Take it easy

You might remember I’ve been snowed under with work lately.

The workload hasn't eased up much, so I've been cutting myself some slack here and there. Allowing myself a lapse in discipline now and again - vegging out in front of the TV (we've been binge watching Shetland), or a sneaky extra glass of wine.

One such lapse was shaving. I didn't shave on Friday morning last week, figuring no-one would notice on Zoom or Teams.

By Sunday it was noticed by our daughter Hija. The raised eyebrow said it all - less Brad Pitt, more Rab C Nesbitt.

I shaved on Monday.

Some men look rugged and handsome with a couple of days growth but not me. It might be the hair colour - mine is quite mousy coloured so there's not much contrast. It ends up looking like I'm slightly fuzzy, kinda out of focus. I did grow a beard a few years ago, …well an excuse for a beard. It was a goatee really as the side bits don't grow much.

Anyway after the last couple of weeks I’ve had I really need to take it easy.

So in a tortured segue, requiring you to know the lyrics to ‘Take it Easy’, by the Eagles, here is a bit of a story behind why I grew the beard, involving a trip to Winslow Arizona (well not actually Winslow, Pheonix, but it’s close - see I told you it was tortured)

We were browsing the Internet one February looking for somewhere to go for our 20th anniversary (10 years ago!) and the boing…boing sound of Skype started.

It was Mrs A's distant cousin from Canada - Dynamo Dave. He and his partner were 'Snowbirds'. They lived in Winnipeg in the summer (when it reaches 40 C) and in the winter when it's -40 C they fly south to Arizona (at about 40C - I think they like it hot!).

They asked how what we were up to and we told them - holiday hunting.

"Come stay with us!" Said Dynamo.

The moral of this story is 'Don't make rash offers you don't really want to follow up on' because a few days later we were on a 14 hour flight to the US west coast.

We stayed on Dynamo's sofa bed in the static caravan they refer to as a 'park model' on a 'senior's park'.

It was a great holiday, despite the 8 hour jet lag. A senior park is only available to over 55s and boy do they know how to do retirement!

There were 5 swimming pools, a golf course, tennis courts, specialist rooms for woodworking, glass making, needlework, computing and so on.

Dynamo was 75 at the time and was thriving on it. He was pretty pissed off that I beat him at tennis. I was only a boy of 50 years!

Whilst we had a great time (including a 4.30am start one day to visit the Grand Canyon), the space was somewhat limited and bathroom time precious. Hence I just decided to skip shaving.

By the time we came back, the week's growth had got me past the worst of the Rab C Nesbits, so it seemed worth giving it a go. I kept it about a year.

But it started going grey, so it had to go.

Anyway, enough about beards!

Do you like books?

In another screaching segue, we go from Winslow Arizona (well ok, Phoenix actually - why couldn’t Dynamo have got a place in Winslow, it would have worked so much better for this blog! ) to Winslow Buckinghamshire…

If you're anything like us, we have shelves full of them. I thought this was normal - turns out most of the people I work with don't have many books.

There's always the question of how to organise your books. I'm not a great fiction reader, so mine are vaguely organised buy subject. But if you're into fiction, you probably organise them by genre, or author.

But here's a novel idea in a charity shop on the High Street in Winslow, Buckinghamshire - why not organise you bookshelf by colour?

I guess it’s like a lucky dip for reading - full of surprises.

Well, that's it for this week

Have a good 'un

Jerry