Swimming in waterfalls

Last week was my Birthday. I'm not usually too fussed on Birthdays but I am trying to make more of an occasion of other people's, and letting other people make more of mine.

This year H took the day off work and we went to Talley Abbey, where we also went for my birthday a few years ago. I think it is one of the most beautiful and quiet places I have ever been. Then we went onto Llandeilo had a wander, and then had a coffee and cake in Dynefwr park. 

The next day we went with friends to Sgwd Gwladys and had a very wet and rainy walk, and a beautiful swim in the pool. I'm not an adrenaline junkie and would never jump from the top or advocate anyone else doing it, but it was a wonderful place for a dip, and standing under the fall was a heck of a rush. 

I'm in a bit of a quandary at the minute over the botanic gardens. I wanted to volunteer there for so long and finally have the opportunity, and now that I am there I'm finding that it's intruding on my time. It's a bit of a surprise as I'm a housewife I should have time in spades and yet I don't seem to. I'm desperate to get to the allotment, a job that genuinely needs doing, and couldn't go yesterday because I had a whole load of walking errands to do. I can't go tomorrow as I'm swimming in the morning and need to go to the library and something else which has escaped my mind for the moment. Thursday I have a meeting in the morning and Friday I'm supposed to be swimming again. Slot into the gaps cooking, cleaning, laundry, Church, PTA and children, and it's a full schedule. 

The swimming seems to take up a fair chunk of my time as I do it at least twice, sometimes three times a week, but I'm certain that the benefit it brings to my brain, and my life in general are invaluable. As it is my house and life are a cluttered mess so if anything I need more time on the housework, meal planning, budgeting etc. I rather feel that I'm talking myself out of this. 

Something to think about as there have been times in the past where I've spread myself too thin and have paid for it. I'll go down this morning and maybe try just working there for a couple of hours instead of committing the whole day, and then I should be able to cycle to the allotment directly after if I bring lunch and a coffee with me. Then I  am helping out at the school with a PTA event directly after so I need to pack snacks for the girls. You see what I mean!

Getting cosy and autumnal here so I'm keen to get the house in check as well. I want to talk and plan more but as a family we've had a few talks about Christmas and have decided not to really do much in the way of presents this year, just a couple each. We all have more than we could want of absolutely everything and Christmas has just become about stress and shopping and money for me, and getting stuff for the girls. But that's not what it's really about. 

Work

 

For quite a long time before I quit my last job I put this song on every single day. I think maybe it was part of what prompted me to do the deed and hand in my notice, among the obvious real-life reasons why it wasn't working out. 

I would sit at my desk (in my house) every morning and put it on straight away while I got going, and I would feel a sort of hysteria bubbling up inside me. It seemed so ridiculous and impossible that I had fallen so far from living a beautiful outdoor life to sitting at a desk in my back room organising abstract documents that I could never understand without a degree in engineering. That's not to say there is no place for office work, and there have been times in my life when I have enjoyed that sort of work, and also where the clear division between 'work' and 'life' is helpful. My husband does office work, and perhaps that isn't how he saw his future when he was a young man, but he is good at it, it encourages him to think and be creative, and it provides us with all that we have. 

But for whatever reason, when I went back to work a couple of years ago it wasn't the thing, so I quit. A few times before I stopped working, on my days off I drove to Oxwich, a beach about half an hour from here, and walked for miles. Bought a thermos, and just walked. It was winter still I remember and cold. I think I was trying to recreate an adventure I had when I was about 20, when I was at university, myself and a couple of friends who were women older than me drove to Gower from Devon and wild camped for a couple of days, and walked, and swam, and cooked over a fire. It's one of my happiest memories and I would give anything to be able to do that now. 

Although I have a freedom in my life that so many people could only dream of - I do recognise that I am lucky not to work, although the cost of that is complete financial instability and failing to prepare for the future which is a price some people wouldn't consider worth it - the freedom that I remember from that time is long locked in the past. I think I got it back when we lived in the countryside, and I was blissfully happy in so many ways, but the cost of that was social isolation which over time became too much to bear. I think we summer draws to an end and the days slow down (I hope) what I would like to do is spend more time in nature. Not in the park, or at the allotment, but really out and about. I think I'll wither away otherwise. 

Now I'm off to the gardens, I haven't volunteered over the summer and have failed to turn up other times as well so I'm turning over a new leaf. I am lucky to have this opportunity to work in such a beautiful place and to be getting such good experience. 

Last breath of summer

 We'll see how this works out as I am trying to write from the garden where there is no internet. 

