Summer is coming.
Summer is coming.
As I drove to work that I’d forgotten to brush my teeth. Then I realised I’d be hugging the kids instead. I’m ok with that.
Today I’m grateful for having some time without kids at home.
Lunch and coffee with Lyra.
Mum would call it ‘potching about’. Though a quick search doesn’t throw anything up. It’s where you’re just doing a bit of this and that around the house. With kids, I rarely get to do it. This morning, I’ve had coffee, put some washing on, hung some washing up, watched some Netflix, tidied the kid’s room a bit. I’ve potched about. It’s been nice!
More morning art.
So, sometimes I sit on a bean bag in the kid’s when they go to sleep. Recently Yumo has been getting out of bed to either give me a cuddle, to tell me he loves me or to give me a kiss.
Which is the absolute best and most frustrating thing. I love you too but go to sleep.
Today I’m grateful for having dinner with friends who understood that I was just really tired and not on top of my game.
There’s totally a difference between when chatting online someone says lol but isn’t really laughing and when you actually make them laugh. I can feel it!
Morning art
This Tiktok video about working retail really tickled me. Must have watched it 10+ times since yesterday. video
Kurt Vonnegut // “Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow… The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don’t show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward.”
Our flat is too small to watch TV at night after the kids have gone to bed, mostly I’m ok with it but it can annoy me.
Today we got take away noodles and went to watch Nobody at a place with a giant screen, a sofa and a decent sound system.
The film is ridiculous but fun
Got vaccinated yesterday! But then got frustrated with the kids not sleeping. Then got up before 6 to give myself a little time to myself where I wasn’t stressed. Has been nice.
Lyra: Let’s have pizza.
Me: OK. Which place shall we order from?
Elise: I WANT CHEESE PIZZA.
Enjoying James Hoffman’s second episode about the Aeropress - Understanding the Aeropress . He does a lot of testing. Really interesting as I’ve been using mine daily recently.
It started with a thing happening recently, then it made me realise something and finally I’m still sitting with it because I’m not sure what else to do.
The plan was only ever to go and work abroad for a ‘bit’. Though, to say it was a plan is, perhaps, giving it a little too much structure. So I upped and left the country at 8 weeks notice makes me think two things. In any case, I’m coming up on my 10th year out of the UK somehow.
To come back to my point, I realized that all the posts and articles of how lockdown/quarantine suddenly felt a lot like I sometimes feel. That living so far away feels a lot like being trapped at home. That separation. I have my life here but even after all this time I still feel like I yearn for my life back in the UK. Relationships maintained through chat apps particularly for me. Especially as I’ve been one to ‘call and chat’, Mum excluded of course.
Today is my brother’s and Jenn’s birthday and again it is just hard not being closer.
Episode 5 of Mythic Quest was something else. Quite the depature from the rest of the series.
Something about when the kids take photos of me.
咖啡☕️
There’s a bar near us. That is now closing. It happens a lot. Us Westerners (foreigners) like bars. Here in China people eat AND drink generally. There are bars but restaurants dominate. Generally.
It’s strange. I feel sad it’s closing. I don’t go there a lot but I’ll miss it all the same.
烧烤。
It’s weird how kids grow up.
Like, the physical stuff, getting bigger, walking and talking you kind of expect but the cognitive stuff is sometimes strange and disarming.
Elise freestyles but the microphone didn’t work so well.
Reading with Yumo