Picnic night

It was a pretty rough week last week, in a lot of ways, with some very, very difficult news coming in from my oldest friend (for her sake, and for her family's, I won't share this), a selection of getting older and housing-related worries, and a tad more of a variety of irritating people and issues at work than usual to test my patience and resolve.

Oh yes, especially fun was the start of the week when I was also bedevilled by another (actually, probably the same) little bug which settled itself into my sinuses making me headachy, with ringing ears, seriously grumpy and dog-tired - indeed so grotty did I feel that my rowing was knocked off the cards again!

Speaking of dogs, that darned black dog saw his chance and took it too, and he had a field day. The blighter was slavering in the sidelines and nipping at my heels all week. Tears and minor tantrums were a part of just about every day, and I'm aware that I've been very impatient and cranky.

It was oh so tempting at times to stuff down all those negative emotions with food (ah yes, vending machine crappy chocolate bars, I am looking at you!) or, in the evenings, with a large glass of something alcoholic from over the border. Thankfully I managed to avoid both bear-traps and I neither comfort ate nor turned into the friendly neighbourhood lush. Quite an achievement, this feels, to be honest.

So my darling lovely hubby and I decided that we needed to give ourselves a break. Friday night was going to be a stress free zone, and we'd have a picnic and a glass of wine, maybe even watch a film, and R-E-L-A-X!

So we did just that, and it was lovely. We had some leftover roast pork from earlier in the week, and I bought some rather nice cheeses (Fourme d'Ambert and a Spanish goat cheese) and some gorgeous tiny green olives. Chopped celery aplenty and a half strawberry (artfully fanned, thanks to a lesson from lovely hubby) to garnish and we settled down to a feast for the eyes and to the taste buds. We listened to some great music too, even though we didn't quite make the film part. It did us both a lot of good... as did the weekend.

Sometimes, in life, we just need to stop, take stock, appreciate the good things in life and remember how lucky we are (hey, we're back to my beloved Mum's blessings here).

So here we are on Monday. Onwards, with a lot more energy, ever...