This past weekend marked the end of a month of visits and visiting. We wrapped it up with a stroll down Columbia Road flower market with our friends from Paris on a gloriously sunny Sunday, perfect for the weather and my energy level. I have to be honest and say that life has worn me out this March and I am ready for the relative calm of April.
After my birthday dinner and subsequent week in Doha, I went straight to Dublin for a weekend of rugby and eating. But once we returned that Sunday, we only had a day to prepare for The Irishman's mother's arrival the following Tuesday. As she was going to be coming to London for the England-Ireland game on St Patrick's Day, she decided to come a few days early and indulge in some culture. Which meant we spent that week eating in restaurants with her and showing her around the city after our workdays.
We had dinner with her and The Irishman's father that Thursday and they went off to their hotel near Twickenham, giving us a night to ourselves before our friend Dave came to stay with us for the weekend. He had been in Holland visiting our friend Neil and came to spend St Patrick's Day with us. So we had a few more days of restaurants and drinking and merriment. He departed the Monday after St Patrick's Day.
After Dave left us, we had last week to get back into a semblance of a routine. That meant resuming the househunt, trying to restart exercise regimes, and reintroduce vegetables into our diets. Saturday our friends from Paris arrived, which meant we were back in the entertaining saddle; they stayed with some other friends they have in the city Saturday night but we met them for tapas on Exmouth Market and drinks in Clerkenwell before exploring East London together yesterday. They stayed at our flat last night and depart today and tomorrow.
I must say that I am exhausted. I'm not really used to this level of uninterrupted travel, entertaining, and socialising, nevermind mixing it with trying to find a new home. The Irishman and I are quiet people, we thrive on routines and when they're disrupted we often take it out on each other. We're really looking forward to spending the next few weeks reestablishing normality and refamiliarizing ourselves with each other. We also realized that it's been over 18 months since we had a proper vacation to just relax – ie, over 5 days without a commitment (wedding, friends, or family). Once I made that connection, it put a lot of my current exhaustion and bad temper into perspective and I realized just how ragged we'd both become. So stay tuned for my attempt to force us into a relaxing holiday sooner rather than later - while buying a house at the same time. So while I love all of my people, and enjoy having them to visit, I sometimes also enjoy the peace and quiet of my own place on my own. I'm looking forward to rediscovering that joy.
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