What happens when our routine changes? How much are you a creature of routine? Personally, I love tradition. When our children were young, one of the books we read about parenting suggested that one of the main jobs of parenting was to "make memories" for your children. For almost the whole time our children have been with us, Friday night has been "Pizza Night" at the Curnow house. We make our own pizzas and usually watch a video afterwards. The whole process starts about 4pm when I make the dough and finishes when we crawl into bed between 11pm and midnight.
Summer holidays are the same for us. Over the last few years, we have got into the habit of going away to Anglesea on Boxing Day for about two weeks. We have grown to look forward to that absolutle break that comes with the hectic lead up to Christmas and then nothing - relax.
This year our usual house wasn't available and by the time we found this out, a lot of the places we would like had already been booked for the two weeks after Christmas. We were left to book another house later in January. We don't really go for up market all mod-con houses that have been all the rage in Anglesea over the last 10 years. But there wasn't much left, so we ended up taking exactlly that type of house. Oh well, why not enjoy ourselves once in a while.
Mainly though we just weren't sure how it was going to go being out of our routine. Staying home straight after Christmas. At least we didn't have to combine Christmas shopping with packing to go away. It was nice but strange to wake up on Boxing Day realising we didn't have to rush around getting ready to leave.
We're down here now and settled in to the house - for all the mod cons, not really any better than the 30 year old house we had for the last few years.
I feel strange. I've had nearly two weeks holiday before I got here. I should be back at work by now. I feel like I should be working. It's hard to now whether I should just be relaxing or I should be doing some work. I wanted to spend this two weeks doing some writing while I was away and certainly wanted to write more than I have since Christmas.
I wonder how much of that is related to the change in routine and how much is that I was just very tiered at the end of last year and needed a good break. The proof will be in the pudding.
