Hello darkness, my old friend...

And so here we are; Thursday evening, getting dark. Husband is at rugby training (yea, I know, surely there comes a point where you really should stop that shenanigans) and I have cooked Swedish meatballs. Autumnal curry sauce as per my Scandinavian Cookbook. Today, despite my internal protestations that I needed no new clothes all year, I in fact went back on my word and bought something (three things). Actually, in addition what I really think is that there is the perfect pair of winter boots out there for me. I make this assertion every year, without fail. The perfect pair - honestly, just out there waiting to be discovered. I am a google ads dream.

Meanwhile, this week has been spent in my normal contemplation. My husband, who is bizarrely full of wisdom when he feels like it, remarked to me that I was looking for the answer to a question that did not need to be asked. An existential point if ever I heard one? I am still reeling around and around trying to come to terms with being a housewife. I take my hat off to the scores of stay-at-home-mums (SAHM's as they are referred to) who have done this for years. When I was dropping my toddler(s) at nursery, circa 2007, and skipping off to work in heels, enjoying a latte at 11am, these SAHMs were doing the REAL work. I now have the curious middle-ground of being at home, but my kids are at school. Some days the hours stretch out and I wonder: what should I do all day??!! I have come to the conclusion that the possibilities are: i) train my body until I am honed to a level of fitness that would enable me to enter an Iron man contest (Iron-woman?), ii) watch TV, iii) get a job, iv) do lunches or v) all of the above?

I am at a loss.

Enlighten me. What is it that one should do when one has time on ones hands?

I have considered planting a herb garden (whimsical), going to the cinema in the day time (luxurious but guilt-ridden), cleaning my house within an inch of its life (dull). Museums and matinees?

I know I have posed this question before. It is a perennial.

Ironically, there is this ENORMOUS house building project happening in my midst and I just know that suddenly there is going to be a requirement for sourcing the perfect tap/door knob/light fitting and I will find myself behind the game. I have come to the conclusion that I work best under time pressure. Until it's urgent, I don't do it.

In amongst these musings, I recall that summer is slipping away now and I get that yearning again to go somewhere exciting and new. I was there a mere two months ago, walking down Floridian beaches looking at millionaires row. Oh how times change! As winter draws in I conclude that this is me all over. Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got till it's gone?!