With the boy back home, Rick and I have comfortably slipped into an empty nester’s mode. We spend our weekends socializing with friends (and I have a new Irish friend that I affectionately call Barney), touring the English countryside and seaside villages, and discovering new places to shop. Our new favourite drink is a margarita and we love to sip on a couple of these on a Sunday afternoon and watch an episode or two of "The Inbetweeners". More on that show and the outcome of too many margarita's another time.
Rick still has loads of lesson plans and a ridiculous amount of marking to do, so I take care of the household duties, but I am surprised how natural this all feels for us given that our entire relationship so far has revolved around house, kids, work, house, kids, work. So now that we are kidless, we have been able to also think about getting involved in things that we personally enjoy and with that Rick has also joined a band with a group of teachers from the Leigh, playing the keyboard. They have a gig booked in November for an open mic session at a local pub. I am sure they will draw a good crowd from all of his teacher friends the day that they perform.
Last week, he had a violent case of the stomach flu and was off work, for the first time since I have known him. He was unable to keep anything down for two days his skin was grey, and at one point, I was concerned about him becoming dehydrated. True to Rick’s style, after day three when he managed to keep his breakfast cereal down, he announced that he was going to work. I thought he was nuts as I knew that the moment he walked through the school doors, he would be full on the entire day. He showered, shaved and drove to school instead of walking like he usually does, and managed to pull it off. He was pretty wiped at the end of the day, but his “never surrender” attitude served him well in this case. A couple of early nights to bed after that and by the weekend he was right as rain again. In fact, this has encouraged Rick to focus on losing some weight. He figured his recent purge was a good kick start to a diet.
I am getting into a groove with my new temp role at KPMG. The folks here are very kind and friendly and I feel quite at home in their offices. I already have a good routine running at lunch at least 3 times a week. They have excellent on-site shower and change rooms, and there is an abundance of places to run around Canary Wharf. I find that it is much more pleasant running here, compared to when I worked at EY. Not only is the air less congested with bus and car fumes, smokers puffing on the sidewalks, but more importantly, there is a distinct lack of distracted tourists as well. I can’t tell you the number of times I would be out for a run around London and Tower Bridges and a tourist would plow into me because they were not looking where they were going. It was not uncommon for me to have bruises on my arms from the collisions.
To supplement my running workout, along with my 30 minutes walks to and from the train station, I recently got a pay-as-you-go swimming membership at a leisure/community centre only three stops from my office on the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) and this week my plan is to try out the ladies lunch hour swim time. The membership was super cheap at 2 pounds 80 for the year and each time I swim depending on the time of day it costs up to 3 pounds 35. And the other good news is that their ladies’ sessions and all day Friday swimming are absolutely free. I was astounded that I was able to find such a terrific deal, given that it is in London. When I asked around the office about pool memberships, some were paying upwards of 90 pounds a month to go to the gym. That’s crazy, I thought. I can run for free and there is no way that I am going to blow my budget to go for a swim. So when I did some research on the internet and then scoped out the centre during my lunch hour, I was pretty chuffed. Hey, I am starting to talk like a limey. Wait, I am a limey!
I have filled two notebooks with stories I have written and experiences while commuting on the trains. What a bee hive of activity the trains can be and a gold mine for observing human behaviour. There are some pretty odd characters that ride public transportation, I have found. From applying makeup (and I am talking mascara, foundation, powder, eye shadow, lipstick, the works), to having a very personal phone conversation (telling their doctor that they don’t clean their ears), to snoring with a head tilted back and a mouth wide open (can I please drop something in there?), and even curling one’s hair (despite being crammed up against the window in a hub of four occupied seats), I am not sure what I find more fascinating. I don’t think, however, that any of what I have written is worth sharing at this point, but I feel as though, like staying true to my fitness routine, I am exercising my mind and honing my craft daily.
The photos are of my new winter hat. Gotta love that it isn't a toque. My new offices at Canary Wharf and my Irish friend, Collete, who is a Science teacher at Rick's school (Bob is an English teacher there too - he's in the photos between Colette and me). I named her Barney because her surname is McLarney and it made me think of the Blarney stone and for some reason I wanted to call her Colleen, so to cure this mixup and not to offend her heritage, the name Barney was born.
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