Friday 8 April 2011

Life is Good...

Sorry for stealing your post title, Terri, but I just can't think of a better one today.

Last night was a milestone in the cycling year - the first time I could cycle home in a t-shirt.  Felt sooo good to have the warm evening air circulating around parts that have been kept warm and cosy for the last, seemingly never ending months.

Walking the dogs this morning was a real treat too.  The sun was really warm, easily countering the cool morning breeze.  As I walked across the fields of sprouting wheat, the dew collecting on my shoes and dampening the bottoms of my trousers, I could hear a skylark singing his little heart out somewhere up in the crystal clear blue sky.  My peace was shattered when I met up with a group of fellow early morning dog walkers.  It was a good job that we were well clear of any houses, as the 6 dogs that we had between us kicked up a fair racket!

And the wonderful weather looks like continuing into next week, so I am doing a barbeque tomorrow.  Last week (Mother's Day) we had a great one, where I used the last of the heat from the coals to slowly cook a rack of ribs.  Delicious...

Tomorrow I am going to start things going a bit earlier and try roasting a couple of small chickens before I turn to the burgers, etc.  I have decided that this will be my experimental barbeque summer, where I move from small stuff to things that are a bit more challenging.  Later on I want to do some fish, which always looks sooo good done on a grill.  I did some tuna once and that was amazing, but I am thinking of doing a whole fish.  Any suggestions?

You might think that I am declaring summer far too early, but I don't think so.  In England, if you sit around waiting for summer to really arrive you often reach September and suddenly think:

"Hey, those 2 weeks of sun we had back in June?  That was summer!  Damn it!"

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Our determination not to let last year's nastiness run into this year seems to be working.  Seems that people with even the thickest skins can get the message eventually.  [Insert chorus of angelic singing].

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The Spartan lifestyle is also paying off amazingly.  I guess we never really realised how much money just "gets spent" for no particular reason.  This month we will be able to actually close a credit card account!  This is a major step towards finally clearing the debts that we accumulated during and after our daughter's illness and death.  It will be so good to see that back of them and we just love watching the amounts shrink month by month...


So, as you can see, Life is Good in the RC world right now, and I hope it is good for you too.  If not, if you are thinking that life really sucks right now, take it from me - life DOES get better if you let it.  Embrace the good and let the bad go to hell where it belongs.

Have a great weekend - I intend to!

P.S.


OK, as I strolled back from lunch I couldn't help taking a few photos of trees and things that have suddenly burst into life, making the campus a wonderful place to be...




5 comments:

terri said...

You can steal my title anytime! I'm only using it sporadically now, anyway.

It really does seem as if summer has arrived there. The trees are so beautiful and your description of your surroundings during the morning walk made me feel as if I were really there.

I'm heading to work, but plan to come back and read this again, it was so enjoyable.

Rock Chef said...

Terri - Glad you enjoyed it! Maybe I will borrow the title again next week!

Teresa said...

Hi RC!!! Loved this post. So glad you are doing so well and love the whole getting out of debt thing! Feels soooo good! :)

Shrinky said...

Aw RC, life IS good, especially when the sun shines, isn't it? We had our first BBQ of the year yesterday (well, it started off as the eldest and his mates throwing it.. but, um, well - it was just far too tempting to ignore)!

So great to hear the spartan life is paying dividends, but from what I see, what you and Mrs. RC have together has always been priceless, anyway!

Rock Chef said...

Teresa - Thanks! Great to see you here again!

Shrinky - I was incredibly lucky to find Mrs RC at a young age, and we do seem to work together well.