It’s now Sunday evening. I’m tucked in bed. I’ve just joined EveryDoctor (another post for another day this month – but the state of medicine in the UK demands a new type of action). I written out the calendar for June as far as I can. I’ve paid as many bills as I can and my bank balance now looks pitiful. It’s all good, it’s just life, I have now have to hold my breath for 4 weeks now. I’ve had a good day today. It started nice, I was woken up by the sunlight coming through the curtains. I carried on reading a book on my Kindle – The Obelisk Gate, the 2nd volume of the Broken Earth series by N.K. Jemisin. I read for 30 minutes until I fell back to sleep. Eventually we book got up and ate breakfast.

We then took a short trip to Camden town. It is one of Nacho’s favourite haunts and I place I have come to enjoy visiting too. It was one of the first places we went to when we first started dating. I have so many lovely memories of the place. Today Nacho bought me a couple of leather wristbands for our 3rd wedding anniversary gift (yes, the third year is meant to be leather – protection and touch). I think they look nice – a very different look for me but I’ve taken to it very well I think. We stopped for a falafel wrap – delicious – they have now become my go to snack-on-the-go. We bought a Japanese ball infuser to help us drink all the tea we brought back from Spain.

On our way back to the car we popped into Waterstones to browse. I have not been in a bookstore for the longest time. All my book purchases in the past few years, real or electronic have been curtesy of Amazon. It’s lovely to get lost in a book and that I did for about 20 minutes. I’d picked up ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ and ‘Adele’. I was just drawn into the first pages of both books instantaneously – if you’ve read either book you’d know what I was talking about. I had forgotten how nice it was to pick up a book, smell the pages, turn the pages and just get consumed by the story line. I used to read all the time, now it somehow is not on my priority list – too much Netflix… I did a lot of reading on my little trip to France last week (blog post coming at some point) and it was lovely. I actually managed to finish a whole book (book one of the Broken Earth trilogy – ‘The Fifth Season’). I was so pleased! I am thinking that I will need to spend more time reading at the weekends.

We got home and I started on my now regular Sunday evening stew. Essentially I chop up all the vegetables I can find hiding in the fridge and vegetable bowl, I add two generous pinches of salt and I let them cook until soft in some olive oil. Then I add just until a litre of vegetable stock, a cup full of rice, a packet of chick peas, a packet of green lentils, 2 bay leaves, eight cloves (yes…no more and no less) and a tablespoon of paprika. I let this mixture cook for an hour, then leave to settle for 30 minutes and then serve. There is usually enough left over to freeze down and eat for lunch over the following week. This stew is really comforting, it’s so tasty and I feel great because I made it myself. It’s a nice feeling.

So now endeth the weekend. I feel rested, recovered, revived. I am not sure how long it will take to undo. Last week, it took two and a half days of being at being at work for the sore throat and general feeling of exhaustion to return. That was Thursday morning. It was Saturday evening when I felt normal again. It is strange but I suppose. Last week I was getting to work early before eight but I was leaving on time, just after five. I surprised myself – but I was determined not to repeat my old work habits. I found that I was just slightly more efficient when I came back into work the following mornings, I was just that bit more refreshed. I’ve had to work hard at telling myself that this working in the NHS is a marathon, not a sprint, that there is no hope of completing all the work in one ‘sitting’. I need to learn to pace myself better and just learn to prioritise and not feel guilty if I cannot finish everything in one day. I need to be a little bit more compassionate to myself. I keep telling myself this but never really acting on this thought. However, if I do not value myself and treat myself with care, how will I do the same for others and show others how I need to be treated?

I am heading off to the land of sleep now. I am not sure what awaits me next week, aside from that which I have scheduled in, but I’ll do my best to face it with the best of me.