Week In Photos

I know I’ve said this before (many, many times, I’m sure), but Easter is one of my favourite times of year. We’re not religious, so it doesn’t have any special significance for me or anything, but Easter means spring, and spring means long days and light nights, and (hopefully) and end to the relentless misery that is winter, so what’s not to love? Oh yeah, and there’s chocolate. I mean, sign me up, people!

This weekend was particularly lovely because for once it actually FELT like spring. In fact, no, scratch that: it felt more like summer, that’s how warm it was. (Bear in mind here that Scottish summer = “not particularly warm by normal standards”.)  It was warm enough for me to be out with bare arms some of the time, though, and it’s often not warm enough for that during the ACTUAL summer, so that tells you something. Still snow on the mountains we can see from our window, though:

Still, it was lovely and warm where we are, so on Easter Sunday, Terry and I were all set to go adventurin’. We got into the car, took a couple of shameless selfies…

… and then, minutes later, when we stopped to take some quick outfit photos, the car dramatically broke down. Well, OK, it wasn’t THAT dramatic: we just had to sit in it for a few minutes until it cooled down and consented to start up again, but once we got home, having abandoned the rest of our plans for the day, we discovered it needed a replacement part, plus a special tool to fit the replacement part, both of which were supposed to be delivered by Wednesday. <FORESHADOWING>

That pretty much scuppered our plans for Bank Holiday Monday, too, although I guess it was just as well, because the warm weather meant that everyone else had the same idea: quite a few of our friends headed out for the day, only to end up turning back after spending hours either stuck in traffic or circling parking lots trying to find a space. One of the big advantages of being self-employed is that you DON’T have to go out on a Bank Holiday, so we postponed our adventures for later in the week, and spent Monday at home instead, catching up with a few things, and just enjoying the sunshine:

One of the many things I love about this time of year is that I can take the dog for a quick walk without having to completely change my outfit in order to add tons of warm, waterproof layers, which I then have to change out of again when I get home. It so nice to be able to just throw on a light jacket and be out the door, although unfortunately I keep underestimating how damp the ground is at the moment, which means Rubin comes home caked in mud, and every “quick” walk turns into a long saga involving walking Rubin, bathing Rubin, drying Rubin, and then cleaning all the floors he’s managed to muddy/soak in the process. So it’s not THAT much quicker than winter, then, but it IS a helluva lot more pleasant to be walking in the warm weather, and not feeling like I’m going to die of cold all the time.

On Wednesday, my April Birchbox arrived (PR sample), and I was really excited to discover a bottle of Liz Earle’s Hot Cloth Cleanser inside. I’m a big Liz Earle fan, but can rarely justify the cost of the stuff (because of all the gingham trousers I’ve been buying), so that made me happy, as did the inclusion of some Aromatherapy Associates (another favourite brand) hand and body cream, and a bottle of hair volumising spray, which I’ve so far been too scared to try, because pretty much anything I spray onto my hair tends to turn it into a giant greaseball. I’m hoping this will be the exception to the rule, but, just to be on the safe side, I’m going to wait and try it out on a day when I don’t have anywhere to be.

(You all know that’s a lie, and that I’m going to wait until I’m getting ready for a party or something, and THEN  try it out, right? Because that’s what’ll happen…)

Guess what DIDN’T arrive on Wednesday, though? Did you guess, “That part for the car?” Actually, you’re wrong: the part arrived, but the special tool required to fit it didn’t, aaaaaannnd it didn’t arrive on Thursday either, because, as it turns out, the company forgot to send it. No, really: they just…forgot. So basically we spent the warmest week of the year so far (and probably AT ALL, knowing our luck) waiting around for a part that hadn’t even been sent: AWESOME!

Instead of going adventuring, then, I went for a run:

I’ve been really struggling with exercise lately. I just can’t seem to motivate myself to do anything. At all. Ever. And, I mean, I’ve always hated exercise, but until recently I’ve been able to force myself to do it anyway. For some reason, though, this year I haven’t even been able to do that: I’m just completely lacking in motivation, and I’ll procrastinate for HOURS before managing to talk myself into doing something. Whenever I mention this, people always tell me it’s just that I haven’t found the right kind of excercise… well, I guess that might be the case, but I can honestly say it hasn’t been for the lack of trying. When I was a gym member I tried pretty much every class they did, and I’ve also tried numerous DVDs and other at-home things. I’ve liked some of them better than others, but running is the only thing I’ve ever been able to stick to, and lately I just don’t even want to do that.

I’m not a “team” person – I hate the idea of joining clubs, or doing team sports. Yoga, pilates and all those kind of classes bore me rigid (as did the Tracy Anderson program I started a few weeks ago), and I don’t even particularly enjoy the long walks everyone always suggests: they’re fine if it’s the weekend, it’s sunny, and I don’t have anything else I need to do, but during the week, all I can think about is all of the other things I could be doing instead of trudging through the mud. (And even on a sunny day, there’s always mud…) Wow, that was a whine-fest, huh?

Because of all of this, I’ve been really, really struggling to motivate myself to exercise, but this week I got so sick of feeling guilty about it all the time that I managed to persuade myself to do some intervals on the treadmill, plus about 4 miles outdoors, which is better than nothing. I don’t ever get the endorphin rush people always talk about after exercise (Unless by “endorphin rush” they mean, “Thank God that’s over!”?), but I DO get a lot of satisfaction out of getting to mark it as “done” on my weekly goals list, so at least that’s something, right?

Anyway, I’m writing this on Thursday evening, and Terry is currently out working on the car, helped by a friend who just so happened to have of the special tools required to fix it (Can you tell I don’t care enough about cars to know what I’m even talking about here? Thought so…), so hopefully next week will be a little more interesting. Fingers crossed…

On a serious note, every year, rather than betting on the Grand National, I donate to a charity for ex-racehorses. I don’t want to get all preachy on you, but for anyone who’s interested, here is some information on horse racing, and here is a link to the Thoroughbred Rehabilitation Centre, who work to re-train and re-home former racehorses.

P.S. As you might have noticed, I’ve added a newsletter subscription form to the sidebar, so please feel free to sign up for weekly digests of the latest posts, not-on-the-blog extras, and the occasional random missive whenever I feel like a chat!