Last week, I had a whole week off work as I had a lot of holiday time to use up, and now that the season is drawing to a close I needed to take some. I haven’t had time off since our cruise in early May, so it was well overdue. I’m actually not a big fan of taking holiday time off work for a few reasons: it disrupts my usual routine, and I lose track of what day it is. Sounds silly, but cast your mind back to last Christmas, when you tried to remember when the bins go out and which bin to put out – see? It’s not only an Aspie problem!

We decided that we’d like to do something different with my time off, and with that in mind, I treated myself to a nice cooked breakfast in town. Then I did some clearing out of my games console, wrote some new scribbles and really started to unwind. One day, I took Mrs Bob to Living Coast, a local penguin sanctuary and although we chose a very windy and slightly chilly, it was a great day. There were very few other people there, so we chilled out and took our time. The highlight of the trip for me (not Mrs Bob) was a little penguin called Evie, who refused to socialise with the other penguins. While Mrs Bob was watching the keeper play with Evie’s brothers and sisters (with a cat toy on a stick … hilarious!) Evie snuck on Mrs Bob and started to peck her leg. Mrs Bob didn’t mind, but the keeper moved us both out of the way pretty sharpish. She was such an adorable little thing and seemed not to fit in. Anyway, after that excitement, and having seen seals, cormorants, other birds and fish and generally had a wonderful time, we grabbed a drink in the cafe before heading home.

Later in the week, we had a movie afternoon with the latest Spider-Man, which we both really enjoyed. The whole week was so relaxing and fun that we even managed to spend a lovely evening with Mrs Bob’s mother, while we tried to teach her how to use her new-fangled iPad, which wasn’t as stressful as I’d thought it would be. Admittedly, I was dipping in and out of the conversation while watching the only sporting event that I’m interested in – the annual collage football game between Harvard vs Yale. This was the 136 match up, and I was gutted that Harvard lost 43-50 in the second overtime slot, but there’s always next year, right?

All in all, this time away from work has really opened my eyes to a lot of things. It’s also made me realise how much I enjoy being at home doing my own thing, and that at some point, should I want to retire, I could happily do it and spend quality time driving Mrs Bob gradually up the wall.

Stay Safe X