Until we moved out of London, I hadn’t realised how much I
appreciate listening to birdsong. Nowadays,
one of my favourite times of the day is when I’m lying in bed in the morning
listening to the birds as I gradually come to and prepare myself for the day. And this morning the dawn chorus was in full
swing as I was taking my first steps from the house towards the station – a
wonderful way to kick off the morning commute and quite different from the
lorries and fumes that used to greet me on the Upper Richmond Road!
We moved 7 weeks ago now and regularly comment on how
pleased we are that we did. We’re still
well and truly in commuter-belt but the pace of life is noticeably slower and
less image conscious. And we’re only
minutes from being in the countryside.
The move from a teeny weeny flat into a house has also had a
positive impact on our lifestyle. Though
the fact that we still haven’t managed to get the TV to work probably helps as
well! When we were in London we’d
started to have “no technology Saturdays”, which meant no TV or computers. We haven’t found the need for that anymore –
the extra space means we find it much easier to relax with a book or a
newspaper rather than defaulting to sitting on the only seat available and
switching on the TV or laptop due to lack of space for anything else.
So there are lots of positives. But somehow this doesn’t leave us both
feeling relaxed and happy. Instead, it
feels like we've been going at 100mph for the last few months. It would be silly to pretend that a house
move is anything less than exhausting. And it's taking me a while to get used
to my new commute. It's best part of 2
hours in either direction and touch and go as to whether I can get a seat on
the train. At the same time Brett's work
has been insane – checking his blackberry at 6am, getting to the office around
7, getting home at 8 and working until bedtime. He also spends large chunks of
the weekend working.
So all of this has got me reflecting on the title of this
blog and some of the sentiments behind that when we set it up.
It feels to me like the balance is out of kilter. By setting ourselves challenging objectives
at work and in our sport whilst also trying to do up a house we aren't giving
ourselves space to enjoy the basics. Like just being with each other and
building our new home together. Or playing with our nephews. Or
spending time with friends and family. I'd also love to have the space to enjoy the
area we’ve moved to and make some new friends.
Brett has a great saying – you can have it all but not at
the same time. That might be something to think about over the next little bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment