Sunday Morning Thoughts – July 28, 2024

The one week finish my book challenge is on!

I am now officially off work for three full weeks. Week one – finish my book or at least the main part. It’s gonna be a super mad dash but hey, I can totally do it. Then I’m hoping to travel for a bit. Not too far but just getting out and getting out of my head. Wish me luck.

It’s Sunday morning and it’s raining once again. Good time to write. Then again, it’s the Olympics and while I swore I wouldn’t follow it, there are some events that I totally will anyway. I might have to watch women’s rugby and gymnastics and some of the cycling events (not the street ones), oh and diving and potentially rowing. You see my problem?

I’m going to try to keep this one short, but whenever I say that … well, you know.

Okay, so tough week. Super super tough. Mental health wise that is. Actually it was “only” one evening and it ended up being really healing and I was up super early the next morning feeling fully rested on three hours of sleep. I even went for a before work run at 5 AM. Never done that before.

5.16 in Buchs AG, running along the Suhre

Sometimes random people, i.e. people who are not really in your life or even complete strangers, can do or say something that makes a difference. Yes, it was still up to me to go from those positive and encouraging messages right into intense feelings of self-hatred, letting myself feel them throughout my body and then releasing them. Why was this triggered by positive, encouraging messages? Well, don’t question triggers. That’s my best answer. I obviously have some thoughts on this, and a close friend helped me put it into words. Parts of this experience have made it into my book.

And I’m going to shamelessly plug my book, in case you were wondering. The title is still top secret as is the cover. Both are brilliant. You’ll see.

So, what does one do when feelings are all over the place? Paint – apparently. I went with pink, light blue and light green. I mixed those from yellow, magenta, blue and white. There is one picture in this collage that I didn’t paint with only those colors, but it fit well in that set. I painted all the others just a few minutes apart or even parallel. Waiting for one to dry while working on the others.

I’m now considering putting them all up on my walls. There’s like 30 of them (yes, I’m too lazy to get up and count them) and my walls are totally empty at the moment. There is one monochrome picture of a small, empty boat on a beach that hangs above my hammock, but that’s it. Oh, and a typical Swiss railway clock is on a wall too.

Just on the radio – the water quality of the Seine is not good enough for the triathletes to train in. Who else is not surprised? I know that they’ve done loads of work on it and that’s definitely a good thing, but … I just look at the water in our rivers and think “we really learned our lesson”. Also, it’s kind of normal for rivers to be a bit dirtier after heavy rainfall. It just depends whether that dirt is toxic or not.

Remember me saying that you can drink from all Swiss water fountains and people really don’t need to buy what is essentially bottled tap water? There is a new-ish water fountain right across the street from where I live. It looked super refreshing after my morning run. It even says that you can drink it. It’s the small things.

Now, I know there were two things I wanted to talk about but I didn’t write them down. When will I learn? Oh yes, the bonnet. I bought myself a silk bonnet to cover my hair at night. My hair absolutely loves it. It’s so comfy and now my hair can rest at night too. Embracing my curls. Yes, they are not the super curly curls, but they are curls all the same. My hair still has a mind of its own, but it might be less bitchy now that it can rest at night. Time will tell.

Great now I really feel like going to France. I mean it’s not far. I could be there in an hour. Or go grab a pizza in Italy? Takes a bit longer, but doable as a day trip. Or I could go eat Spätzle in Germany. Wonder if I can find somebody to join me… I could make my own too of course, but where’s the fun in that? But you know what I’ll end up doing? I was about to say eat pasta at home … but I haven’t had Chinese in a while. I could totally get some at the station. Is this making you hungry? Sorry, not sorry.

And, on the *can you have pineapple on your pizza* debate. I would like everybody to look up “Toast Hawaii” and I’ll just leave you with that delicious thing. I have just decided that that’s what I want to eat today. I’m gonnna need to go get toast, pineapple and cheese. And I’m gonna have a nice salad with it. Yummy! Lunch plans made. Now I just have to finish my breakfast.

Should you write before you have had breakfast? Well, you might randomly start writing about food. And there it is, the second thing I wanted to mention. I’m not a big cheese eater. At least not by Swiss standards. And I’ve not been very adventurous when it comes to trying new foods. Then earlier this week I saw this Pilgerkäse (pilgrim’s cheese) and I was like “hmmm, I wonder if it tastes like sweaty feet”. So, I bought it. As a joke really. I’m still laughing. It was too funny. You should have seen me at the store. People were looking. But they know me, it’s a neighborhood store. So nobody was concerned when they saw it was me.

I have since tried that cheese and it’s named perfectly.

I’m totally gonna leave you with that image and giggle at the thought of you picturing the smell and taste of that cheese.

Have a lovely Sunday everyone. Stay cool and well hydrated. And right on cue there’s the church bells.