Here I am with some very quick weekend words of wisdom for you because this weekend I’ve been thinking! I have lots of words of wisdom……………..appropriate words for every circumstance. But these are this weekend’s words of wisdom which have led to me having a lovely weekend instead of the pretty uneventful one I had got planned! This weekend’s words of wisdom are from Mark Twain (real name Samuel Langhorne Clemens), American writer, and author of works such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He said:
“Twenty years from now you will be more dissapointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails.”
Now I’m quite good at this, I’m a bit of a doer. But this weekend I was going to be a good girl on Saturday and do all my housework, clean my bathrooms, wash my new wheels (I’ll tell you about those in a minute), do my garden, attack my huge ironing pile and just generally do all those things I don’t have time for in the week. I work all week. I leave early in the morning, arrive home after five, and by the time I’ve cooked a meal, sorted everyone else, done something for myself (usually a run, yoga or my language class), it’s time to go to bed and read my book. So inevitably at the weekend I have some jobs to do, because I refuse to have a cleaner or a gardener as I can do it myself and I would feel really lazy if I didn’t.
However this weekend was a bit different………………………………………I’m home alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My ultra running other half has disappeared on a 10 day training block to the Canary Islands to keep going up and down a mountain for 10 whole days in the hot weather…………………WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO DO THAT?😆 One child has moved down near London to work from the beginning of September, and the other, whilst back at home, was going to stay with friends.
Lots of people I know would absolutely hate being on their own. I meanwhile am absolutely fine with it! In fact I’m more than just fine. They say true happiness comes from within and you can’t be truly happy relying on other people to provide your happiness, you have to be happy with ‘you’ first. And I’m a great believer in that. I don’t know whether it helps being a bit of an introvert, or whether it’s because I’m an only child but I am perfectly happy in my own company……………..I like being with me, I’m really nice to be around! 😁 I can’t understand anyone who says they are bored on their own…………………I can think of a million and one things to do with my time. I can garden, I can sew, I can go for a walk, I can sing, I can draw, I can read, I can cook, I can bake……………………….how can anyone be bored!
So a weekend on my own sounded like my idea of heaven. You see the thing is there’s always something ‘going down’ in our house. Someone always has something they need me for and it’s often quite frantic. People rushing around, needing feeding at different times, training schedules to work around, it’s like a military operation. And I do find myself at the helm of the ship holding it all together a lot.
And it all seems to happen at once. Take for instance the other week. I was crewing for my other half and happened to be in the middle of a car park in Switzerland at 1:20am in the morning (my second night without sleep), unable to get on a crew bus to the next place I needed to be as they were all full. I’d used my initiative and managed to hitch a lift with a French lady who I flagged down once I’d convinced her I was on my own and quite safe. No sooner had I sorted that issue, I got a message from my youngest son at home having a meltdown over something and nothing which I managed to put into perspective for him. Fast forward another half an hour and I had a call that really threw me off balance from my eldest who was in South America and unfortunately had had his drink tampered with in a club and had been drugged and robbed and had just woken up 18 hours later and unfortunately three hours after his return flight!! He looked really unwell and was frighteningly incoherent, he knew I was talking to him but he was just staring blankly at at me with wild eyes and not able to have a conversation as he had no chain of thought. He was clearly not well but had managed to coordinate himself just enough to dial my number.
So there I am in Switzerland in the middle of the night……………….rushing to feed and stick together a husband who needs me in approximatley 30 minutes time. Having to put my smiley face on, cheer and pretend everything is fantastic as there was no way I was telling him the dilemma and ruining his chance of completing the one race that he’s wanted to do all his running life. Whilst at the same time I’m trying to get in touch with the British Embassy and Air France to work out how I’m going to get one quite unwell son back on the next possible flight, or at least into a place of safety. Fast forward 12 hours later ………….. I’ve one very happy other half who has just completed the run of his life, one son put on a flight hurtling towards Brazil to get a connecting flight to Heathrow, and I meanwhile have just fallen apart. Because somehow, when you need to hold it together you just do, you just get on with it, but there is only so much anyone can deal with at once and I thought I was fine, until it was all over and sorted, when I had a little tearful meltdown for a few hours! The running superhereo was extremely cross with me for holding it all in and keeping it together but I would never have forgiven myself if I’d have needed to tell him, or anyone else for that matter, as there is no way he would have finished with the weight of that worry on his shoulder, I know he would have pulled straight out of the race. And I really did not want to worry anyone else with it either. But it’s all ok………….everyone is now back in one piece and I got a Llama keyring for my car keys to say thanks for my assistance and to make up for the 10 years I think I aged in 12 hours!😂 I’m sure anyone looking in from the outside would think I was so cool, calm and collected, because I’m quite private and don’t share all the detail, but honestly, come and live with my three for a week and you’ll realise I’m a bit like a swan, I’m paddling like mad underneath the surface. 😂
So I don’t feel at all bad for thinking yipppeeee……………….I’m on my own for the weekend, because to be quite honest with you they can all be a bit of a pain in the butt at times! 😂 If I had to sum up this weekend in one word it would be CALM. Thank goodness, a few days without all of them sapping my energy and upsetting my balance.
