Life Lessons: Great at doing Nothing

I’ve near given up on blogging. Not because I have nothing to write; more because the weather is so nice that I cannot muster the brain power to do anything but lie in the sun and bask, my mind a total blank.

For those not in the know Great Britain does not have enough public holidays in the year and gets 3 additional Mondays a year off to make up the numbers – first and last Mondays in May and last Monday in August. Taking advantage of the Bank Holiday last Monday and adding on 4 days of left over annual leave from last year I decided to give myself a week off. And what a glorious week it was.

On Saturday we had our usual swim, followed by friends round for lunch and a whole afternoon of non-stop chatter and a delicious little boy to play with. Soaked in the sunshine we ate Mediterranean vegetable couscous, slow-fried potatoes with tallegio and thyme, garlic butter & dill ciabattas, chicken baked in lime & chilli chutney and salads. And in the stupor after we ate leftovers and cleaned-up.

Sunday was errands all morning followed by the IPL final. I was planning an afternoon nap but some neighbours decided to come and watch the match at our house and so I stayed up watching it as well. Then everyone wanted to go out for some Indian food and so we hot footed it to Caraway. It was midnight by the time we got home.

On Monday V and I caught up with random DIY and general lazing - totally ditching a plan to go meet some friends for lunch at Saravana Bhavan and get some grocery shopping done. He tried to talk some of the plants back to life while I tried some long overdue kitchen spring cleaning (overdue by one spring at least). Everything was half hearted and the daybed was well used for short lie-downs and breaks.

On Tuesday while the world went back to work I braved the hideous dripping rain (yes, our weather is so unpredictable) and the battered tube system (particularly bad when it rains for more than 5 minutes or a person decides that chucking themselves on the track in front of a train is the only solution to Tuesday mornings) to go and spend the day with 3 lovely ladies and a trio of children. We spent the day fielding questions from a little man and watching a pristine living room turned into toy explosion by the younger ones. Just watching children run around and expend energy non-stop is exhausting and that evening the silence of my house was such a stark contrast that I turned on both ipod in dock and Tv on simultaneously. But it was a day well spent and a ginormous meal imbibed – I would do it again in a heartbeat.

For Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I had big plans. I woke up on Wednesday and used one of the sheets of beautiful origami paper to make a to-do list for the next 3 days. I have not the first clue about origami but buy sheafs of the paper regularly because it’s so pretty – it’s no wonder I live in the House of Clutter. On this list, besides waiting for delivery of a new chair and bedside lamps I had bones to pick with our grocery delivery people, the hunt for a gardener, research on how to get rid of spiders, things to sell on Gumtree and measuring for new blinds. There were half a dozen other mundane oh too boring to mention things. Needless to say I did not even get through half my list. Besides waiting for the deliveries, which are brought to my door and therefore require nothing more strenuous than a halfhearted signature and a kick to the other side of the room, I did nothing. Nada. Zip. Double Nada. Triple Zip. You get the picture.

I watched repeats of the Gilmore Girls and The Practice, random DIY and property developing programmes and did an incredible impression of a sloth by not even getting up for the ringing of my mobile phone which lay just more than an arms-length away. I lay on the daybed in my glass walled living room, often still in my pyjamas and read at great speed, dozed in the afternoon sun and indulged in the wastefulness of time. Every time V called from office (which was about every jealous 10 minutes apart) I would sigh at having had to answer the phone and repeat the same thing, ‘Nothing’ in reply to his inquisitiveness of what use I was putting my day to. You would think he’d get it but I think he was living in hope that continuous questioning might get me to move my butt. Poor man, even after all these years he doesn’t know me.

By the end of each day, sun soaked to the bone, I would venture into the kitchen and cook enough of something light to last till lunch the next day. And then after an evening of yet more mind-numbing TV and promises to myself that I would in fact move my butt the next day I would retire to bed with a book. The end. Get up rinse and repeat 3 days in a row for wonderful glow of person just back from beach vacation without the sand in her hair.

Now that I am back at work and the sun is still shining all I can think of is my next tryst with the daybed, a pile of books and the TV remote control. Here’s to another day of laziness. May this glorious weather and my genetic love for the sun forever last. Although rain is forecast before the week is out I remain an eternal optimist.