A Week Off

I had last week off from work because I needed some downtime.

My other half was in Georgia (the country) with friends, and I decided that I would take the time off too.

Not to go anywhere, but to spend time relaxing around the house. Maybe go visit some things.

Sunday

As I mentioned in my last blog, I had purchased a 3D printer; specifically a Creality SPARKX i7. For a while I have wanted to make giant candy canes for the garden over Christmas, and this year we are going ‘gingerbread house’ themed.

So I took this as a calling to buy myself one for my birthday.

I’ll probably post a review on the i7 once I have used it a bit more.

For Sunday however, I spent my time building a model for a 180° pipe which would form the top part of the candy cane, as well as the end cap. The idea being that we fit them to some 68 mm downpipe I purchased off the shelf from B&Q.

3D printing meters of tube would be expensive in filament, so hopefully these downpipes work well.

The picture above shows the almost finished print from later in the week, because I forgot to take pictures in between. Rest assured I went through many, many iterations before I found something that worked (and which didn’t take a month to print).

Also shown above are the gumdrops we are looking to print about a hundred of. You can see my failures as well as the ‘final’ version top-right, in orange.

It took me a while to tune the variable layer height.

I will add the finished .3mf projects to my blog when I am done. Sure I could put them on one of the many 3D model sites, but I can’t be bothered with that.

Monday

Monday was a day of whimsy.

Two of my best friends had a child a year ago, and it’s meant that we haven’t been able to spend a lot of time together.

As a full-time employed, childless adult, I am normally available in the evenings, but I have it on good authority having a kid fills up your calendar quickly. In the evenings you are tired, and at the weekends you have a lot of child-related things to get done.

However, as I was off and not going away, we found some time in the calendar where we could head out together. I suggested Marwell because I low-key love it; it’s just a whimsical day out.

It has the benefit of being really close to Southampton as well.

I had never been on a weekday (because of the aforementioned job), so I was surprised how empty the park was. It was mostly filled with parents leading their kids around, which makes sense.

We got to see lots of animals, but I think the most adorable part of the day was that I got to carry my friends’ baby in a chest-mounted baby carrier.

This allowed her to see over the barriers and hopefully see the animals.

She’s doing really well at pointing at things, so we spent a lot of time pointing at things.

Sure, my knees hurt from bouncing up and down for a couple of hours to get her to sleep for the latter part of the zoo, but it was worth it.

Overall it was a 10/10 day.

Tuesday

Tuesday began equally focused on animals, because I had to take two of our cats, Mort and Maurice, for their yearly vaccinations and health check.

This is always an absolute mission because Maurice is wise to my ‘put breakfast down and close the cat flap’ strategy, so he refuses to come in.

After he came in, and I dove for the cat flap, I managed to secure both of them inside to take to the vets. The downside of this is now that Maurice will not come in for meals for the next month or so.

The checkup went fine, however Mort has a heart murmur. The vet explained that it was a ‘3 out of 10’, so it could be bad, or it could cause no issues at all. Mort is 13 years old now, so we have a hard discussion coming over what we should do.

If surgery to address it is too costly¹, or risk and/or recovery time is too great, we might just let him continue as is. In the UK, cats live for around 12 years on average. Some cats, however, can live for up to 20 years, or even longer.

Let’s hope he gets a few more years of being an absolutely adorable menace.

Later in the day, I took the dogs to a local forest, called Telegraph Woods.

The girls love running around it off-lead, and it always cheers me up to see them happy.

Wednesday

It was my birthday recently, and my friends bought me a ‘Swim, Spa, and Lunch’ voucher for one at Harbour Hotel in Southampton.

I normally don’t frequent that area of the city because it is mostly privately owned, so there’s nowhere to walk/take the dogs, plus it’s where all the rich people hang out, so everything is very expensive.

The Spa was lovely. It ‘only’ had a steam room, a sauna, and a pool². I have been spoiled by the amazing variety at Aqua Sana.

I forgot to ask for a large robe, which made me look like I stole a robe from a 5-year-old. But apart from that, the morning was very relaxed.

Two very loud gentlemen were there when I got in, but they thankfully left, so it was basically just me most of the morning, with a handful of others drifting in and out.

It felt at times that I had an exclusive spa experience.

Lunch was pleasant, with a nice cherry cocktail, and a warming apple crumble to finish.

Would I go if it were not for the voucher? Probably not. In spa terms, I would give it a 5 out of 10.

My friends got it for me because they knew I would never go by myself, and they were correct in that.

But as self-care goes, I felt it did wonders for my mental health.

Thursday

Thursday was an odd day.

I was exhausted.

Who knew going to a zoo and then to a spa would tire you out so much.

I started the day by sending off a testosterone test which I had ordered out of curiosity last month. And later, I popped to the doctor’s later in the day to get my pre-winter flu jab, which I got for free this year as my very high blood pressure entitled me to one as I am ‘high risk’.

So I guess the theme of the day was ‘medical stuff’.

In the evening I binge-watched Total Forgiveness on Dropout, from start to finish. It was a horrible, heart-breaking, yet beautiful show to watch.

Masterfully executed, I did find myself brought to tears at the end.

Friday

You could argue that I could have gone to the Southampton City Art Gallery, like I wanted to. But what’s the point of downtime if you hold yourself to high standards.

Instead, you could argue that I wasted the day.

I flicked between several tasks and some housework.

I painted some of the fake icing we had been making for our Christmas decorations.

I wrapped presents for a baby shower I am going to on Sunday.

I researched filament suppliers, as my experiments with the candy cane prints had meant I ran out of white PLA.

But mostly, I watched too much TV.

Most of the day was backlit by episodes of Make Some Noise, and I was reminded of this comic I saw a while ago:

The guy in the last panel looks like me. The fire encapsulates that my country is slowly turning into a racist hell-hole, where lifeboat crews are deemed traitors for saving people in the channel. And I certainly enjoy mirth.

There are so many great moments from both Make Some Noise and Game Changer, and here is but one:

Trust me, it’s worth the subscription.

In Retrospect

I think I could have used my time a bit more wisely, but you know what, I’m feeling far more relaxed now than when the week started.

I also got my testosterone test back, and I am in the top 97^th percentile for my age range.