Well there have been ups and downs since I last blogged. I had some calls about my new business last week. Most of them made me jump and and down (happily), but one of them stripped my soul to its core and made me want to give up on the spot.
I'm going to practice what I preach and focus on the majority that were positive and not the one that made me want to curl up into a ball. Time, as they say, will tell.
It's been an exhausting few months setting things up and getting ready for the unknown. I've still got a lot to do and my energy is beginning to fail me. I think I'll take a break over Christmas, I definitely need a holiday. When you're in your normal day job - you know what you need to achieve and you do that and can put it to one side and think about the next task - this even works if you're doing multiple projects at one time. But when you're starting something completely new from scratch the list just goes on and on and you have an enormous list of things that you can't get to yet. And every time I speak to somebody it seems to add 10 things to the list.
On top of that my limited funds seem to be flowing through my fingers like Christmas - oh yes AND it's Christmas. So if you're expecting a present from me this year - don't get over-excited about what it might be!
On Friday I had one of my COVID flashbacks. I suppose I should be pleased that my version of long COVID is really not too bad. It just means suddenly out of the blue I get a day where I'm completely wiped out and can't keep my eyes open along with feeling absolutely TERRIBLE. Fortunately it is happening less and less frequently and it only ever lasts a day. It also helps that we're all going through this together right now so if somebody calls you can explain what's happening and people appear to understand.
On Saturday I was well again, the sun was shining - a really beautiful winters day. A friend had told me that they'd seen some ammonites on Peacehaven beach. This was really exciting to me for 2 reasons. The first being that I'm a bit potty about fossils. For my husbands 30th I bought him a mosasaur tooth and some dinosaur footprints (how cool is that). Please excuse my spellings if your a dino enthusiast. Turns out blogger doesn't have a clue what I'm talking about.
The other reason I was excited was I didn't even know you could get down to the beach in Peacehaven - I thought it was just massive chalk cliffs. Some quick Googling showed me where the ammonites are and also showed the 150+ steps down the cliff to get to them.
Now I don't know about you, but as a preference I don't do up - that includes steps and hills. I had no issue going down the steep steps that zigzag down the cliff face - the issue was I knew I'd need to go up them again. Anyway, we decided to do the trip and it was well worth it. The chalk formations on the beach were utterly stunning. We tromped around for ages and didn't actually find an ammonite so we'll go back again after a further Google research moment. Also you'll probably see one of my photos of the chalk formations in a future blog - representing something or other.
When I was ready to go, it turned out my husband wasn't quite ready - he wanted to walk and explore further. I was very aware that I was about to go UP the 150+ steps so suggested he went for a walk alone and I'd sit and wait on the seawall opposite the steps. So off he tromped and as I sat and stared at the steps I spotted this old lady heading for the steps with her shopping trolley. I watched as she pulled the shopping trolley up one step, paused, then up the next step and paused, then up the next... Once she'd done about 10 steps she looked absolutely finished off.
At first I was confused thinking 'she must know what she's doing' you don't decide to do these steps without planning, but what's she got in the shopping trolley? In the end I decided to approach her and called up asking if she needed help. She responded that she was fine, that she'd done some shopping further along the coast and decided to take a different way home, but her shopping was heavier than expected. It was around then that husband turned up. We persuaded the lady that we'd (well husband!) would take the trolley up the steps and so she could just walk up.
Thank goodness we were there, there's no way she'd have done it with the trolley, she only just managed it without. That said it turns out that she was evacuated during the war, so by my calculation that would put her in her 80's. I am full of admiration that in her 80's she could get up the cliff face - even if it was a bit exhausting. It also gave me a great excuse to go up slowly because I could pretend I was doing it for her!
We'd driven to Peacehaven - it's about 6 miles from us. On the way home the sun started to set - it was absolutely stunning. I said to husband - oh it's so pretty please take a photo for me. So he did.
Now I love my husband, he's an amazing, kind, gentle soul and very clever. However, he is not artistic and definitely can't be called a romantic. A great example of this is once when we were walking along the quayside in Appledore. The shorts I was wearing were a little shorter than I was comfortable with. He asked me why I kept pulling my top down and I explained. There are so many things he could have said to make me feel better about how looked in my short shorts. Instead what he chose to say was 'oh don't worry, I've seen worse'.
I love this story as there is always horror from females when I tell them of this, but I know my man and in his mind he was giving me a massive compliment - the words just came out wrong. Fortunately for him it just made me crack up.
Anyway, not only is he rubbish at compliments he also doesn't have a romantic soul. I remember walking along the seafront once exclaiming at the sunset then. He proceed to explain to me how it was the sunlight rebounding off the pollution that sat over the city.....
Anyway, back to the sunset on Saturday. The drive back from Peacehaven to where we live is a road that runs along the clifftop. There are very few buildings along there, but lots of long stretches of unbroken views of the sea.
Imagine my joy when I arrived home to take a look at the picture he'd taken whilst I was driving along. He'd taken it at just the perfect time to include pretty much the only building on the stretch. The Peacehaven Carvery and Pizza place, with it's sizeable carpark. Now I'm not knocking the Carvery and Pizza place - it's perfect if you want to get a bargain Sunday lunch - although I'm always dissapointed with most roasts when you go out for them. Nothing beats a home roast. Anyway, no matter the good value of their roast it's perhaps not the perfect setting to take a photo of a beautiful sunset.
Never mind, better luck next time - or perhaps next time I'll pull over and take the photo myself!
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