Audible Thoughts

Sundays are mostly a day of rest for me. I potter a little and generally roast a chicken for the family, but apart from this I rest. Yesterday I had a particularly lovely day. England were playing in the World Cup final for the first time since the 1960’s. Becs and Gary had decided to watch together.

After lunch, I decided to take myself off to bed. Not to sleep. Just to relax. I get over stimulated very quickly, and time on my own is such a pleasure. The deep breath of quietude calms my zingyness.

On this day I popped on my latest Audible book, A Little Life. Oh. My. Goodness. I can see why this book has caused such fascination and disgust in equal measures. At 33 hours long, it is the longest book I’ve ever listened to. I have just ten hours left. I can’t put it down stop listening. In all honesty, I would struggle to recommend it unless you are in a very good place mentally. I definitely would have struggled with its content if I’d read it as a young adult. It is horror filled with the depravities of humanity and how low man is willing to go to feel powerful. Be warned, it has many many triggers.

That said, it is easy on the ear and incredibly well written. But dark. Very, very dark.

Whilst I listened to it, I painted. My new journal page is of elephants and I LOVE it! I’ve only sketched and painted the first watery coat of water colour paint, but I’m so pleased! As I left the paint to dry thoroughly, I began making my sticker sheets.

To do this, I have isolated each element of a painting using Procreate and coloured white around it. I added all the elements to Canva, got rid of the white back ground and added them to a sheet. I’m waiting to get them printed once I have earned enough from my cards.

I think I was at this for about eight hours. Eight hours. What an incredible gift of time. I really try to think of August as my holiday. We might not go away, but I try to treat it as if I was away.

Eight hours, on my own, quietly painting, creating and listening to a good book…I felt so blessed.

Audible has opened up my life so very much. Over the past couple of years my eye sight has got so bad that the amount of physical book reading I was doing became unsustainable. Reading just wasn’t as comfortable anymore. Reading ‘Menopausing‘ has made me realise that menopause may very well be a reason for this decline as it is apparently a symptom. The thing is, reading has always been so important to me in so many ways. It has been ‘my thing’…y’know the thing that relaxes me, the thing that excites me, the thing that stimulates my mind, the thing that makes me so very grateful to be alive and to be able to delve into the stories of others.

I am well on my way to reading 100 books this year, and that is definitely thanks in part to Audible.