Curing The Stressies and The Blahs

I'm pretty sure I've told you this before, but long distance relationships suck pretty much a lot. You get on with it and you do the best you can do but it's tiring when most of your weekends are spent on trains.

You get caught in a trap because on one hand you don't want to waste the time you have together and feel like you should be doing things and going out exploring and being wildly exciting and on the other hand you just want a normal weekend, like you would have had if you'd been living together, just bumming around the flat where the major event of the day is going to Morrisons to get more food.

This weekend I was feeling the strain of it all a bit. A need to get out and do something but not really any idea of what to do - not helped when you have no car to hop into to go on a little jaunt.

I was feeling a bit stressy this weekend, awake at 4am with thoughts of work buzzing around my head, getting frustrated that most of my stuff lives in Preston when I don't, and that the flat is a mess (which I can't really complain about because hey I don't live there anymore but still drives me crazy).

I was suffering from a case of The Stressies - where you spend your time fretting about things you can't really do anything about - and a case of The Blahs - where you want to do something but don't really know what you want to do.

The Person came to my rescue with some pancakes - a much greater success than his previous baking attempt and a suggestion that we enjoy the blue skies and sunshine and go for a little walk. 

I shrugged my shoulders but I couldn't really say no as this walk starts literally at the end of the road, a hop a skip and a run across the railway tracks (totally legal crossing by the way) to the side of the River Ribble.

 

We ambled along at a leisurely pace, something which The Person struggles with despite the fact that we had a whole day with nothing else planned and nowhere in particular to be.

He contented himself with stopping to throw sticks in to the River for no other reason than that the sound they make when they hit water is a good sound and because I can only assume throwing things is some kind of primeval urge lying dormant within his masculine conscience.

I took pictures of trees to amuse myself...

...as well as pictures of steps with dandelions on...

We came to a wooden platform which it is entirely possible that we shouldn't have been standing on. I let it pass because there wasn't a sign saying we couldn't stand on it which therefore means we weren't technically breaking any rules.

We looked one way down the River...

...and then the other....

...and then I was persuaded to partake in some stick throwing, luckily managing not to completely embarrass myself with my girlish throwing action.

We walked along to the swing bridge, and had a look at the Locks and the boatyard, which I always think looks like a boat graveyard because the boats are all out of water and being worked on and looking a little forlorn as if all they want is to get in the water and sail out to sea.

(But that's because I have mental problems.)

And then it was pretty much business as usual. A walk to Morrisons to get food (preceded by a stop off at Homebase to buy some nuts and seeds for The Person's latest obsession - trying to attract birds to the balcony - current birds include some blue tits and some massively scary looking pigeons) before another stroll around the Docks to the flat - whilst I complained that there isn't a boat crossing for people like us who live on the opposite side of the Docks to Morrisons - the same thing I say every single time we walk to Morrisons.

But before I knew it, we were at the other side and ready to go home and do nothing for the rest of the weekend except watch Hull KR beat Wigan on the TV, watch Finding Nemo and The Breakfast Club, and eat inordinate amounts of noodles...

...Putting The Blahs and The Stressies to bed for one weekend at least...