So now that I've caught up on the holiday waffle, here's a little general life update
🌌 we bought a van yesterday! This concludes a 2-month epic of searching, going to see vans, calling sales people, making decisions. URGH. I'm SO relieved to be done!! And this one fits ALL of our criteria and more, so even though it was a tiny bit above budget we feel really good about it. After selling our car this summer (he was falling apart lol poor old deric) we were initially going to buy a car again, but at some point realised that with what we do with it - largely driving reasonably short distances to the mountains and sleeping in the car - a van makes a lot more sense. So here's to this baby making our next ski season a looot easier than the last :D picking him
🌌 also got a lovely cycle in to get there - took the train there and then cycled back after we finished, the weather was perfect and the route we plotted in 5 mins before leaving was actually amazing
🌌 celebrated with a bbq on our balcony and (non-alcoholic, see below haha) cocktails and it was perfect
🌌 went on a retreat with my institute last week, which marked the end of a lot of stressful work things - it's great doing different things like conferences, teaching, some taught courses etc and I like having the variety, but they also make keeping up with the "actual" work aka lab work and data analysis and stuff more stressful, and after months of a lot of different things I'm quite ready to just spend some time putting my head down and working. The retreat itself was stressful because I have social anxiety and these things always are for me but it was also pretty fun. Had more alcohol in two days than I normally do in two months though haha hence the non-alcoholic cocktails, I need a break I'm too old for this 🤣
🌌 (I'm not sure the emoji fits here but) I broke my foot last week... getting out of the shower. Whyyyyy. I walked into the bathroom cupboard corner, basically, and broke my foot where the little toe attaches. It didn't hurt that much in the moment so I thought I'd just stubbed it but 15 mins later it was swollen, bruised and hurt so much I literally could not focus on anything else o.o
🌌 we had plans to go outdoor climbing the next day and I'd been looking forward to it sooo much so we went anyway - at that point I thought I'd broken the toe, which I've done before, so I took some painkillers, taped the toe to the one next to it and stuffed it into my least aggressive climbing shoes. Still hurt quite a lot but I actually had a really good time climbing with two leads and some seconds :) and we went to a new place which was the best place we've found here yet! And it's super easy to get to so I'm really excited to go back there.
🌌 the next day I found out I'd not broken the toe but the base of my foot but it doesn't really change anything - nothing to be done about it but rest it as much as possible. The retreat wasn't ideal for that obv but I've been trying. Cycling is fine although I can't wear cleats yet, climbing is a no-go for a while 😔 sad times but it could've been worse. It's already improving, the first few days walking was so fucking painful haha. You never notice how much you use something until it breaks 🤣
🌌 today was spent doing absolutely nothing in an attempt to recover from... all of the above, really, and it was glorious. Grey and rainy out so the perfect day for it as well
I think that's it for now? It sure is long enough lol