I think we are due warmer weather the week coming, but we've had a little snap of cooler weather this week and it feels as though Autumn is well on its way if not already here. 

I went down to the allotment on Friday to net my seeds/seedlings against Mr. Pigeon. I think I might be a bit late and it looks as though he has already been. It's been a little while since I've had to think about this sort of thing, and I forget how quickly you have to act or you can lose it all. I'm going to go on Monday and have another look (when I went on Friday I cut my hand and got stung on the bum by a nettle so was pretty grumpy) and see if I'll need to sow everything again. 

Between H and I we have made one raised planter from pallets in the front garden and might be getting the other one finished this afternoon. Between my little allotment, those two planters, and a bed in the garden, there is just about enough space for growing veg to get enthusiastic about. I'll write more about what I am going to grow once I have decided - obviously we are limited at this time of year, but there are a few options, and it won't be long before it's time to start thinking about spring, and a good time of year to pick up discounted seeds. 

Just as well as we continue on as poor as ever. It won't always be this way, it's a little tiring at the moment. But we have full tummies and enough money for all the fun we want, so there's nothing to complain about. We're so much wealthier in all sorts of ways than I ever imagined we could be. 

I've caught a cold. A rare occurrence for me these days, and it's not a bad one, just bad enough to be a bit annoying. I must get running next week and try to beat it off, and of course carry on with my sea swims. Some friends and I are planning a waterfall walk at the weekend to a waterfall with a large pool so we can swim as well, so here's hoping for good weather. 

Time for church, I need to go and rally everyone. 

Vinted etc.

 Going to try and start giving my blog posts titles again. Next step, photos. 

A couple of months ago I made a vinted account. It was for something specific, everyone I know had been singing the praises of vinted for a couple of years, and I thought to myself that I should stop being so stubborn and just avoiding modern stuff for the sake of it and use what's available. I think I made it because I had remembered a fleecey jumper I had years ago, and had hoped to replace it with one identical as I had remembered the brand, and I thought I have found it, albeit it in a different colour, but when it arrived it was a totally different shape and material to the one I had remembered - that's internet shopping for you. Since then, I have had lots of thoughts of 'oh I really want that, I'll check vinted', and by now I must have bought about 20 or so items, probably between 10-15 pounds each, so let's say about £250 worth of clothes. 

I never needed any of those things. Vinted is made perfectly to part you with your money, and of course sells itself as the eco friendly solution to online shopping because you are recycling. Unfortunately I think it probably just does two very negative things - one is that it parts you with your money very quickly and painlessly, and the other is that it makes people feel like if they are buying or selling things second hand, then that is ether virtuous because it is reusing, or it is freeing up valuable space in your wardrobe so that you can buy more shit from China. It's bad. There is nothing available on the internet that we genuinely need, and I struggle right now to think of anything that actually improves our lives in any way whatsoever. Everything that people throw at me to counter this is always something that already existed before the internet bulldozed over it. 

There's my two cents. I will be deleting vinted, deleting instagram, deleting facebook. I would like to delete whatsapp but find myself totally trapped in that it is the sole way the PTA, swimming and knitting groups are organized, but perhaps the day will come that I can veto that too and then finally throw my laptop into the sea. 

Today I am doing what I am always doing - having a tidy, With some gusto today though as at the weekend we visited friends who had a tidy, peaceful house, and I rather miss my tidy peaceful house now - I know it's buried in here somewhere. 

Second Monday in September

 The weeks roll on and I can't believe we're almost mid September. We've had a rocky start with the budget and have somehow gone right off track, so I've spent the morning going through the cupboards to put together a meal plan for the week that will require me to buy as little as possible. This hasn't really been an issue as there's plenty of food left and of course it's better to use that up rather than buy more on top. 

We've been away this weekend - part of the budget slip up - just visiting H's family. Glad to be back and as always there's a bit of sorting out to do - my task for the day. 

I've been to the allotment last week and worked on the soil a lot, and finally sewn some seeds for winter. Whether or not they flourish, or even germinate, is entirely weather dependent, so what will be will be. H has built me a large planter for the front garden from pallets and is planning to build another, so the plan is that I could grow my broad beans, garlic and onions at home. That will rely on me lining and filling the beds though, and finding the money to do that. 

I am hopeful things will get a little easier financially soon. The only way this can really happen is that I get better at managing the money, as I have no plans to go back to work unless we have exhausted all other options. We have as much as we need, I'm sure of that. We are so much wealthier even than my generation was growing up in lots of ways, and the things people spend their money on is absurd. 

Time to go before I launch into a full rant, my housework is still waiting and the croutons need to come out of the oven.