Since finishing my PGCE I have filled my days with plenty of sewing, baking and visiting friends, but for the last couple of days, I have got a little restless. Now, I know that I really shouldn't complain about having time off work, because most of us would jump at the chance of having the lengthy holidays that teachers are blessed with. But that's just how I woke up feeling this morning. The house has been especially quiet over the last week and a half, because John is in China, so this only serves to heighten my need to see people.

So it was a great delight when my good friend Ros phoned yesterday morning & asked 'what are you doing right now?'  

As it happened, right at that moment, I was hopping back down the stairs to pick up my laundry basket & its contents which had overturned in my hurry to get back up the stairs to my ringing phone. At that moment in time, Ros & her eldest son were in their car, loaded up with bikes and ready to come and collect me to join them on their bike ride adventure, should I so wish. 

Ros knows me well enough to know that with lots of time on my hands & without John, I would be bored, and in all likelihood, available for a 3 hour bike ride, which I was most certainly was. It was the perfect solution to my restlessness.

Friends + Fresh air + Fields + Bikes = A Beautiful Combination

A very blue, shimmery gorilla - part of the Wow! Gorillas public art event happening in Bristol this Summer to celebrate 175 years of Bristol zoo. All over the city there are 60 gorillas, each decorated by different artists in their own unique way.

Ros didn't want to leave any details out from this picture to give you a full view of our resting place - the Bristol channel in the background sans water - the tide was out - and my bike & baggage in the foreground, proff that we did indeed cycle the 7 miles to get to Pill.

I went home feeling invigorated & ready for an afternoon of housework & childminding. I thank God for wonderful friends & exercise.

yesterday

There are some days which are oh so incredibly busy, but rather than that being a source of stress, they can be a source of joy. Yesterday was one of those days. Having completely forgotten to set my alarm, I awoke feeling like I'd had a good night's sleep, rather than with that sicky feeling which comes when the alarm goes of that little bit too early and your body is not yet ready to start the day. Then I realised I only had 30 minutes before needing to hop on to my trusty bike, whizz up the hill and do the school run for a friend. Well, I managed it, and enjoyed pushing myself on the cycle ride. I am relishing the fact that this (pushing myself) comes ever so slightly easier at this time of year when Autumn is rolling in with some beautiful sunny mornings, but crisp air which means I don't get as hot and makes my lungs feel like they are taking onboard gallons more oxygen than usual. I am relishing it because I know it will not be long before I'm cycling up those hills with gritted teeth against the lashing wind and rain rather than with a smile on my face and the wind in my hair.

Back to my enjoyably busy day...Having done the school run and met some lovely mum's, I popped into the hairdressers & had a little too much hair cut off before going to a coffee shop where I planned to make use of wi-fi, and finish filling in a job application. Turns out you have to pay for wi-fi. So instead, I drank my coffee while reading 'The Heavenly Man' by Brother Yun. Incredible man, incredible book, incredibly challenging. Then I deliberated as to whether or not I really did need to go home to pick up some more suitable trousers for my physio appointment, which was just down the road from where I sat drinking coffee. I made the decision to go home, even though it meant adding another 3 or so miles on to my cycling quota for the day. Although it was good in that it meant I got another job application completed, printed and enveloped up, it also meant that I turned up to my physio appointment not looking as cool, calm and collected as I would perhaps have liked, as I had been under a rather tight time frame. (Who am I kidding? I am not entirely sure whether I will ever turn up anywhere in this manner.)

45 minutes worth of back cracking later, I strolled in the sunshine to the bank, and the inevitable happened. That is, the inevitable thing which occurs when I go out into bright sunlight. I start sneezing. Yes, brothers and mother, I know you are still disbelieving cynics on this one, but I can assure you that the sun really does make me sneeze. To add proof, there was an old man sitting outside a pub soaking up the sunshine, who just so happened to be privy to my sneezing fit. I looked over to him, and he smiled knowingly, and said, 'it's the sun.' Thankyou. I did indeed stop to thank this wise man, and to tell him that I have brothers who refuse to believe that the sun makes me sneeze. He had great sympathy. I reckon he's come up against his fair share of unbelievers in his time.

I was planning to write about more of my day, but I am just too tired. Goodnight.

Yesterday's news

Well, my new personal best marathon time has quickly become yesterday's news as the events of this week have unfolded. (For those of you who don't know yet, I ran the Bath Half Marathon in 1 hour 55 mins and 11 seconds.)

