Actually it’s a little over a week since I didn’t wake up and think gosh I’ve got 30 minutes to get showered, feed the cats, make coffee, put make up on and plonk myself in front of a camera for the first meeting of the day. No, for just over a week I’ve been more concerned with what I was going to do that was on the list of things that “I’d do sometime”.

Of course there were all the fancy things that I’ve wanted to do for ages and ages, but then of course the life admin made an entrance. Joy. All the stuff that I should have made time for over the last say 6 months, now I had all the time and little or no interest in actually doing any of it. Oh and yes small task of doing a paper for my Masters AND deciding on the topic of my thesis. So no stress at all 🙄 . Not only that, Sensei Linda was opening her dojo so there was now the need to actually travel to the dojo instead of making the commute to my front room via the traffic and occasional cat pile up on the stairs. While she took a well deserved holiday, there was then the classes to cover. So actually I was busier than ever and loving it.

My house is never quiet, there is always something going on, a mad project or something ridiculous being engineered or crafting bring attempted. Since the cats joined, well, they run the house and it was one particular night when, at 04.00, Tiernan decided to “deliver” a mouse to the bed. He usually sleeps at my feet and so on taking his position, he dropped the bloody (literally bloody 😯 ) mouse who disappeared under some clothes and so followed 30 minutes of cat trying to find mouse, mouse trying to hide and cat then pulling clothes, bags and all sorts of things out. In the middle of the night, not welcome.

So, with all the tasks that I had planned, I now had huge cleaning that I just had to do right then… I was in fear of finding a mouse nest so that day became tidy tidy tidy. (No mouse nest was found 🙂 ). For those still reading, later that day, Tiernan found another mouse and delivered it to me in the middle of karate class as I was teaching… what followed was a scramble to hoosh the mouse out with the sweeping brush, close the sliding doors and return to teaching with a “nothing to see here” face.

Being back in the dojo is amazing, like totally amazing. I am done with on-line classes, of course they were necessary, but just being around people is the best feeling in the world. I regularly keep a heart monitor on and I struggled to motivate myself from home to the same degree as just being in the dojo. I guess that’s why dojos are so special… but on reflection, it would seem that there is a drop of 40-60% on intensity from dojo to home training. I’ve literally bounced into the dojo since we’ve been back, going to bed on a Friday and Saturday night really looking forward to braving the elements on my push bike as I head over to training the following morning.

So, what’s planned? Well I’ve done a huge hike in the last week, booked to go to the Sky Garden and have tickets for Shakespeare’s Globe and to a Roman Mithras Temple (mysterious cult of Mithras first appeared in Rome in the 1st century AD and spread across the Empire over the next 300 years, predominantly attracting merchants, soldiers and imperial administrators. Meeting in temples which were often constructed below ground, these were private, dark and windowless spaces. The mythological scene of Mithras killing a bull within a cave, the ‘tauroctony’ is at the heart of the cult, and its full meaning is subject of much speculation.) Pictures to follow.