Working woman

That was me today, though it felt far more arduous than when I was still in paid employment! It was still pretty dark when I woke from a drugged stupor (nothing exciting - just ibuprofen) but by the time I was getting my shopping bags out of the car the sun had risen and even Morrison's looked quite beguiling in the early light. It strikes me that in the photo above the spire of St John's church, rising above the tenements beyond the shop's flat roof, gives the impression of belonging to a huge basilica, but sadly ...

Because I'd been too tired on first awakening to do my usual 15 minutes of Italian before getting up, I had it still to do after breakfast, with the irritating business of winning extra points for a further 30 minutes when I really wanted to stop and make coffee (Duolinguists will understand what I mean). However, I was eventually able to tackle one of the truly autumnal jobs that had been crying out to me: I cleared most of the dead leaves from the back garden path  from the gate down to the back door - mainly in the hope of finding fewer dead leaves on the kitchen floor. I even hauled out the stack of garden chairs in the corner so that I could clear leaves off the drain there - we live in horror of that particular drain blocking and flooding our back door area. I even washed the mud off the patio when I'd finished, so felt truly virtuous and very hot and tired. (Extra is a collage of my efforts)

This meant that I was in no hurry to move after lunch, but eventually we decided that it might prevent my stiffening up if we had a brief walk. We had intended going down the coast a bit, but it turned out that the car seats were still damp after having the whole car valeted this morning, so it was the West Bay for us ... and then the rain began. We came home via Morrison's - not that I love the place, but because I needed a bottle of sherry to start off my Christmas cake and I'm too early to buy booze when I go down in the morning. (Does the USA have these regulations too? No booze before 10am?)

By the time we'd staggered up the road carrying the bottle, a large bag of muesli and a wine box, I knew why it's a good idea not to put on weight when you're getting older - and by the end of the day, which has just been signalled by the owl on my wild birds' clock, I found I had walked 10,883 steps without really going for a walk. I also did 12 minutes of physio exercises before dinner, so I'm feeling virtuous. 

Working woman? Work-out woman!