Day 222

Nothing earth-shattering today.

Used my sleep spray for the first time since we moved. Slept well (might have had something to do with having the bedroom door closed for once as well so that no light or sounds from the rest of the house can creep into my attempts to sleep and cause an explosion of colours in my head (because that’s what sometimes happens – the bathroom door opening or closing creates red and blue fireworks behind my eyelids and then I’m wide awake again, or the cats having a go at the scratching post on the landing makes white and yellow flares, and then I’m wide awake).

M, on hols still, has pottered round the garden all day, sanding down garden furniture for coating in wood oil, and sanding down the seven planks of wood which will form the shelves for the library once the extension is done (and giving them their first coat of oil), so we can finally get all the books out of the garden sheds where they’ve been since November last year (I think) as well as thinning out those double-stacked on the shelves in here. And she’s been lying in the sun reading, as she should be on her holiday. And feeding me too much food (best chicken pie ever just now).

For my part, back to the lemon/vanilla breakfast bread I started every day with in Agios Nikolaos (because M baked two loaves of it yesterday), and two espressos in the morning, then work, work, work, and Greek, Greek, Greek. A quiet plod through a quiet day. Then my walk and picking up flea meds for the cats. I’ve got into the routine now of throwing on shorts and t-short when I get up, wearing them throughout the day until after my walk, when I have a shower and change into long trousers because the nights are getting cold already.

It may all be banal, but it’s good like that. Just a gentle day without a racing heart or a racing mind or a raging mind. It’s good to have days like this. Oh, and I did write a review for that slavery/abolitionism novel, and it’s on goodreads. Onto something else now. My 52nd book of the year that will be. Oh, and I’ve ordered 3 Greek grammar text books, because I realise I need more than just an app on my phone to teach myself a language – writing is, after all, the best way to retain things. Interestingly, I’m told there isn’t really a cursive script for Greek – it’s more hieroglyphs than letters (and after all, a triangle, like those of us who have scored cricket matches would use to denote a bye or a leg-bye, is a capital TH, and the pi symbol is a p) – I love it.

There you are. Nothing earth-shattering today.

AGGIE’S ART OF HAPPINESS – CHAPTER 175