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I had all of last week off - a week between my short term contract and a whole new world of permanent full-time work. With the impending flat move and the new job I made up a to-do list that would ensure I had a busy fulfilling holiday week. List included:
- Need to shop for new work wardrobe and sort/ chuck out my old tired wardrobe.
- Need to sort through all the junk we’ve accumulated so we don’t clutter up the new house.
- Need to file our mountains of paper for easy transportation.
- Need to organise huge plastic bag of photographs and the accompanying 5,768 stubs to museums, trains, planes, buses, trams, parks, movies & 6842 tourism brochures and maps of ‘interesting’ places while said photographs were being taken – all to be pasted neatly in my scrapbook of life in the correct order.
- Need to think about buying furniture for the whole of the new flat as we own nothing but a bean bag sofa and a tiny wrought iron table.
What did I do? Nada. Zip. Nothing. Kuch bhi nahin.
Why? Glorious weather bestowed upon me by BBC and the weather gods meant that I spent most of each day sitting in a park under the gleaming sun and reading, sipping cool drinks and people watching, lazing and gaining some bone-soaking warmth – all wonderful things, all at the same time. It was too beautiful a week to spend indoors with mudane tasks and even the prospect of clothes shopping was not enticing enough to shift me from a park bench. Blue skies and a light breeze made the sunshine ‘just right’. I had a truly lazy week.
I started off in earnest to accomplish my list. Sorted out one set of drawers which was full of paper and assorted junk. Or maybe I should say shape shifted because I took them out of the drawers and made them into neat little piles on the floor instead – sorted but not really.
Looked at the plastic bag of photographs and accompanying ‘junk’ every morning and put it off till the next day citing reasons of laziness, ‘there’s always tomorrow’, ‘unable to tackle it because it’s grown too cumbersome’, ‘it’ll be easier to carry to new flat in big plastic bag’ etc. It has to be done and when it is it will be a feat in itself since I stopped pasting anything in that album after March 2004. We’ll talk again in 2007.
Did not buy any clothes or even venture near any shops to window browse. Old wardrobe is doing just fine for the moment. New excuse is that we should avoid buying anything as we will have to move it to the new flat – best wait till we have moved before I buy.
Did dream about new furniture and eagerly leafed through a few home design magazines while sitting in the sun. No decisions or short lists yet. The design wars loom ahead of me and V (and now I’m clapping my hands in glee). With every piece of furniture I’m sure we will disagree although in principle we seem to want the same look for the flat. It’ll be fun fun fun.
And now I am in office – being all official and sitting at a desk, leafing through files and making lists of things to be done. My holiday week is over and the good weather is still here. When I had no job I cribbed, when I have a job the sun turns on and I’m still cribbing (although only a little). When will I understand that life is happy and good? I’m looking at the sun through my window and dreaming of a picnic on a sunny day. It’s only day 2 of full time work. Thank god for the weekend in just 3 days - I can hardly wait!!!
- Need to shop for new work wardrobe and sort/ chuck out my old tired wardrobe.
- Need to sort through all the junk we’ve accumulated so we don’t clutter up the new house.
- Need to file our mountains of paper for easy transportation.
- Need to organise huge plastic bag of photographs and the accompanying 5,768 stubs to museums, trains, planes, buses, trams, parks, movies & 6842 tourism brochures and maps of ‘interesting’ places while said photographs were being taken – all to be pasted neatly in my scrapbook of life in the correct order.
- Need to think about buying furniture for the whole of the new flat as we own nothing but a bean bag sofa and a tiny wrought iron table.
What did I do? Nada. Zip. Nothing. Kuch bhi nahin.
Why? Glorious weather bestowed upon me by BBC and the weather gods meant that I spent most of each day sitting in a park under the gleaming sun and reading, sipping cool drinks and people watching, lazing and gaining some bone-soaking warmth – all wonderful things, all at the same time. It was too beautiful a week to spend indoors with mudane tasks and even the prospect of clothes shopping was not enticing enough to shift me from a park bench. Blue skies and a light breeze made the sunshine ‘just right’. I had a truly lazy week.
I started off in earnest to accomplish my list. Sorted out one set of drawers which was full of paper and assorted junk. Or maybe I should say shape shifted because I took them out of the drawers and made them into neat little piles on the floor instead – sorted but not really.
Looked at the plastic bag of photographs and accompanying ‘junk’ every morning and put it off till the next day citing reasons of laziness, ‘there’s always tomorrow’, ‘unable to tackle it because it’s grown too cumbersome’, ‘it’ll be easier to carry to new flat in big plastic bag’ etc. It has to be done and when it is it will be a feat in itself since I stopped pasting anything in that album after March 2004. We’ll talk again in 2007.
Did not buy any clothes or even venture near any shops to window browse. Old wardrobe is doing just fine for the moment. New excuse is that we should avoid buying anything as we will have to move it to the new flat – best wait till we have moved before I buy.
Did dream about new furniture and eagerly leafed through a few home design magazines while sitting in the sun. No decisions or short lists yet. The design wars loom ahead of me and V (and now I’m clapping my hands in glee). With every piece of furniture I’m sure we will disagree although in principle we seem to want the same look for the flat. It’ll be fun fun fun.
And now I am in office – being all official and sitting at a desk, leafing through files and making lists of things to be done. My holiday week is over and the good weather is still here. When I had no job I cribbed, when I have a job the sun turns on and I’m still cribbing (although only a little). When will I understand that life is happy and good? I’m looking at the sun through my window and dreaming of a picnic on a sunny day. It’s only day 2 of full time work. Thank god for the weekend in just 3 days - I can hardly wait!!!
The sun is out and happy days are here again! Well they were until this morning when it started to pour. I am so envious that you have a whole new wardrobe to buy and aparment to decorate - real fun! Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteHey,
ReplyDeleteJust read your description of the Amsterdam trip. I never read it before and I am amazed how similar your experience was to mine. I did the same exact things and felt exactly the same way about smoking pot! I too did not have a chance to do any research before hand because I was too hard pressed for time before the trip. We even think alike about taking the trams from one end to the other and Dutch people! Seriously too many similarities. I did get a chance to spend time in Groningen and Leiden in Netherlands and do some local things there which kind of balanced the touristy stuff in Amsterdam. Well next time I go to some place you have already been to, I am just going to read your post on it instead of buying any books. :-)
P.S. Hope you like the new job and find time and energy to take care of all the things oending on your to do list. Believe me, story of my life.
Hey,
ReplyDeleteJust read your description of the Amsterdam trip. I never read it before and I am amazed how similar your experience was to mine. I did the same exact things and felt exactly the same way about smoking pot! I too did not have a chance to do any research before hand because I was too hard pressed for time before the trip. We even think alike about taking the trams from one end to the other and Dutch people! Seriously too many similarities. I did get a chance to spend time in Groningen and Leiden in Netherlands and do some local things there which kind of balanced the touristy stuff in Amsterdam. Well next time I go to some place you have already been to, I am just going to read your post on it instead of buying any books. :-)