Back from a weekend away with friends and while that was quite relaxing and recharging, my mind too quickly went into a bit of an overdrive. Work and life and all that. I had to head into the office yesterday and the day did not go as I had originally planned. Urgent team meetings, finalizing tasks for a coworker who’s on vacation, “can you comment on this report ASAP” request, callback on of the coworker’s task just when I had wanted to leave the office. It was good though as it cleared my schedule for today. More or less anyway.
But my mind still feels a bit all over the place and I could definitely use more time off soon. Which I sadly won’t be able to take until mid-September. I’ll try to not stress about work too much till then and definitely make use of the 15 or so hours of overtime I’ve got this year so far. Work an hour or two less each week and not feel guilty about it, because I’ve earned the hours off for the overtime hours I’ve worked before. But I sometimes still like I’m “slacking off”, even though that’s not what I do. Ugh! I talked to a male coworker about that a while ago and was surprised that he felt the same way. I always thought it were predominately women who felt like that.
Anyway, back to that lovely weekend. We had lots of yummy food… (More than this here, I didn’t always pull out the camera).
CakePancakeDrinkLunch
…we played games, we had massages, we relaxed…
Game #1Game #2Relaxing after massage
… we explored the surroundings.
I should do those mini-breaks more often. I should definitely get a massage more often. And I need to definitely get more sleep. Over and out.
For a moment I had considered the following words for the title:
“Cause I′ve started falling apart, I’m not savouring life”
which are the lines leading up to the words I did choose in the end. That would have made a rather depressing title though. And I’m not in such a low mood, because I am very consciously trying to work against that, by “taking the pieces and building them skywards”. Getting enough sleep or at least trying to. Being kind to myself. Drawing lines. Taking breaks. Doodling. Staying hydrated (not always managing that as well as I’d like. Being kind to myself about that as well).
Work is once again / still super busy and partly overwhelming. I question myself too often still and have to tell myself again and again that making mistakes is human. Not sure I made all that many mistakes, but it feels like it more often than I like these days. Anyway, sometimes my job comes with perks, or at least by now I don’t feel bad to claim perks, when they are available. Like volunteering to assist some coworkers on a job they had to do on a spoil tip, which is closed off to the public. I basically just went so I could look down and around and out….
…. Skywards
Lovely little break from our office everyday routine. This weekend will also be a lovely little break as I’m away for a wellness trip with some friends.
Civic engagement is also taking it’s toll still and again and I sometimes just wish I could just quit my participation, but I’d feel too bad about letting down the others long before I had announced I would. It’s just that it feels like I’m one of the few holding it together and I don’t know if I need to draw more lines. Ask for more support. But how can the other not see what needs doing? They’ve been part of it all as long as I have. I can only partly “blame” it on being raised as a woman with the inherent female impulse to pick up the slack. We’re as many women as men in our group so that can’t be it.
Another piece to build it skywards is buying books. Reading books. Not the same activity. I still need to update my reviews on Storygraph, I have read quite a bit recently, while also binging “Department Q” on Netflix. Holy Shit, what a great show. Once I had finished it I had to skim back to some episodes to see how neatly they had woven all those trails together and planted hints along the way. I also immeaditely read the few “Carl / Rachel” fanfics I could find, because… duh! Chemistry!
And then there of course is music and buying gig tickets. I know I probably wouldn’t have needed the pre-sale code, but when I have it and know I want to go, I can just as well buy the ticket right away, right? My upcoming vacation in September, Department Q and all that had me in a Scottish mood: So I bought the Biffy Clyro ticket for January 2026 mere 5 minutes after the presale started and am at the moment getting reacquainted with all their good old stuff. The opening chords to “The Captain” still get me all hyped up, I mean just listen to it
Biffy Clyro live
I plan to watch the whole 90 minutes at some point in the very near future. Isn’t it nice to fall back in love with a band?
Another thing that’s been weighing on my mind a bit these past few days, was, that my gynaecologist last week urged me to have recommended procedure done rather sooner that later. She called the hospital, I had a pre-op appointment there today and my procedure is scheduled for next Thursday. Out-patient so no big deal, but still a bit of a deal. Anaesthesia and so on. In my 50 years on this earth I only had to go through that once over 25 years ago. I’m not really worried about it all, it’s just such a nuisance to spend hours at the hospital, in surgery (more minutes than hours hopefully), recuperating and all that. But I’m glad this happens long before my trip to Scotland, so I can enjoy it. Six weeks more to go.
A post on a Thursday, what a surprise. And it’s not even that I have a lot to say or share. Maybe it’s time to re-think what I want to do with this online space? At various moments these past few days ideas popped up, but then when I was done with regular (paid for) work, I either couldn’t be bothered to sit down in front of a screen again to write something. Many thoughts also weren’t really that thought out, which also kept me from writing anything. And then there is the whole how much personal stuff do I really want to share here issue as well. So…. no proper posts this week so far.
I miss the good old days of Twitter, where I could / would just randomly share thoughts with “the world”. I don’t know if that was a good thing or a healthy thing, but at least I wasn’t second guessing everything I’m putting out. But maybe it’s a good thing that I do. And yes there are other social media apps these days and yes I’ve signed up for most of them, but it’s not the same and I just can’t be bothered with a lot of these anymore to be honest. Instagram is the one I’m using (at least following if not posting as much) the most. But sometimes my thoughts need more words than I my self enjoy reading in a several slides in a tiny font on an Insta Story.
There is no real reason to this post. Obviously! One of the “mmh, maybe you’ll write about that” ideas made me upload and an image from one of my many Scotland trips a few years ago, because I probably will visit that particular place again in September. I had originally planned to drop off my rental car in Dundee and spend a few days there, take the bus up and down the coast. I already booked an apartment on booking.com and all that.
Then Frank announced three “The Road to Lost Evenings” shows, one of them in Aberdeen, which is about 1:20 h north of Dundee (by train or car). It’s a tiny venue, so of course I’m going! Duh, fangirl and all. At first I thought I’d keep the apartment booking and just spend a night in a hotel in Aberdeen. But then I checked the latest reviews of the apartment and quite a few of he more recent ones complained about the mattress on the bed. Red flag! I need a good night’s sleep. Yesterday I had a look around and checked hotel room prices (Travelodge for the win, because I can be reasonably sure they have decent beds), even though I had planned to stay in a self-catering apartment. But… as I wouldn’t be in it for two days basically, that might be a waste of money. So the plan now is to stay in Dundee for two nights, store my suitcase for two nights, while I travel to Aberdeen with my big backpack. Then stay three more nights in Dundee before I move on to Edinburgh for Lost Evenings. I haven’t changed any bookings yet, I’ve still got enough time to cancel on booking.com, but will probably do all of that on the weekend.
What has this all got to do with the photo I mentioned? I checked what I could visit on my way back from Aberdeen to Dundee and the bus stops near here.
Dunnottar Castle, 2017
So I’ll be back and I’m sure it will be lovely. As long as it’s not raining. I plan to be there on 22 September and this photo was taken on 19 September in 2017, so I remain hopeful.
To get myself in the right mood for Scotland I’ve finally started watching “Department Q” on Netflix and 3,5 episodes in I’m enjoying it so far. The villian(s) we see so far (there might be more, as the the plot goes on) are a bit creepy, psychological torture and all that, but I like to see Matthew Goode all grumpy and messed up. And still charming in his way.
Originally I had planned to keep watching “Departure”, but the first episode of season 2 didn’t really get me hooked. Why is she working in Canada all of a sudden? London was one of the main reasons I tuned in for season 1.
Oh well, a grumpy Englishman in Edinburgh on Department Q make up for it.
