Sunday Special comes late: The desert shall blossom.

This is the outcome of the retreat I attended last weekend. I consider it an incredible blessing that I was able to spend some time with other Christians and just be there without any other responsibility. No excuses, no maybe laters.

I've signed up for it, because I felt like I need to do something holy this Advent. My religious life hasn't been in the best shape recently, so I needed something to give me a little nudge.

The thing that I didn't know, was that the retreat was silent.

Well, that was unexpected.

I'm an introvert, so what's the problem, you ask? Well, being silent in the evening after a busy day in school is one thing. Being silent for pretty much whole day is another.

There was a reflection first, which gave me a fair amount of food for thought, but after half an hour of sitting in the chapel quietly my mind started drifting off to all sorts of places.

It was time for a change, so off I went to the barn, where I could use arts and crafts in prayer. Hence the drawing with the quote from Isaiah 35.

Then, I've decided to go for a walk in the surrounding, since  sitting quietly in one place was just too much to take. At least now I had some background sound of birds and passing cars. A considerable improvement.

Thankfully, they gave us a choice at lunch whether we wanted to have a conversation over the meal or would rather remain silent. Apparently previous retreats had normal lunch where you could just talk, but people found it hard to come back to silence in the afternoon, hence the choice this time.

It was actually such a relief to be able to speak to another human being! I wouldn't have thought that I would ever say it, but it was lovely to hear another person's voice.

Thankfully, a young sister living with this community arrived by then and she suggested a walk around the castle and sharing time. I then realised how much I miss talking about religion, talking about the love of God and just being around people who have the same Christian vocabulary. It is such a powerful moment: when a bunch of strangers from all walks of live and of different ages, who in normal circumstances wouldn't have anything in common, comes together and shares what binds them together: faith.

Am I happy that I went on this retreat? Very much so. Was it a challenge? Definitely. But I finally had time to pray and hopefully will keep it up now. I have so many little moments during the day which could be devoted to prayer and I'm desperate to make most of them. Because only then the desert will blossom.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

I love giving presents! This is one of the most enjoyable parts of Christmas.

This year I actually feel on the top of things, since I've got presents for pretty much everyone now, and it's still two weeks until Christmas. It means that I can dedicate this fortnight to planning food preparation, outfits and New Year's Eve trip. It will be busy at home just before Christmas, especially that I only come back for a short while and need to get so much done! 

I have a stack of little things for Mr Magic in the corner of my room and I simply can't wait to give them all to him. I can barely contain myself and it's so hard not to tell him what it is I got for him!

In the meantime I need to content myself with wrapping presents and sticking bows on them.

Other Christmas updates:

Our house house has gained a Christmas spirit last week, with a Christmas tree being finally put up, after almost a week of obstructing the way through the living room.

I really like it, because it looks almost classy (despite the plastic baubles) . Unlike this restaurant in London. Mind, the picture was taken in mid-November.

Mince meat is safely stored in the suitcase, ready to be taken back home.  It's probably the only English Christmas tradition that I'm willing to export to Poland. Because mince pies are delicious.

Christmas tea towels and slippers have been taken out of the cupboard and are given a new life this year. It's probably a little tacky, but who cares when you can have a set of home accessories with reindeers and snowflakes. 

Reading spot.

This is my little reading spot. I've discovered it on the way back from church one Sunday and now I go there pretty much every week to spend some quality me time reading. 

It's absolutely perfect, because:

1. it has a sea-view;
2. it doesn't require me to walk down the cliff to enjoy it.

I'm currently reading a bizarre book All that man is by David Szalay. I've read 100 odd pages so far and I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. It's definitely interesting, but the writing style is so different from what I am used to. Maybe it's just because I'm not used to reading novels in English. My experience of English-language literature is fairly limited: mostly to academic books and journals. It's definitely time to broaden my horizons.

The only thing that I need now is a big flask to take with me when I go there: the afternoons are getting really cold and even in my really attractive winter hat and red gloves I still feel rather cold on that bench. It's probably time for an upgrade of my outdoor reading experience.

Off sick :(

And so it finally happened. I had to phone in and say that I'd be off sick. Well, actually my housemate had to phone in, because I've lost my voice and was barely able to whisper.

I've realised that I would never actually admit to being sick enough not to go to work. I'm just that sort of a person. Mr Magic said that even if I would be throwing up I would still go in and just ask the children to hold my hair as I would still try to carry on with the lesson. I do feel like I'm letting my little ones down by not being there and not pushing through with the material. But at the same time, it won't help if I'm off sick for a week rather than just a day. 

And so I've pleased Mr Magic more than myself and had a day off.

As it stands, it's my second day of being sick, sipping lemsip (yuck!), drinking hot tea all day and trying to keep as warm as possible. I've run out of films to watch now, so I've made some progress on my colouring page, hoovered the room and organised my diary. My next low-impact project involves making a under the weather box full of supplies that help you survive a cold.

I temporarily refuse to do any work at all, partly because my brain feels like a jelly, partly because I've realised that I actually don't need to. I'm putting ridiculous number of hours into this job for five days every week, I do deserve some time off during the weekend (especially in my current state). This is probably one of the biggest eye-openers: I do enough. No need to stress out so much about lesson planning, marking etc. There is enough time during the working week. It's just a matter of prioritising.

Achoo!