Last Monday it was a case of coming back down to earth with a bump. I knew that after having Robbie at home for just over two weeks it was going to be hard for both of us to readjust to the demands of our usual weekday routine. I hate the early starts, even on a good day 5am feels like the middle of the night!
Robbie loves his job and usually after a couple of weeks off he can't wait to get back to work, but this time it was different. The prospect of some very tight deadlines when he got back would usually have made him more eager to return, but not this time. He could happily have taken another couple of weeks off. I think his time off gave us a chance to learn (or re-learn) some very valuable lessons. For most of that time I still had to work and to attend to my usual daily responsibilities, so we couldn't go away - who wants to go away in February anyway! Instead we learnt to take pleasure in the ordinary little things in everyday life and to value what we have. Most important of all, we enjoyed the luxury of time. We had a lot of fun, we took time to visit and appreciate some of the interesting places on our own doorstep and we had time for each other.
That was the easy bit, the secret is to make sure that we hang on to those important things when back on the treadmill of normal life. Last week was hard, perhaps harder than either of us expected, but we were strong and together we got through it. This week will have it's trials too, not least because Robbie is in so much pain, but we will deal with it together. We will make time to talk, to laugh and to enjoy special moments even on the most challenging day.
We stored up so many good memories while Robbie was off work. On the last day of his leave we went to the Rural Shopping Yard at Castle Ashby. It was like a spring afternoon, and we had a lovely time. Robbie bought some real ale mustard from the deli and there was even a shop named after him - Mr B's Traditional Sweet Shop. It was fun looking at the shops and enjoying the beautiful countryside but what made it really special was sharing the experience with Robbie.
“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” Charles Swindoll
By Wednesday we were getting used to the lazy mornings and making the most of them, it was such a nice day that I wanted to freeze time and keep it like this for ever. I know that Robbie loves his work, but I will really miss him next week and I will not see much of him because he will be busy making up for lost time. It was lunchtime before we were ready to go out, we had one or two errands to do, doctors, chemist etc, but after that we had the day to ourselves.
One thing that Robbie is very good at is twisting me around his little finger, I find it really hard to say no to him because I want him to be happy. We were chatting about the Doc Shop and the lovely day that we'd had and we both regretted that he hadn't bought the other pair of boots that he liked. They were tan Chelsea boots at such a good price that it seemed like madness to miss the chance of buying them, so we headed back to Wollaston (by a different but equally scenic route) and he had an early birthday present!
We drove home via Castle Ashby, Robbie loved the scenery and the rural shopping yard. He got lots of pleasure from wandering around taking photos. We had only been doing fairly ordinary things but it was such a nice day, I really didn't want it to end.
