The difficult sequel

Went out in Sven's dad's 1948 Dodge Coupe. Such a beautiful car and the most amazing petrol smell. I'd love to know as much about something as his dad knows about these cars; it's incredible.

Nice walk around the village with the boys and the dog around golden hour and I spotted the first evidence of spring and my mood lifted. I don't remember the last time I was excited for winter to be over. I don't care about the cold; I just need daylight.

I want a new bike. My bank account emphatically objects. I've been watching a lot of Probably Riding and these videos are so relaxing. I want a nice, steel tourer with sweepy handlebars and a chrome luggage rack and maybe panniers and I want to ride around pretending I've got places to go and people to see. I would love a Mason SLR, but I already have two bikes I don't ride enough. Even if I had the budget for a new bike, it's not going to come with a lifestyle that includes mooching around coffee shops and ramen bars all day. I don't even like coffee, and I don't know if I like ramen. Why does my brain do this to me?

Final day in Germany. It's come around quickly. Started the day with a nice walk to a new-to-me village. There's so much wildlife here: reindeer, eagles, herons; I didn't bring the right lens. I don't really own the right lens.

There was obviously a pretty sharp frost last night, and it was -3°C according to my weather app. It felt it.

I'm not looking forward to going back to work. I checked my email and there's lots to do in the immediate future, typically. I'm never what I would call sustainably busy. Things are either quiet or hectic. I need to get better at having outstanding tasks. I always power through things so that my list is Done^TM, but it's never done. I think the best position is to just keep adding to the list, and people accept that there's always a wait for things. I don't know why this all stresses me out so much at the moment but it does. I'm not even back yet and it's nagging at me.

It's too hot on the plane and reading is making me sleepy, and I didn't download anything to watch, and my ears keep popping.

Back to it! I interrupted the dog's sleep when I got home last night and he rewarded me by interrupting mine at 5:30am. Got pretty well caught up with the things I missed over my break.

Bit of a filler photo much earlier than I'd have liked. Didn't get chance to even think about picking up a camera until 8pm when I took the dog for a walk, but fortunately there was quite a nice dusk light that made this apartment block and all its scaffolding light up quite nicely. I'm not overjoyed at the composition but it'll do.

Off to London today to see a client, and check out the upgrades to the cinema they have in their office. They were also doing Crisps World Cup where you bring in your favourite crisps and people vote on them. I love this idea. Enjoyable lunch at Honey & Smoke, even if their vegetarian mains are a bit lacking. Fortunately the one they do have was delicious.

Then saw Tabitha in the choir for a performance of The Sound of Music this evening. It was brilliant - that school has some incredible performing arts talents. I like The Sound of Music but I haven't seen it a whole lot. For some reason I know all the songs quite well.

I am now blessed with being extremely tired and having a pounding headache.

I am really struggling to find some time in the day to take some pictures. I don't know where I thought I was going to find time to do this, but I suppose it's good that I'm forcing myself. I knew they weren't all going to be winners but I feel like the last few days I've just been taking them for the sake of it and it feels weird. I suppose that's the point though isn't it.

Today I had to bring the car to the garage twice. First time to get brake fluid changed, and second time because they spotted that my tyres were pretty terrible and 3 needed replacing, so a nice cheap day for me.

Wednesday night is badminton night, hence the photo. I haven't played for 2 weeks and it was like I'd completely forgotten how to hit. Annoying. I get in my own head about things like that so easily; it's super frustrating. It's too easy for me to convince myself that I've physically lost the ability to play the game, and then I just sorta give up. My level 2 course starts this weekend so I need to snap out of it really!

I am sick. Not very sick, but a little bit of a cold and it's irritating. I have been absolutely slamming green tea all day because hot drinks seem to be the only thing that make me feel even mildly better, and I have stuff this weekend that I can't reschedule. I've had so much caffeine and food today I feel gross but it does seem to be helping my symptoms.

Also, anecdotally, if you drink a lot of Berocca, it makes your pee worryingly green.

Me too, cat. Me too.

Managed to get caught up, and finish almost all of the actionable tasks that I planned before I was off, so that's nice. Decided to play a bit of badminton this evening to try to get playing out of my system for coaching tomorrow. Bit of a mistake. Played terribly (again) which made me wonder why I'm even doing this.

Got some (more) difficult financial news, and I think I'm going to have to sell the car. It's probably for the best. It's too unpredictable in terms of expenses so it's the sensible thing. I absolutely love being forced to do the sensible thing.