The first week of the school holidays, which means that my sabbatical is now a different thing entirely. Now, no longer at home, getting jobs around, my time now it spent with the family venturing off places.

And, although none of this should be any kind of surprise, I kinda didn’t really plan for it.

First, Let’s get onto what I did this week.

Monday started off being dominated with a new thing that I wanted to try. Whilst Lucie went off to a friends for the day, I headed off to the local Leisure Centre to join the Over 50s Badminton. I had ideas of fun, knocking about, which is probably all I’m good at. As it’s during a weekday and for an over 50’s group of people, most people are retired or not working. What I didn’t account for was potentially, despite most of them being quite a lot older than me, they were all very good.

So, it was less of a fun, knock-about and more “proper” games where I truly had my ass handed to me.

I used to play Badminton with friends about 30 years ago. I had never played before but picked it up (including some bad habits). Over the years, I lost my racket but always wanted to start playing again. Now with a new, lightweight racquet and extreme rust, it’s no wonder I faired so badly. Oh, and I managed to twist my arm too (I have a tendon issue in my right arm, which I’m on a waiting list of see a physio about).

I still enjoyed it and intend to go back. One of the younger guys told me that he prefers Tuesday as most of the best players don’t go then, so it’s easier going. That’s my target for next week 😬

So, Tuesday which has, so far, been my most stressful day of my sabbatical.

But, just to be clear, everyone deals with stress in different ways – what would be stressful to one person may not be to another. In addition, this is in the context of my sabbatical – not events that have ever happened to me. So, I’m not saying that this is the most stressful thing that has ever happened to anyone, ever. Just me, during the sabbatical.

At about 8:30am, the router died. A bright purple light which, according to the router instructions, isn’t a thing. An internet search on my phone revealed others sometimes getting the same thing but no specific solution – and most of those that have had it were doing pretty funky things with their router. I wasn’t. In the end I got it working again but only after a complete factory reset. To top it off, the satellites (I have 2 further routers which cover the rest of the house) wouldn’t connect up. After 1.5 hours I gave up.

I had been trying some new routers which I didn’t think were good enough and had reset and packed away to send back. I unpacked them, set them back up again and am now (even now) using those. However, after further use I can tell they’re really not good enough for what I need – tomorrow I’m going to give my old routers one last chance to work. If I can, I’ll return the new ones and keep going with them for a bit longer.

Other than that I managed, after years of planning to do it, to sand the clothes pole which is at the far end of the garden. Hopefully I’ll get it re-painted this week, but the weather isn’t looking hopeful. The old, plastic end-cap had also rotted away so I replaced that too.

On Wednesday, we all went to Crich Tramway Museum where we met up with some friends. My wife and daughter do this every year but I’ve always been working, so this was my first trip there.

Thursday gained me a haircut and we headed off to Ikea and Decathlon in the afternoon (there were things we needed from both).

Lucie also managed to find herself a furniture shop and fell in love with £2.5 sofa.

No, we’re not having it.

On Friday, after I’d been to the gym, we headed off to Leamington Spa to spend a couple of days with my wife’s sister and family. There was lots of walking around the town as well as a visit of a local fate on Saturday.