SPA day on the horizon

Since January, I have volunteered to work an average of 10 hours overtime a week more. This may not sound much, but when we’re talking totals of around 45 hybrid hours/week, still looking after the house and the kids (this last one has been overwhelmingly hard)... I am shattered. I need a quality day off. Not a day catching up with housework, not a day to dedicate to the kids, not a romantic escape, but a mesmerising, “nothing box”, Zen day. I picked up this expression from a YouTube video of a hilarious conference called Laugh Your Way to Better Marriage Seminar run by this gentleman called Mark Langor. I thought it was so realistic that I actually use it often. Check it out. You’ll LYSO with it. Chill out time!

Working for a chartered organisation means we work in spells. During the course of the year at certain times work floods in: exam entry openings, exam series and exam results. Professional development can be a big thing when a pay rise, a career promotion, or even that one job is at stake. Professional recognition is another. During these spells, and particularly with the currently ongoing updating changes, we have been contributing with overtime.

When we first start and our energy levels are still high, it feels easy, so long as we keep our resting sleep in check, and don’t snack - or drink wine - close to bedtime, my body feels like it is coping. When I got down to the third week, I started getting more and more tired and none of the good behaviour seemed to be making a difference.

A couple of months down the line, I had to start alternating with the odd normal shift, as I am feeling properly drained. So much so that the co-pilot kicked in for most tasks, and the mood swings along with it. This obviously triggers arguments at home. You know what it's like, if we’re feeling tired our patience grows thin. Not even our recent news of the moving contracts’ exchange date has made a difference, because I’ve just switched off.

And although I feel like nothing is moving, a lot has been happening in the past month. Not only do we now have a date - after three weeks of waiting - , I have scheduled and booked the main trips for the year: Portugal - to drop the kids off - and my BFF Catch Up trip, which this year will be to Alberobello and Bari, in Italy.

But the earliest we have one now is only in July, so we’ll have a few months before that where we will be physically moving house while still working full time, working to START getting the new house to our spec AND putting up with the remaining school year - this is one is a biggie -.

SPA day was a treat from my mum-in-law from last Christmas. But with all the ongoing Covid guideline changes, we kept postponing to a time where we would actually be able to do it, adding to the peace of mind of knowing the kids would be safe, as it’s still a couple of hours away. We chose to do it on a school day, where we can take the day off, the kids still go to school and we spend the day treating ourselves, knowing the kids are ok until we come back, as we would on a normal working day.