Went somewhere new, topped up the vitamin D levels, and even packed pyjamas in case I fancied staying out in the van... but then the forecast was for freezing or below, so thought fish & chips on my sofa with central heating might be a better bet.
Sure does get pretty 30 miles out from Cardiff.
The big views are from The Blorenge (yes it does rhyme with orange) and around Keepers Pond, the canal is at Govilon at the foot of the mountain.
It's been a long time since I heard skylarks: they are very good for the soul.
Good in that my brain feels 'normal' (doesn't happen often; I made the most of it by diving into housework, laundry and admin this morning), and bad in that my body's now welcoming the vaccine in the following ways:
1) left-arm weirdness
2) tightness in the chest, slight sore throat, bit of a cough
3) fatigue
Walked to the library to return some books and was totally knackered before I even got there. 10,000 steps never felt that long before.
On the plus side, it was a blue sky day and I got lots of obligatory blossom photos:
Detoured through the cemetery to avoid the busy road; found a good crow and a beautiful carving:
And on the way home I saw some great shadows. As Charlotte said on Twitter that time, "We should all do a Book of Shadows someday."
Today's Photo: Cheerful Municipal Flower Bed Is Cheerful
The chills started last night - had to put a jumper on to go to bed in. Running a temperature led to a very disturbed night's sleep.
The fever had gone by the morning, but instead I felt like I'd been pummelled with an iron bar. Everything was sore or tight or tender. My body hurt. My lungs hurt. My skin hurt. The light was too bright; I had to close the curtains. Even my hands felt weird - stiff and aching on the inside.
Symptoms have all gone now, but I still feel like a proper floppy Betty. Feeling under the weather when you're on your own is no fun at all.
Disconcerting to see the headlines about Canada and Germany halting AstraZeneca vaccinations for women under 55 considering I'm a 54-year-old female who's due to be pumped full of the stuff tomorrow.
I'm nervous.
Was wide awake at 6am so sat and watched the gulls do their usual pre-dawn congregating on the rec. There were hundreds of them, having a good old chat to each other. Most of them stayed airborne this time. As soon as the sun came up, they were gone.
Felt like the kind of day to binge-watch Breaking Bad and eat jaffa cakes, so that's what I did.
Before I got settled in with the DVDs, I took this snip of the Ever Given from vesselfinder.com, and I'm glad I did because a few hours later it had moved:
Genuinely historical events don't happen that often, except for the last few years when it's felt like we've had about one a week.
And photos of the Thames at low tide, which reminded me of this one I took in 2013, at Millbank, on my second day of walking the Thames Path:
(With unerring instinct to make everything as gruelling as possible, I chose the height of a very hot summer to start the walk, didn't practice - distance or rucksack - beforehand, and wore unsuitable footwear throughout.)
And now I can finally close all those tabs.
Today's Photo: Too Much Reading And Not Enough Hoovering Going On Around Here
Spent the day reading for pleasure. Books of my own choosing! Incredible. This would count as a perfect day even before lockdown.
Finished three library books I've had out forever: Who Killed John Lennon by Lesley-Ann Jones, The Rhine by Ben Coates, and Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez.
I'm taking notes from The Rhine, just in case I ever pass that way again.
I visited bits of the Rhine on my meandering and largely unplanned 2019 Grand Tour of Europe (I say "of Europe"; it was actually a limited and specific part of north-west Europe, Europe itself being much bigger than I had anticipated), and I enjoyed the experience so much I'm now tempted to do the whole river by bike.
You can cycle from Hoek van Holland to the river's source in Switzerland in eight days apparently; there's a proper trail and everything. And of course rivers have the additional benefit of being quite flat.
Bits of the Rhine I visited in 2019:
(Hoek)
(Bacharach)
Ben Coates says of Bacharach: "In years of wandering Europe's scenic landscapes, I'd rarely seen anywhere prettier."
Oh lovely Bacharach, I discovered you completely by chance and how happy you made me with your scenery and your glorious sunshine and your free overnight campervan parking right next to the river.
The fireworks to round off the Kulinarische Sommernacht am Rhein festival that night weren't too shabby either.
The next morning I dipped my feet into the river and thanked my lucky stars for bringing me to this gorgeous place.
The water was freezing and the current so strong that if I'd fallen in I would've been back at Hoek before I knew it.
I also watched a bunch of random TEDx talks today. This was a tangent from Invisible Women - I needed to google 'hyperbolic plane crochet' and one thing led to another and then I let YouTube autoplay take me where it will.
I really liked this one:
The John Lennon book left me with a huge list of other books to read and things to google, and also a new Beatle place to visit, Durness in the far north of Scotland, in case you were wondering how I plan my holidays.
(The Europe trip was basically an excuse to go to Hamburg; Iceland Christmas 2015 was mainly for the Imagine Peace Tower; New York both times was for Strawberry Fields and some other stuff I suppose; I go to Liverpool at every opportunity and even moved there once, nuff said).
It was a looking-out-of-the-window sort of day today, mostly watching the magpies coming and going and wondering what was happening in their nest.
There was a lot of noise coming from it this afternoon, so perhaps there are babies already.
Both of them came and sat in the big tree this afternoon, and one made periodic visits to take some of the food I've left out on the windowsill.
They ignore the sultanas, seed mix and almonds, and pick out the walnuts.
I almost bought dried mealworms for them, but was defeated by the creepiness.
Their nest is a marvel of engineering. It's built in a slender tree that lashes about in the wind but it's as solid as a rock. How do they do it? They don't even have arms.
As someone who booked a Covid test just for something novel to do after work this morning*, it resonated.
I was totally looking forward to the excitement of someone shoving a giant cotton bud up my nose but sadly, on arrival at the testing centre, I was told it was going to be self-administered.
Luckily, the young man ushering people through the facility spotted I was an idiot who was going to spend hours reading the instructions, so he stood there (at a safe distance) and directed me through the whole process.
Continuing the 'pretending to be on holiday' vibe, I drove - illegally, I think; it's more than 5 miles away - out to Barry straight from work, to see a big sky, breathe fresh air, dig my toes into yellow sand.
Mission accomplished:
Even saw some ocean-going swans:
But the whole enterprise just made me feel sad. I came home and went to bed for the rest of the day.
I feel sad when I'm utterly overwhelmed with university work, and then even sadder when I'm not. The relief of 'having nothing to do' soon gives way to realising how alone, how lost, how scared this past year has made me.
