Good morning in Hot town, summery in the city - 2017

Well, there are twenty minutes of official morning left!

No idea about what to write, so many little things and big things and I don’t want everything to be always about T.

I’m in the bath and have a choral Christmas playlist on. I love choral music (this may shock and astound some people considering my rather punk outlook on life) my mum was an alto in the local choral society and I love the way all the voices work together to create complexity out of what may otherwise be a simple tune.

In the late 90s I saw Orff’s Carmina Burana sung at the Albert Hall by (allegedly) 1000 voices (I think it was slightly under 1000 by my estimation). It was bloody awesome! My sisters are both sopranos and were very surprised to discover (many years ago) that I’m not. I can’t sing along to many songs because the higher female voice seems to be most commonly used but give me a bit of Ella (my dad’s first love) and I’m good to go. She has a lovely, deep and resonant voice.

Anyway, not the reason I’m here. Although there’s no reason really. Just want to say hello. I don’t know if I mentioned that I left our local crunchy mum group. I got a bit sick of the sometimes preachy nature. It wasn’t always like that but could be. There was a full on argument between two British members and a Ukrainian member over BLM and cultural appropriation. The Ukrainian lady didn’t really get the whole BLM issue and tried to say that she had been oppressed when she was younger. I have no judgement over who was right or wrong, I just hated how several members jumped in and ganged up on her. Perhaps they’re unaware of the history there but yes, she would have been massively oppressed, not because of the colour of her skin but because of her parent’s nationality and her place of birth. No one validated her way of thinking even in an “I understand what you’re saying” or an “I hear you” way. 🤷‍♀️

Also, did I mention the ridiculous hoo hah that developed over a mask advert I put out locally? My advert was removed because of other people arguing over the validity of masks in the comments. I’ve felt a little a little reticent about putting ads out now. I think I’ve finished with the Christmas ones but have bought pretty flowery, spring like fabric. I may make a couple up and get the advertising out. I need to suck it up a bit methinks.

Also my fitness is utterly Shite. There is Always the Covid question. Is that what struck R and I down last Christmas (he works in an international college with students from all parts of the world coming and going all the time and he had it first which is unprecedented!) I am still struggling to run. I can sometimes manage 5k without breaks but it’s the exception rather than the rule. And sometimes I’ll be sitting at the sewing machine and realise I’m feeling dizzy, then I check my breathing and discover it to be very shallow. In the blood/oxygen meter I’m usually 99% but these times I can drop to 96%/97%. One time it said 94% so I opened the window wide and did slow, deep breathing which brought it back up to 97% after 30 seconds.

However, not working with children makes a big difference to how much exercise I’m getting, especially as both jobs I’m doing involve sitting down (sewing masks and painting nails) which will have a mahoosive effect on my fitness. I need to actually plan cross training into my week as running 4 times a week is no longer enough. The trouble is, cross training is a bit boring since running is what I do for sanity. However, more walks and park workouts will be in my future.

Oh bloody hell, this is turning into War and Peace, I shall end now (especially as it’s now five minutes into the afternoon). Goodbye. Xx