I mentioned a few posts ago how although I might have had a few hiccups in my childminding, at least I've never forgotten a child. Believe it or not, that happened on Monday. In all fairness, it was not exactly my fault. I'm way too tired to explain the whole story, but I can assure you that I felt quite sick when it all unfolded and spent about half an hour playing over the conversation I envisaged ensuing with my employers where they kindly told me it wasn't working out, and please would I leave. This did not actually happen, and I still have the job, until May at least (which is when we've booked up until).

Yesterday I picked up my beautiful new bike, which really is wonderful. Only problem is, the bonding process needs a bit of working on, as she threw me off into the road today, leaving me with a skinned elbow, a very painful arm and shoulder, a bruised and cut hip (through a bodywarmer, a hoodie, a long sleeved t-shirt and a vest, I might add), and a cut knee. What actually happened was that I had just left my house and was putting in my earphones when a car pulled out from the church car park. I didn't think she'd seen me, so I breaked with my one free hand, which happened to be the front brakes. Funnily enough, breaking with one hand is not the wisest thing in the world if you want to stay on your bike rather than come face to face with the road and lose your shoe in the process. I didn't have time to be shaken up as I had to get Will from school, and was already slightly pushed for time, due to the first crisis of the morning. (See next paragraph.)

Rewind to 6.45am this morning. Jo and I are standing in the kitchen and for some reason Jo's nose has led her to believe that there's a funny smell coming from the cupboard with the boiler. When she asked me if I could smell anything I said, 'No, but there is steam coming out of the cupboard. Ummm...why is there steam coming out of the cupboard?! Oh gosh, there is water pouring out of the cupboard - what on earth is going on?'

Turns out we have a major leak and all of the electricity in the house, except the lights, went out. In our wisdom, we did not reset the switch in the fuse box for the electricity, as we all know that water and electricity are the best of friends and get a little too over excited when they see each other, so it's best to avoid this scenario at all costs. (Can you tell that I am a little bit tired by the way that I am writing?!) So no hot showers for us in the morning. Thankfully we have a wonderfully helpful man who sorts us out when we get into situations like this, and he has arranged for the emergency gas man to come round tomorrow morning and fix our pipes. The fun never stops here!!

i love days like these

This morning has been wonderful. It's my day off and the sun is shining. Yesterday I received a text from a friend who was on my corridor during my first year at uni. She's from China, and happened to be in Bristol for 24 hours, so asked if I would like to meet up for breakfast.

I thoroughly enjoyed my cycle to meet her because the air was crisp and there were lots of other cyclists about. I don't know if this is just me, but I feel a certain affiliation with my fellow cyclists - because of our shared knowledge of the hills and pains involved in cycling. But this affiliation is coupled with a bit of a competitive edge of how many cyclists can I overtake on this hill? Who's going to pull away from the traffic lights the fastest?

I often think about resilience when I cycle - how my thoughts about cycling reflect my resilience - and wonder at the thoughts that pass through other cyclists' minds as they battle up hills. When I found the hills a little bit harder than I do now, and people would overtake me, I'd console myself on the fact that most of those people were men, so a fair bit stronger than me, on city bikes a whole lot better than my mountain bike, so the fact that they were overtaking me was not a measure of my fitness or ability. Now, when I overtake people, whilst I feel an element of victory, I also find myself mentally willing those people on up the hill, silently cheering for them to make it to the top because I know how much a bit of encouragement can help you to persevere.

Having had breakfast and bid farewell to Xinying, I did a wee bit of Christmas shopping, then went to the Royal Mail sorting office to pick up a parcel that was too big to fit through my little letterbox. I wasn't entirely sure where I was going, but en route I met a lovely old postman who just so happened to be going there too, so he showed me the way. How kind.

My parcel was the most exciting parcel I have had in a very long time. It was from a lovely friend in Australia who I lived with when I was out there on my gap year. She has set up her own business selling beautiful cards and stationary, and I love everything she makes. I'd wanted to buy one of her writing sets, but she refused to let me pay for it, and just sent it to me as a gift. (Some of the contents are pictured above, right). She also included a whole stack of tiny little cards - I am so excited about sharing these beautiful cards with my friends, but am also going to find it quite hard to part with them because they're just so lovely. Thankyou Alana.

