In the process we trust, says the control freak

I should probably have trawled my memory for a quote - or the Pinterest board I’ve had for years that is a massive wodge of my favourite quotes and charts the ups and downs of the last couple of decades beautifully when viewed chronologically - but I’m strapped for time this week so am diving straight in.

It’s been a week in which I’ve started to see that trusting the process really is important and that the more you do new and different stuff, the more your perspective opens up to the idea of things not having to be the way they’ve always been. And that it’s the small things that will, I suspect, have the biggest impact on the way I work and find real purpose in that work during my next chapter - however that chapter pans out (look at me still trying to convince myself that ‘trusting the process’ is ABSOLUTELY FINE for a control freak to admit…)

So I thought this week I’d share with you a few of the things that I’ve tried this week, loved, got annoyed about, breathed through and unabashedly delighted in. Strap in, it’s a ride!

Volunteering for The National Trust

‘Strap in, it’s a ride!’ might be a good strap line for what is fast turning out to be a highlight of my weeks this summer. Ascott House was the winter hunting retreat for the Rothschild Family, bequeathed to The National Trust in the late 1940s and it’s a 5 minute drive (or 30 minute cycle which I haven’t attempted yet despite having my Pashley serviced amid daydreams of it being my only form of transport this summer) from our house. I applied to be a volunteer back in April and, after a couple of conversations,I was offered the choice of being a ‘house steward’ or the ‘buggy driver’.

Desperate for the sun kissed arms and legs of an outdoorsy person for once in my life, I jumped at the latter and, I tell you, it is 4.5 hours of utter joy on a Tuesday. I say that despite now having to wear a uniform - the saving grace being that it’s navy and I’ve always liked navy (very Prince Henry’s High School c1990) - and the golf cart shades me from the sun unless I park it very strategically throughout my shift (which clearly I do).

Where the joy really comes from though is in helping people with mobility issues get safely from the car park down to the house and gardens. The look on people’s faces when they realise they aren’t going to have to navigate the long walk themselves but will have a smiling ‘chauffeur’ regale them with stories of the Estate (I read the guide book like it was an A Level text!) and tell them to look out for the frieze of proverbs in the Common Room (my favourite part of the house and just ripe for turning into a bit of merch if you ask me), is priceless.

I picked a 94 year old lady up from the garden to take her back to the car park this week and I asked her if we should wait for her husband (I’d dropped them off together a while earlier). She said she’d lost him but not to worry because ‘he always comes back’. I laughed and we chatted some more - she’d had lots of boyfriends when she was young and she chose this one to be her husband because he was her best friend. And then, with a twinkle in her eye, she told me that she was very glad that she did choose him because she looks at the others now and realises she also chose the most handsome one. Hard relate, you fabulous woman! It’s safe to say I am getting as much out of this volunteering lark as I’m putting in and that feels great.

Summer Salads

I’ve dreamed of being a salad-loving gal in the same way that I’ve dabbled with being a gym bunny (remembering the heady days of back-to-back Body Pump and Spin classes in my early 30s with the delightful Des and my partner in crime K, is about as close as I get to it now). And this summer I am embracing chopped salads like they are going out of fashion. I dusted off the Lakeland chopping gadget (official name) that has been languishing at the back of a cupboard for a couple of years and it’s been a game changer. I’m sure it says a lot about me that I am chopping - sorry, the gadget is chopping - vegetables that I would otherwise never think of eating, into the tiniest of tiny cubes so that they are unrecognisable but look like a rainbow of confetti in my stainless steel ‘tossing bowl’ (less said about that the better, it’s just a bowl with a lid that makes tossing said salad the easiest thing ever).

This week’s fridge - and stomach - filler has included sugar snap peas, radishes, cucumber, red pepper, lentils and wild brown rice (no idea why it’s really called wild but I like to think it’s a little bit rebellious and that might rub off on me if I eat enough of it) and I am here for it. I’ve even packed myself a lunch for the netball tournament (quelle surprise!) that I’ll be roasting at today, so I don’t succumb to a burger…

So, any tips for ingredients I should throw into next week’s tossed salad? Please don’t waste your time saying celery (you know who you are) because that is not happening! I do love a strawberry in a salad - seriously, love a strawberry in a salad - so might be tempted to try caramelising walnuts to go with them as I hear that’s a winning combination. I mean, who even am I?

Outdoor swimming

Let’s be clear, I do not mean outdoor swimming in a lake or river or the sea - still have a fear of what might be lurking in the depths to conquer - but even taking to a pool is a step forwards for me. I love, and I mean love, sitting by water, listening to the sound of the sea, spending a day on a beach (hot days and in the depths of winter) but actually getting in that water? Not a fucking chance unless it’s to cool off.

So I surprised myself last week by booking a last minute (well, 48 hours out which is last minute for me and a fluke that there was still space) early morning swim at Woburn Lido. I’ve been there many times before, sitting on a bench at the side of the pool supervising small children (ah the joy), but this time I was throwing myself into an Adult Swim session which would require me to swim lengths for an hour in the company of no more than 10 other people who I had never met before. In what amounts to just underwear, really. No wonder I’m not the biggest fan of swimming.

That we have this gem of a place on our door step, less than a 15 minute drive from home, makes me a bit sad that I haven’t had the time, nor inclination, to use it more often. For myself. Shall I blame the weather? I could do but that would be disingenuous. It simply hasn’t crossed my mind before that this is something that I could do, and perhaps should do.

Cut to 8am last Thursday morning and I was in the pool, choosing the slow lanes because competitive-me knows when not to over-promise and under-deliver, and it was utterly glorious. I smiled politely at the other swimmers and revelled in the fact that there would be no small talk because, have you ever tried to talk whilst swimming? There would be a clear and present danger of drowning and that’s not the kind of drama I crave. Instead it was peaceful, meditative even, swimming up and down in the cool water with the warmth of the rising sun on my back and the sound of birds overhead.

Would I go again? I AM going again - I booked the next two Thursday mornings as soon as I got home and, when I got a text from my sister saying, “You went swimming in a pool? Is this sign you need help?”, I knew I’d cracked the “do something every day that scares you” although I’d add “and that scares the people who really know you!”

Until next time, I’m signing off from under a gazebo at the netball tournament where I shall now snaffle all the snacks that are left from the bag I packed this morning and have a few, terribly British, conversations about how hot it is but how lovely the breeze is…

Furry Serial Killers Update

I am confirm that in this weather Fred & Ginger do not venture far from my side if I’m at home. They haven’t killed too many things recently although I have spotted them eating stuff in the garden that suspiciously didn’t look like Dreamies. Let’s leave it at that and focus on how cute they are, shall we?