Tis the season to be jolly apparently, somehow this year I feel that is not the case.
As the year draws to a close, reflection takes on a new meaning. What have I done this year? Well I was lucky enough to travel through Egypt, Jordan, Greece and Turkey and I am so glad that I went when I did. It would have not been the same trying to travel considering the current genocide going on.
I stopped my day job around June I think, I can’t really remember, and I found the motivation once more to work around the house. I painted the house Shale Grey with a Woodland Grey trim. I don’t normally enjoy painting but this I found very therapeutic. From the setting up of the planks and trestle and walking the plank a few metres up in the air allowed me to get some meaning back into life once more, to do something where I got a result at the end of the day. To look back at the end of a long day and get a huge sense of satisfaction as you see what has been achieved. The job didn’t give me that, instead it felt tortuous by comparison.
It took maybe two months to complete, just before the temperatures began to rise. It’s been a hot year. I got Doug to come and repair a section of the retaining wall and I tackled the shorter section that had collapsed. All finished it looks great, well I think it looks great and it is compared to what was there. The downside of all this is that my poor body got put under quite a bit of strain from all the physical manual work, although enjoyable, I sustained a few injuries.
A work in progress
My left wrist has RSI on a level I have never had before. I can move it in many different directions but I have to be really careful because even trying to swat a fly the other day nearly reduced me to tears with the stabbing pain. My right wrist has fared a bit better thankfully but I still can’t overdo it.
I got a skin cancer removed from me lug………
I did a road trip to Sydney to catch up with old friends and thoroughly enjoyed it and will try and go down a bit more often and I also went north to Rockhampton.
Went home in October due to the untimely deaths of cousins Anne and Mairi. Sad times indeed, however it was good to catch up with other family and friends. Not sure when I’ll get the opportunity to return and some of the older members of the family might not be there. The weather was kind to us and so managed to see a few of Scotland’s highlights basking in the sunshine.
On the way back got Covid, marvellous. I felt really bad for a three days and then fatigue set in for a couple of weeks.
My 3000lt water tank exploded and so I got a 1000lt IBC to replace it. It fills up very quickly.
Couldn’t do much around the garden or house, so I began to work on myself and began heading off on 6 to 7 km walks around Ipswich. Doesn’t seem like much but Ipswich is very hilly which allows you to climb fairly steep hills giving the heart and calf muscles a work out. I also got back into a bit of gym work using the pull up bar and doing push ups and all the time trying to protect my dodgy wrist. So far so good.
So as the year draws to a close I am planning to head off to China in March, to see whether it is still feasible for me to live there as I did before. Although there will be a few challenges to overcome. I guess if that does not work out then I will get a job that will allow me to travel as much as I want before the world has a complete meltdown. I think AI will cause many problems in the future trying to determine fact from fiction. A mere line of text can create a video or speech that looks fairly plausible. But I’m hoping that I can buy a replicater fairly soon, you know the thing that looks like a microwave from Star Trek or maybe a time machine.
So as another storm approaches and the heat of the day dissipates it is time to go and sit in my rocking chair and have a coffee and maybe when the sun goes down I will follow that up with a single malt purchased for Springbank Distillery in Campbeltown………….Slainte