Teary Note
Authored
This week has been extremes of fun and sadness.
Saturday
With a few others we did The Sheffield Half-Pint Marathon, a "celebration of some of Sheffield's best independent beer pubs and bars in aid of Sheffield Mind", and it was so good.
- I think our route was: Rising Sun Inn; The York; The Punch Bowl; The Raven Inn; Church; Riverside Kelham; The Bar Stewards; The Old House; University Arms; The Common Room; Forum Kitchen + Bar; The Broadfield; Waggon & Horses.
- I'm glad we had the opportunity to finally check out an array of local pubs since we moved, hurray for vaccines!
- En-route highlight: I had the best Halloumi and falafel gyros I've ever eaten – or was that the half-pints, sun, and good company talking? ☀️ Which was followed by locally grown grapes for dessert, gifted to us by a couple of kind women as we passed their plant sale, before they enthusiastically encouraged us on to the next half.
- En-route not-highlight: Conversation turned to the pandemic, the government's response, and the attitude of the Conservative wing who would rather let it rip and take the weak. I talked about the unexpectedly sudden death of my grandma, who died a few weeks into the first lockdown, and began to cry.
Sunday
I enjoyed(?) my first real hangover since the before times! 🎉 I crawled out to get a coffee; I did some sweeping up of the garden; then binged Come Dine With Me.
Monday-Wednesday
The first half of the week is a blur. Miscellaneous work and household chores, really. I did present at our tech all-hands meeting and got some really nice feedback from a few people afterward, thank you 🙇♂️ Apparently I'm capable of telling a good story whilst somehow hiding my fear of speaking into the void at 100s of eyes.
Thursday
My granddad's funeral.
- I was foolish to go without tissues.
- It was lovely to chat with family members who I've never really spoken to in years and years, not properly. Hopefully the next time we meet won't be another funeral but a happier occasion.
- Lots of Guinness was drunk.
- I had woken up unable to open my jaw properly, it was painful, I don't know why. My front teeth scraped grated cheese from open sandwiches as I posted items of the buffet to my belly like a letter through a letterbox.
Friday
Today.
Friends have arrived! They're at a gig tonight and staying for the weekend. We haven't seen them in ages. They've bought gifts of home-grown vegetables and home-made pickles. My kinda people.
What a week. Reading it back, it's perhaps been the most normal week in a long time, with an incredible amount of socialising, but has also been a week scarred with the repercussions of the pandemic to date. I'm emotionally and physically and maybe actually hungover. I need a good sleep to roll into a weekend of fun with our guests 🙌