I'm now going to spend a significant part of my afternoon doing some sewing on my newly acquired sewing machine!! I have had ideas going round my head for months of all the things I want to make when I get my hands on a sewing machine, but I never anticipated that I might have one to use whenever I want, so thankyou Hazel.

getting a little bit tired

Living in a city with no car and no money means that I have to cycle everywhere (unless I decided that spending 45 - 60 mins walking everywhere I need to go was a better option). As my friends here know, cycling is not my favourite activity. I know that I complain about it a little too much, and that this is is something I need to deal with my attitude about. So I try and constantly remind myself of all the benefits to the environment, my health and my pocket as I'm struggling up yet. another. hill.

Yesterday was one of my 'I'm-feeling-negative-about-cycling' days, as I had to battle uphill for 2.5 miles against the wind, first thing in the morning, all too aware of the fact that I was going to have to cycle the same route again that afternoon to get to childminding, then cycle a bit further to youth group in the evening.

So, you'd think that if I dislike cycling this much, I'd gladly accept the offer of my lovely housemate (who drives and also helps out with the youth) to drive me home from youth group then come back and pick my bike up today. But no. There is something in me that feels I owe it to myself to cycle home - because 90% of the time, the routes that take me home are downhill the whole way, and who wouldn't enjoy whizzing down a hill at 30+ miles an hour (guesstimate but it sure does feel fast)?! Sometimes I find my mentality baffling.

Yesterday I picked the children up from after school club, which means seeing a different bunch of children from their classmates. I found myself in the quite bizarre situation of seeing various children that I recognised from completely different settings, all in one room at after school club. There was a girl who'd come to church on Sunday with one of the regular girls, another child who's come to a kids church social event, a boy who was in one of the nurseries I worked at over the summer, and a few other children who look remarkably similar to ones I have met somewhere before. I suppose it isn't that odd really, but I find the fact that I know who they are but the probably don't remember me, or realize that I've looked after lots of their friends before, a little odd. But then my life has always been like that with people - as my brother could account for, I have some abnormal memory for remembering people who were some distant relation of someone we knew of at school - I remember people who have had no significance in my life before, but somehow I know something about them. There's a little fact about me.

nodnodnod

Well, for once, rather than having difficulty in thinking for a title for this post, I had the opposite problem - too many titles! I went for nodnodnod because it is most fitting with where I am at now. It's the end of the day and time for bed, but as I'm meant to be posting daily, and actually have some things to write about today, I thought I could spare 10 minutes before sleep completely sets in.

I've just got in from childminding. School pick up was a highly eventful affair today. I won't go into the details, but lets just say I had to do a whole lot of consoling, reasoning, running and rounding up of children, and managed to make one of the girls late for her dance class. The first half of the pick up had gone fine - I had to pick up the youngest an hour earlier than his sisters. As we went back to his friend's house for some juice, he ran alongside his friend, excitedly talking about how he was 'running at the speed of life' which I thought sounded quite exciting!

The second sister who is 7, was so tired and fed up that for the last part of the journey home she complained about how I was making her walk half a million miles and that we still had 100 miles to go, making the whole journey 2 million miles. (Which even to my poor maths brain does not quite add up!!) It was going to be absolutely futile to even think about disputing / correcting this 'fact' about the distance of the walk home so instead I somehow managed to turn the conversation round to talking about this 7 year old's dream house. She really got into describing the detail of this house to me, and it sounded truly wonderful - especially the rooftop garden where you could lie and watch the stars (with a protective cover in case of rain).

The rest of the evening went smoothly, and I ended up spending the last part of the evening doing something which is becoming a bit of a frequent habit for me - falling asleep sitting on a sofa while reading. The only thing is, I tend to do this when I don't have my head resting on anything, so I end up replicating the motions of a nodding dog, but am too emmersed in a dream state to do anything about it. Last week when I was babysitting for another family, I even managed to fall asleep whilst in the middle of texting, and dropped my phone. So I picked it up again, only to promptly drop it again!

The cycle ride home was oh so very cold. It was the type of cold that leaves you struggling to catch breaths because your chest has tensed up in defiance against the cold, and where your ears start off feeling like they're burning then progress to just really hurting because of the bitter wind rushing past them. My journey home is almost completely downhill, and the only respite from this attack on my ears came when I had to cycle up a bit of a hill - not something I would normally call 'respite', but in this instance it was. I am so thankful that I have a lovely warm home to come home to.