Vacation

I thought I’d be on holiday, but instead I’m just working even harder, clearing up other people’s mess and setting up other people’s businesses.
No, it’s true, I don’t have to do any of this, but it certainly feels that way. Today, all I want to do is lie in bed after spending three days taking over a shop and sorting everything out.
And although it wasn’t a 60–80-hour working week, I do notice that I haven’t had time for myself or for painting, and sleeping is proving difficult too – my mind is working overtime (and no, I don’t sleep with my phone and the internet on; I’ve had enough of that).

Here and there, I’m trying to keep on top of things and get others to sort things out, such as enquiring about firewood, paying the garage bill and finding out whether the Renault, which was left stranded during the Covid pandemic, can still be brought back to life.
Then there’s the garden (the weeds just keep growing) and my oil painting needs collecting from the teacher. I think I’ll finish it off at home (I wasn’t happy with how I left it). The charity shop is also a right mess. We urgently need a skip to get rid of everything we’ve got too much of, because we’re swamped, but the chairperson is against it. She doesn’t seem to see the chaos and clutter.

Instead of crawling back into bed, I’m washing piles of clothes, and of course there’s a downpour every time, so I have to take them off the washing line only to hang them up again.

I haven’t touched a pencil or crayon today. I did use them briefly yesterday because I’d been given a box of soft pastels brand Panduro. Is it very different from Rembrandt? Let’s just say it works on the paper I bought as a replacement for the bamboo paper. I had to make quite a few changes, and I also noticed that it’s easy to remove every ateoke with a kneaded eraser. So the question is whether the result is permanent. I’m going to try it out on pastel mat paper, but I’m too tired for that right now. As pastel mat paper is much more expensive, I want to take my time to think about what I’m going to do with it. I’ll probably test all the soft pastels and oil pastels on small pieces.

Are you on holiday? If so, have a lovely time and stay well (here, the doctors are away for six weeks and can only be reached in cases of extreme emergency via a switchboard that decides whether you’re allowed to see a doctor – for which you may have to travel quite a long way).

_{22-7-2026
Prompt: see title
The Photo was taken by me - unless mentioned otherwise}