Day 726

Day 726...

Sunday was another steady day and once we had completed the mundane task of fetching our weekly grocery shopping we headed out to Nottingham.

We had a mooch around the shops, stopped for a coffee and paid a visit to an art gallery.

The shopping involved the mandatory visit to Primark which resulted in a couple of Disney (what else?!) purchases...

We also managed to find a new pair of shoes for Simon although buying them proved to be rather tricky. We found them in House of Fraser but when Simon went to find a member of staff to assist him there were none around...absolutely no-one to be found, no-one at cash tills, no-one anywhere! They were obviously not interested in ours, or anyone else's custom! Thankfully the single shoes on display were in his size so he was able to try one on to see how it fit. We had a quick look online and knew we could buy them elsewhere for the same price or maybe a little cheaper. Once home we looked around, ordered a pair and will be able to pick them up from our local Next store tomorrow!

Our visit to Nottingham Contemporary art gallery left us both feeling a tad underwhelmed. In fact I would say that the items for sale in their shop were more interesting than the displays themselves. When we got to the final display and were told we needed to remove our shoes to look around we about-turned and walked out. There was nothing about the display that said to us it was worth walking around in our stocking feet for. A great way to turn people off from experiencing art!

Over the course of the day we have been talking more about what to expect when I walk away from my job at pre-school and what I would like to be doing with my time. At the moment while I am still working trying to think beyond is proving a little tricky and has confirmed that I can struggle to visualise more than a few concepts in my head at once. I can be rather singular focused and unwilling, or unable, to think beyond what I know is happening now and the near future.

I have a habit of organising my brain around what I know has to be done and when that has to be done and as a by product of working in education I visualise my time line in 'term dates'! These are habits that I will need to break myself out of going forward and learn to recognise that I will have the time to discover whatever it is that I want to discover.

Having watched a couple of YouTube videos of late and chatting with Simon I can see that I will need to make myself a list of all those things that I think I would like to try, those things that I haven't until now had the time to devote to trying or those things that I have dismissed as 'I can't do that'. I will have time to experiment and learn new skills and figure out how all that will feed into the next stage of my life. But for now I have to learn to think about what I may like to do, make a list and get excited for what may lay ahead.

See you all tomorrow.
xx

Day 504 - Art and Arboretum

Day 504...

Today saw us take a trip into Nottingham to appreciate and experience what is on our doorstep and can, therefore, get taken for granted.

Our first stop of the day was to visit the Nottingham Contemporary art gallery. This has been open a few years now and we have talked about visiting but have never gotten around to it. It is a lovely space, very calm and relaxed with a quirky gift shop and a lovely cafe.

We took a walk around the exhibits which were by Erika Verzutti and Melanie Matranga; I will admit that I connected more with the works by Verzutti although I fear I do not have the eye for art that perhaps others do! But both exhibits were interesting nonetheless...first photos are works by Verzutti...

...these are installations by Matranga...

We then enjoyed a coffee in the sunshine...

...and then it was time for a little walk through the city centre with a couple of stops in shops. Although dipping into Primark for a potential Disney themed purchase left me a little disappointed as there was nothing really to choose from.

But the great thing was that in all the shops we went into we noticed that the majority of shoppers were mask free and that shop employees were a mix of masked and unmasked. It was lovely to see smiley faces and know that employers were letting their employees make their own decisions about whether they wanted, or were happy, to wear masks.

We had a quick bite for lunch at Five Guys which is great for us keto and carnivore diet people as you can order all their burgers without the bun. They will either pop the burgers in a lettuce wrap or, like us, you can have them in a 'bowl'; double bacon cheeseburgers for both of us with toppings of our choosing went down a treat. We then went in search of a decent coffee, courtesy of Caffe Nero, before heading off for another wander.

We then found ourselves walking through Nottingham Arboretum which I am ashamed to say I have never visited before today. Simon remembers spending time there when he was a student at the nearby Trent Polytechnic (now Nottingham Trent University) but that was a fair few years ago!

And then I find out when we get home that there is a possible Disney connection! It may have possibly been the inspiration for JM Barrie's Neverland as apparently he lived in Nottingham - who knew!! But now I do it will be somewhere to visit again and explore a little more.

It was then time to head home. Simon had a little prop casting to do as he'd had an order come through and I had a couple of admin bits to get done. But now it's time to stop, enjoy some very dark chocolate and a small glass of red.

See you tomorrow.

xx