Woody Wonders

  Looking forward to a week of reset,  relaxation and revitalisation I know the calm usually comes before the storm but over the last week it's been the other way round in my case and I'm so looking forward to the calm next week. It's been one heck of a week, both physically and mentally.  After writing about needing more thinking time in last week's blog, I really am in desperate need of taking some time out.  The good news is that I'm on holiday from work next week, only the second week in 9 months and one of those was moving house, which was no fun whatsoever!  So I'm very much looking forward to this one where I'll be taking a step back, gathering my thoughts and then coming out refreshed and revitalised for the last quarter of the year - eek! Anyway, back to the storm of last week.  Last Sunday saw me and my running bud taking on the challenge of the virtual Great North Run.  Virtual you say?  And yes, a number of people, including Mr Bob, as...

Have you reached your 'FI Point' yet? It's been a funny old week, I feel very much in limbo land at the moment.  We're due to move house in two days so there's been lots of to-ing and fro-ing recently and I don't feel like I belong anywhere at the minute. Change, as we know, is stressful.  It often involves a step into the unknown.  Sometimes it's forced upon us due to things out of our control and at other times, we instigate it ourselves.  Any kind of change is stressful, even positive change.  We made the decision to buy the house, we know the area and, best of all, it's still close to my running trails, I literally have to walk round the corner to the footpath.  It's all positive so why are we stressed about it. Well, for a start, there was lockdown to contend with.  We'd arranged for several major things to be carried out on the house before we moved in - digging up the garden, fitting a new kitchen and having an orangery built.  These shoul...

Well, I wasn't expecting that! This weekend, me and the lovely Mr Bob have been in Edinburgh and although we had a fantastic time whilst there, we had a few unexpected challenges in terms of the journey.  Unlike most long journeys, we were actually really excited as we had first class tickets all the way so this was going to be a special treat. We drove down to Meadowhall to catch the train, which is just 20 minutes from home. However, when we arrived at the station there were no parking spaces.  No great shakes, Plan B, we’ll go in the Park & Ride.   Erm, n o spaces in there either and our train leaves in 5 minutes.  Okay then, Plan C, we’ll drive into Sheffield and jump on the next train.  Ten minutes later we were parking at Sheffield station. Yay, back on track.  We had about 40 minutes to wait for the train to Manchester Piccadilly so we headed for the first class lounge.  Great, we were warm, we had coffee and we had bis...

Calm down, calm down ... I knew this week would be difficult after a two week break, but wow!  I went from complete relaxation without a care in the world to feeling like I'd been dropped into the middle of a tornado.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, I love my job and busy home life and it's more a case of being frustrated and annoyed with myself for not trusting in my routines and systems.   I don't pretend to be the epitome of calmness all the time, but I am usually pretty grounded.  However, I allowed myself to become completely disorganised this week, simply because I got caught up in the chaos of trying to catch up with everything and not relying on my tried and trusted systems.  I didn't put into practice what I preach and take enough time out to think logically.   At work, I was trying to do things directly from my emails instead of sorting them out into tasks, read later, delete etc and at home, I skipped so...