One glance at the weather forecast after a bit of yoga showed a lovely sunny day for Saturday and a not so great day on Sunday. So that got me thinking about my little words of wisdom from Mark Twain. It’s sunny, the birds are singing, I’m on my own and what do I have planned………………………bathroom cleaning! Errrrrr I don’t think so Dora!!!!!!!!!!! Cleaning bathrooms on a sunny day is definitely one of those things that I’ll look back and regret………..I’ll regret not going on a little adventure instead, as jobs can wait until rainy Sunday. Oh, wait a minute………….I’m not supposed to be going off on my own with a map. But no-one is here to check up on me………….they’ll never know I’ve been on an adventure!! 😉
So I threw off my bowline, sailed away from the safe harbour, caught the trade wind and disappeared off with my map in search of all my favourite things. I went to Lathkill Dale, one of my favourite dales in the Peak District. And I found all the things that I love: a pre walk bacon sandwich, cows, pretty flowers, babbling streams, the elusive Dipper bobbing about on the water, chocolate brownies and beer. How can one possibly be bored in a National Nature Reserve!
I did have a slight panic when I saw an incoming Messenger video call to check I was ok from Mr Fitness himself. My background looked nothing like a bathroom and I did have a map in my hand, so I called back later!😂
So your words of wisdom for this weekend are from Mark Twain who said don’t clean your bathrooms on a sunny Saturday……………..you’ll regret it 20 years later when you could have been plodding though the countryside eating brownies and drinking beer instead!
I have cleaned my bathrooms today and washed my new wheels…………………….I have a new car……………..Calvin…………Calvin the Corsa! He’s not brand new but he’s new to me. He’s had one careful lady owner, is bright red and is 10 months old. My Mini was nearly 10 years old and appears to have been claimed by one of my children.
I hate looking for cars and I’m not really into cars. Calvin was found by me just putting some filters in the Vauxhall/Opel used car app, getting it down to two, going to look at the closest one and saying I’ll have it. He was on my drive the following Wednesday! Everyone at home seemed to think I should look around various garages, test drive various cars and waste my valuable time looking at cars………………..no way……….I have far more interesting and worthwhile things to do! If it has four wheels and gets me from A to B I’ll have it. Although I admit I really had little idea as to what I’d bought 🤣………the guy at the garage kept telling me it was ‘top spec’ but I thought “he will say that, he’s trying to sell me a car!”.
Anyway my little adventure yesterday gave me chance to have a really good look at Calvin and play with all his knobs and I think I might be in love. When I open his door in a morning he flashes up ‘Good Morning!’ When I go back to him in the afternoon he says ‘Good Afternoon!’……………..so he’s already excelling over and above the three men in my life who just grunt! But wait for this…………………he massages my butt for up to one hour at the touch of a button!😍 I might get 5 minutes at home if I ask nicely and the wind is blowing in the right direction!😂 He also has a heated steering wheel, lots of cameras and beeping sounds, SatNav and plays whatever I ask him to off my Spotify playlist. So the top and bottom of it is, with the advances in automobile and modern technology, I’m seriously questioning the need to have any other man in my life…..Calvin does it all and he’s so much easier to look after!
No, seriously though, the novelty of being on my own will wear off! I won’t get bored but I do strangely miss the comings and goings, family, laughter and eventfulness of a busy household but every now and again it’s so good to have a calm weekend in your own company, going wherever the wind takes you………just me, myself and I!