My Staycation

I am having a staycation!

The concept of a staycation was invented a few years ago when the age of frugality began. Basically it just means you spend your holidays at home.  

Due to family circumstances over the past few years I have rarely taken time off without going away.  Since I started my new job I have had to work like a dog plus I get more leave than I used to but because I need to work like a dog, it's hard to find the time to take the leave.  This means I have a lot of days to use up before the end of March.  I also have a messy, chaotic flat that needs a great deal of time to sort out.  So I am staying at home this week.

I must say so far I have really enjoyed it.  I have managed to do quite a bit of sorting and cleaning but I've done other things too.

The cleaning has involved hoovering under all the furniture and sorting out my wardrobe.  I've taken two big bags of stuff to the charity shop and thrown a number of things in the bin.  I've also, after only 15  months, organised getting my living room window blind fixed.  The man from the shop came round to take the blind down.  He was a quietly spoken African man, with an accent I found hard to understand - he found mine pretty difficult too - and he was saddened and disappointed when I told him my blind came from John Lewis.  He acknowledged that the fabric was excellent but the workmanship according to him left much to be desired.  Anyway I had to give him a huge amount of money and he has taken the blind away to completely remake it.

Amongst the other things I've done is have long, lazy baths in the afternoon while reading poetry and the London Review of Books.  (Hilary Mantel's article on Kate Middleton in the current issue of the LRB is well worth reading and available here. The response to this article in the Daily Mail and Cameron's comments on the controversy it caused are utterly depressing and make me want to leave the country.) I've baked scones and a fruit cake.  I've had lunch with a friend in a proper restaurant where they bring you bread rolls on a tray.  I've been to the cinema in the afternoon.  I've been to a concert at the Wigmore Hall.  

I have been having a lovely time although the weather could be better and the room service is frankly hopeless.  Overall I can highly recommend staycations although one of the things I've found time to do is book a long weekend in Florence next month.  I think one staycation a year is quite enough.

 

Comments

[Annette]

Ooh, Wigmore Hall- that's very high on my list of places to go to, should I ever make it back to London. (It's been almost 18 years - I know this because Eldest Child was still under two and able to fly for free). The other night I listened to the BBC broadcast of the Tetzlaff / Vogt recital, in all its internet-radio glory [48 Kbps - yow!] and heard the audience go wild, and I heartily wished I could have been there.
So what did you hear?

[molly]

How about an away vacation? My closet could really use someone with a merciless eye to go through it and pitch!
I followed the link and read that really interesting article. I had felt kind of bad, since she is so popular and so agreeable, thinking that Kate M was exactly that--A plastic construct. Not a popular view I'm sure. And it's early times yet. She may yet prove she is made of sterner stuff than plastic....

[ganching]

Annette I went to hear Masques and Bergamasques by Faure. It was being broadcast live on R3. I sometimes get very cheap tickets so end up going to random things. I am I should say a complete ignoramus about classical music. but I do like the wigmore Hall (so handy for John Lewis.)

Molly I wouldn't be much help with your wardrobe as I only managed to get rid of ten things and they were mainly manky teeshirts.