windy days. They make me feel fey and a bit wild and I love the huge amounts of fresh air.
4. Bees. Especially the lovely fat fluffy ones with white bums. They're so improbable!
5. Sleep. I love the feeling of my consciousness floating away when I'm dropping off.

There. That's a good start, I feel better already. Coffee and ibuprofen now.

I was feeling a bit better by late afternoon on Saturday than I had the preceeding week (strange lump in throat, stuffed up sinuses, extreme fatigue, very muzzy head) so decided to take a very gentle pootle out in the late sunshine.

I noticed that there's been some re-surfacing work going on on the Downs Link just in Cranleigh, so thought I'd better investigate! They've put down an awful lot of fine gravel, widened the path and levelled it. The greenery at the edges is looking a bit, well, savaged, but I expect it will look much better once the leaves have come out. The lovely surface unfortunatley only runs to the edge of the village; beyond that the Link is currently a mud pit!!!

Still, I wanted a gentle pootle, and that's what I was going to have, if it meant riding in hub-high mud all the way there and all the way back. I started off doing a lot of skidding around going for the edges of the wells of gloop in my path, and although that was fun for a while, it soon got wearing as all I could do was constantly look at the ground. So I changed my technique by bringing my speed right down, and just rolling through whatever was in my way in a low gear.



That worked nicely. Mud everywhere, including all over my water bottle, all up my back and all over my feet and legs, but it enabled me to have a good look around me whilst I was going along, which is the whole point, after all.

Riding through this much mud and cack is rather hard work though, especially having to stop frequently and clear the mud from between your brake shoes and wheel rims. I was very glad of a stop and a Mars Bar. This is a superb view as well, at any time of the year.



By the time I got back to Cranleigh, I must have looked like I'd ridden through a swamp! I rode back home in the fading light tired (after only 10 miles! I must get out more!) and nicely relaxed.

I knew I wouldn't be cleaning my bike that night as it was almost dark. But I had to face it this morning. What a state!! Trying to jar the bike as little as possible to prevent clods of mud and leaves raining down onto the kitchen floor, I gingerly coaxed it out of the back door. Degreaser for the chain and Muc-Off and a good brushing saw off the worse of it, and a good rinse and lube had things back in order. I was encouraged to make a good job by the attention of the neighbourhood cats, who thought it a good entertainment to sit and watch the funny human splash about. Why is it that when I wash my bike I always have a feline audience?!

Looks like night riding on the Downs Link is not a good idea just yet....