You have to really love your home life to feel happy about returning to it after a trip to some of your favorite places. Love your routines. Love the life you live for most days of the year.
And I do. All of it. I love waking up in the mornings to a farmhouse day and today is no different in that regard.
The walk to the barn is on the early side. That's the seven hour time difference for you: sleepy early in the evening, wakeful before it's time to get up. But I don't mind that! It's a schedule I can live with.
Pretty sky!
I appreciate it all the more since not much about the landscape is looking especially stunning these days. We've had no snow. Just cold temperatures. Below freezing (though the Arctic blast has moved on to blast someone else right now -- probably those living in the Arctic). Perfect weather for snow. And yet there is none.
I stall breakfast until Ed wakes up. I want his company today!
And then I do something that makes no sense, since really, I'm so satiated with my travel right now and am absolutely thrilled to be home. Despite that, I spend a couple of hours reconfiguring my next trip (which isn't to be for a several months). I'm always learning something new about what fits my habits, my energy levels, what sparks my travel fancy right now, and after this trip, I decided to make some changes to the ones before me. And that took time.
But here's a must-do for today: a walk with Ed. The guy's not in his best form. The Covid cold is still dragging on. And on. And of course, he's been sitting in the thick of all the political shock du jour while I've taken a partial break from it, reading the news once through each day and then putting it away. Occasionally in France I'd get that sympathetic shake of the head from people who'd ask where I'm from (and they always ask), but otherwise, across the ocean you really do feel you're in a different world. So when he asks if I want to take a longer walk -- over through the DNR lands just a couple of miles south of us, I'm totally agreeable. (Too, he wants to pick up and haul away several large tires discarded there by someone who obviously didn't want to pay the tire-throw-away fee. It feeds into his disgust with humans!)
(a few fallen trees and branches add to the charm of this forest)
The walk is lovely. Really lovely. Perhaps not striking and without the beauty of, say, mountains after a snowfall, but still, we take in the forest and we are made whole by it.
The rest of the day is spent with one goal only: to do things without hurry. Suitcase not totally unpacked? Who cares. House not completely in order? Ho hum. Groceries, purchased online? Of course! You think I'm up for a shopping trip? Dinner, too, is indifferent. a slab of fish over a salad. The day is heavenly not in the detail, but in the attitude: I mean to go forward with ease, without rush. And so far, it's working out just splendidly!
with love...
