Relinquishing Routine

A number of daily routines help me to maintain my health, home, and relationships and give me a sense of security. Since the start of the pandemic we’ve stayed close to home and not had a night away for more than two years. Part of the reason for this is wanting to be near home if we did catch the virus, and part is being nervous about making bookings that might have to be cancelled if we went into lockdown.

Last week I mentioned to Stephen there was something I wanted to see at the Ashburton Art Gallery and suggested we might take a day trip there. He responded with the suggestion we have a couple of nights in Ashburton. It’s not far to drive (takes just over an hour) and if one of us got sick we could quickly return home.

The evening before we left there was a thunderstorm with more than 300 lightning strikes, and it was still raining in the morning. As we were going on holiday I didn’t do my usual morning exercises, thinking that it’s good to have a break from routine. As we drove across Christchurch the sun started to shine, and the weather was fine all the time we were away. On the way south we saw three separate trains, an encouraging sign that they may be being used more for freight.

We stopped at the Salmon Tales Café in Rakaia where I had an excellent salmon frittata. At the café by an adjacent pool, I saw a staff member scattering food there, and went to observe. They have one pet eel (does he get lonely?) who is given meat scraps, and two rainbow trout who get bread.

We’d booked into the Hotel Ashburton which was very quiet. At dinner time there were just three other diners. We enjoyed our roast lamb and felt we were helping the local economy. Outside in the car park were three stone women, presumably once part of the garden area.

Languishing Ladies at Hotel Ashburton

Stephen had taken his laptop and I expected to use this to access my emails, but Google wouldn’t let me login unless I had another device to verify it was me. The security procedures have changed since I last used his laptop over two years ago. Usually I would have used my tablet, but hadn’t bothered to take it as we were going to be away only two nights. I did have my not-so-smart cellphone, but couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of connecting it to WiFi. Two days of digital detoxification might not be a bad thing, I decided, but I did use the laptop to do my daily Wordle. Since we came home I’ve linked my Google verification to my cellphone texts. Two days’ emails had piled up, but there was nothing urgent.

There were a few things missing at the hotel, showing how much has changed since we last went away. They no longer provide a daily newspaper, presumably because “everyone” gets their news on their phones these days. There was no telephone in the room presumably because everyone carries a cellphone. There was also no clock-radio, presumably ditto. It seems inevitable that I will eventually move to having a smarter cellphone, possibly before our next trip away. We used a hard copy map to navigate our way around Ashburton, and there were several times when I thought someone else would simply use the GPS on their phone.

It’s good to have a break away
and leave behind the routine day