If there is one thing set to make me feel good regardless, it’s sunshine. I love sunshine and genuinely believe some people need more if it than others. A lot of people mock but sadly (no pun intended) Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a real condition.
I personally use in Winter this Philips goLITE BLU Energy Light most mornings and I also have a Philips Wake-up Light to help ease me into the darkness. Not only is it SAD it’s expensive!
However nothing beats real sunshine, that feeling of the sun’s rays warming your cheeks as you can’t help yourself from smiling like a crazy person.
Standing in it’s warm glow whilst drinking the first cup of tea of the day while everything is still quiet is surely one of life’s great simple pleasures?
One of the happiest times for me was during the year I lived in Sydney, for six months I lived in Manly and in order to commute into work I caught a ferry into Sydney Harbour. It was so relaxing to spend the 30 minute ferry ride on the top deck, soaking up the sun’s rays as you stare into a blue, blue sky while listening to the hum of the engine, the noisy seagulls and pretty much nothing else.
I never got tired of the approach to the harbour, the ferry turns left, almost towards the opera house and there’s a moment when you look to your right and see the sun hanging heavy, just above the Harbour Bridge. Gorgeous.
The return home was just as relaxing, as it’s illegal to drink openly in public the ferry was often filled with businessmen in suits, some still wearing their ties, sitting on the top deck, chugging ice-cold beers wrapped in brown paper bags. Yes, it was as funny as you think it was.
Sadly I’ve swapped the ferry for a slow bus as my means of commuting to and from the office and as for the sunshine, well it’s the UK, no one chooses to live here because of its tropical weather. One thing that does annoy me however is the area around where I work. When I say the area what I really mean is the shocking condition of the pavements (side walks to you North Americans) on City Road.
I get off the bus on Old Street and as you turn into City Road you really do need to keep your eyes glued to the floor unless you want to risk tripping and falling over. Most of the paving stones are cracked, broken or loose. There’s barely an even stretch of pavement longer or wider than 2 or 3 feet. In about 2 years I’ve seen perhaps 20 or 30 people stumble and fall on my way to and from the bus stop. How many others it happens to I don’t know but a few I imagine.
What I find interesting is the area is classed as the Silicon Roundabout with global tech companies supposedly investing billions into the area yet the streets look like they were laid by a crazy paver and it just takes a couple of people to trip and call Leo Claims accident claims who will take the case on a no win, no fee basis. A judge would take one look at the state of the pavement and find the council guilty resulting in a huge payout, probably more than the cost of repaving the road if a few people claimed in a short period of time!
That’s the one thing that I disliked this morning, getting off the bus and having to stare at the ground to ensure I didn’t fall over instead of staring into beautiful blue sky. However it’s a bank holiday and no more work till Tuesday…and relax!
