Not doing “shoulds”...

The most beautiful sky on our walk this morning - one of my favourite routes as well, out along the lane, a diversion to get MrEH’s paper, then along the bridleway to the Common and it’s fabulous views, before heading back towards home. I’m still gritting my teeth and resisting running, but assuming it’s dry I’ll be back to that on Monday and there are three runs in the plan for next week. 

This week has - as planned - been all about strength workouts and stretching. A couple of stability sessions on the balance cushion, a weights session, and one of Alice Liveing’s workouts from her 28 day challenge that she is running on Instagram. Bless her - she taught live workouts almost daily through lockdown 1, and is planning the same for this month as well. I’m not going to be doing all 28 days, but will dip in and out and pick some of the workouts that will suits me as the month goes on. As with last time, there is a huge amount of pressure being created around “shoulds” during lockdown - using the time to build fitness,  complete DIY jobs, practise mindfulness....and so it goes on. For me, the only real difference is that e Erne is in the same boat, and I won’t be going to Scampton, or to catch up with friends etc, but of course with the weather getting colder I would have been doing less of that in any event! Doing strenuous exercise on a daily basis, with no room for recovery, wouldn’t suit me any other time, so I won’t be doing it now just because we are back into lockdown either! (To clarify, this is in no way a swipe at Alice - her workouts are carefully crafted to work different body areas on consecutive days, so are designed to allow for recovery). 

We do have a few small DIY jobs to be going on with, the front room curtain rail is threatening to fall down, and one of the fibreoptic light strips in the kitchen is flickering and needs re-fixing. There might be a few other odd jobs as well. We’re also planning a return to local walking - our local OS map will be out again, and our plan for the weekends at the moment anyway is to do a shorter walk one of the days and a longer walk the other. 

Do remember - you don’t have to feel that you must be making use of every second during lockdown. This is a stressful time for everyone, and this time round might be hitting you harder than before combined with the colder weather and lack of daylight. For me, it’s actually feeling easier than before - in part because we don’t have so much planned stuff being cancelled this time round - unsurprisingly we’d mostly not bothered planning much for the next little while! If that’s not the case for you though, remember the value of just curling up on the sofa with a good book, or a film, or whatever suits you if that is what you need to do. You do you - and don’t be made to feel guilty because of other people’s “shoulds”! 

Robyn