11 Days of Bliss

Eleven days off from work and it was wonderful!! A rare event of having two consecutive bank holiday weekends, plus a one off extra day bank holiday to celebrate the royal wedding, then take three days off from work for the days in between, equals eleven days off for the bargain price of three :)



Basking under the April sun

In the run up to the break I had been making a mental list of things that needed doing in the house and garden, of chores that needs catching up. I even thought I'll have plenty of time to do some blogging on those days. But all of that went out of the window as we immediately settled into holiday mode instead. With such fine weather outside and having so much time off, there's no point slaving off to your own expectations. Rather, it was the perfect period to kick back, relax, and do whatever we fancy doing on a whim, in our sweet time too.



We've been having a stretch of really, really good weather for the time of the year and such an occurence is very rare, anyone living in the UK would agree to that. So whenever we get fine weather here the impulse is just to go out and enjoy it whilst its there, you just don't know how long it will last. And I think it is this subconscious thought that was the main drive to just relax and play whilst having time off from work and with the sun shining outside (not always that warm though, but certainly good enough!).



And it was like being on holiday! We did the usual trappings of a vacation: days out and excursions, shopping, lots of eating, some drinking, night outs, loads of relaxing etc. With the additional perks of having far less travelling involved and much less laundry to do at the end. And of course lots of time enjoying our main hobby, gardening of course! We didn't work hard this time, just played hard instead and managed to do loads whilst enjoying every minute of it.

One thing that slightly suprised me about myself, something rather new to me, was my reluctance to use the computer during those days off. I thought I'll be spending lots of time online blogging and browsing, but instead I didn't feel much urge to use the computer at all. I was mostly content using the mobile phone to have quick glances of what's new online and remain in touch. Easy enough to use on short pauses in between activities and little idle moments in life (and don't you just love technology for that!). Somehow during those days it didn't feel right spending too much time on the computer when it's so nice outside.

But if you're on holiday mode you just want to get away from too much routine and reminders of work. And even if I took the laptop outdoors I would have still preferred to do something else whilst basking in the sun. So a break from normality was a break from the computer too (but not from my mobile phone!).

It feels a little bit surreal, having had probably one the best holidays we've ever had and we didn't go somewhere else, it was mostly on our own turf. Our garden is a themed garden afterall, exotic and tropical inspired, a form of escapism. So why not use it now and again to have a proper long holiday? And very low in carbon footprint too :)

Mark