This time last week I was in panic mode thinking I was still on the verge of another breakdown/burnout and really did not need that with family about to visit, but with the most awesome and appropriate care from Steve I’ve not only made it through the week but I’m also no longer feeling like I’m about to implode! Going from barely able to function without quite literally talking myself through the steps required to achieve anything, to today where I have done All The Things, while having visitors as well – I’ll take the good days when they come, thanks.

I’ve not done any writing all week though so at some point I’ll put what pictures I have taken up and maybe add some retrospective journalling, although I’ve not even taken that many pictures either, I’ve just not had the mental energy for either.

This was today:

Up late – oops

Coffee on

Shape bread

Breakfast

Prop up sunflowers

Water plants in tubs

Bake bread

Prepare a bed for pumpkin seeds and watch the butterflies some more

Soak seeds

Plant pumpkin seeds

Plant rucola seeds

Turn dessicating weeds over to carry on drying out

Take nettles out of pond

Laundry away

Vacuum hall

Shake out rugs

Sweep porch

Tidy porch bench

Re-pot tomatoes and bring into porch to see if they actually grow

Cut fresh flowers for the porch

Help empty and refill paddling pool

Collapse briefly

Empty all bins and take recycling out

Get fed

Entertain Erika while others play Catan

Say goodbye

Chocolate microwave cakes while Steve and the boys finish playing Catan (Ben won after thinking he was about to lose, and Charley came second after thinking he’d almost won until he discovered one of his pieces had been dropped on the floor, and Steve knows the rules now and they all want to play again tomorrow night!)

Bedtime

Washing up

Writing

More bread dough

Writing

Bed

Zzzzz

The boys played outside with Gran and Grandad for most of the day, coming in to chill out and watch a movie, and then back out to play in the paddling pool until tea was ready.

Erika helped make the chocolate microwave cakes this evening. She helped count all the spoonfuls of ingredients (3 doesn’t exist yet, so it goes “one, two, one, four”) and I wasn’t allowed to do very much of the mixing or pouring, but I did briefly wrestle the bowl out of her hands to make sure there weren’t any big blobs of egg white or flour left, and she let me finish pouring the batter into the cake cases because she couldn’t reach.

My hands. I love my hands. They remind me of my mum’s hands. My mum will always be 35 when I think about her. I’m not sure what that says about me! I love that my hands are weathering. They see sunshine and dirt and flour and butter, they hold hands and brush hair and pull weeds, they handle machetes and knives and needles and paintbrushes, they dig and sow and craft and mend, and they enjoy kneading bread dough in the stillness of the night after the rest of the house is asleep.