October and November were a wild ride I have to say. The best of times, the worst of times.
Let's knock the worst off first. I guess some people would gloss over the bad, but I know that social media gets a bad wrap for glorifying people's lives and only showcasing the good. I am a firm believer in showing the real picture.
For the past 3 years I have been living under a horrible cloud of uncertainty. It started with a cancer diagnosis and whilst I kicked it's arse to the curb fairly quickly I had a good 2 years of side effects from radiation and zero to low immunity. I soldiered through, but it was not pleasant, and the past 2 years we have been moving through a brutal and lengthy restructure, that cast a shade of uncertainty over everyone.
I know this is just our economic environment and a lot of people deal with this all the time, but after almost 30 years of work without such issues, it hits hard. And so October started with more bad news regarding work. But it looked like this would resolve things in one way or another so that was a relief in one way, but incredibly stressful in another. Essentially I had to apply for my own job and any other new ones.
Early October, I had some muscular issues with my lower back, hips, and legs. I think exacerbated by stress, I was in a lot of pain, but some back and forth to my fabulous Osteopath sorted all that. Late October, I developed Tonsillitis, and yep, that was when I had to apply for those jobs. Firstly, I have never had Tonsillitis before and I cannot begin to tell you how awful and painful that is. I am guessing anyone who has had it is nodding in agreement now. Pain unlike I have ever felt, and I had two weeks off work, the first in incredible pain, the second more like a bad throat infection.
And even though it didn't happen until December, I am pleased to say I kept my job...more on that next month!
And onto the more fun things from October and December.
Linda and I commenced October with a little return to sort of normal, by attending the launch of the inaugural New Annual program. This is a local arts festival which we are all looking forward to.
I used the first week of my holidays to do some of my favourite things. I headed up to Maitland Art Gallery and Morpeth, to Newcastle Art Gallery, Darby Street and sat at the Ocean Baths and read.
The following week I took a road trip to Forster via Nabiac. Nabiac is a little town just off the highway. It is quaint and has a proper old country town feel, with . I was staying in one of those 80s style motels (which I love) just near the centre of Forster. When I arrived I had a late lunch at a lovely Italian place by the beach, and it was drizzly. I got to the motel late afternoon and it poured down, so I had a nap and read. The next day I brunched in town, sat by the river and read, went to the beach, took a drive and had a lovely late lunch on the water at Tuncurry, before meandering home. The following day I returned to the Italian place for brunch and more beach. ANd so it went. It was exactly what I needed.
We celebrated my nephew turning 18, and Alice and I headed to Darby for brunch.
In August I enrolled in two art classes via National Gallery of Victoria, one of Surrealism and one on writing about art. I loved both, they really made me think and reopened my creativity which had been shrunk by covid, stress, etc. So I sadly finished them late October.
November saw us celebrating Mal's birthday, and the Jacaranda's blooming.
French Friday returned with Edmond, about the man who wrote the play of Cyrano de Bergerac. It was a delightful film, clever and funny. Just what we needed for a socially distanced return to cinema.
We had our final bookclub of the year at Belindas, and I had my usual Christmas catch up with Jen and Cath.
The markets remained my constant.
And I even went on a couple of dates, but more on that another time.
Here are my reviews for October and November.
And some extra pics:
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment