{"id":353,"date":"2008-08-07T03:54:49","date_gmt":"2008-08-06T19:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattisonthompson.net\/?p=353"},"modified":"2008-09-11T14:41:35","modified_gmt":"2008-09-11T06:41:35","slug":"the-unintentional-good-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattisonthompson.net\/?p=353","title":{"rendered":"The (unintentional) good life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having spent the last few weeks traveling, attending conferences, working on papers and answering student emails, I have found myself enjoying a bit of a holiday over the last few days. It wasn’t really planned and actually crept up on me rather unexpectedly: my work email is refusing to grant me access!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Despite numerous attempts it has done so incessantly for the last 2 days; much to my initial despair. Resonating some of the sentiments of my last entry (here<\/a>), it initially felt as though I had had to go ‘cold turkey’ after feeding an addiction that would dictate me to check my email 3-4 times a day, just in case someone had sent something of interest or I was missing out on something useful (a bit like my need to frequently check RSS news feeds). Now, after a few days of repeated attempts to ‘outwit’ the email system (i.e. trying different passwords at different time of the day – in case it’s just the server which is down or some weird time difference malarkey with China), I have achieved the inner mental state of counting myself lucky that I can finally spend a day relaxing, without feeling guilty for not having done any work or checking and answering email, and instead enjoying a day off – I’m meant to be on holiday after all, which, according to its definition means: a day of recreation, where no one has to work<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So now I am going after my new found hobby of bee keeping – I have been built a new bee hive (photos to follow shortly, once snail mail delivers my new ‘aperture<\/em>‘ software) and seamlessly taking my cameo role in ‘the good life<\/em>‘. This includes cultivating the vegetable patch with peas, courgettes, salad, various berry types (which make delicious smoothies), onions, beans and herbs. To broaden my culinary expertise, I tried myself at a French onion soup this lunchtime, which turned out fabulous after adding half a liter of our local ‘Riesling<\/em> trocken<\/em>‘ to it … to quote some famous chef somewhere, I’m sure: ‘if in doubt, add more wine’<\/em> … I also made a raspberry swiss roll and rosemary bisquits (not all at once, of course!) – turning into a bit of Delia Smith, although I’d rather like to think of myself as more of a female version of Raymond Blanc – he has Michelin stars and his own kitchen garden after all. I have also taken to reading books again, which is such bliss when sitting under a tree, in the shade, on a chaise longue.<\/p>\n

Also spent a day in Duesseldorf, the German Mecca of consumption for all things couture. It is also the home of my favourite department store and so a trip to check out the inventory was mandatory. Am living the life of a real decadent, bourgeois type … had coffee in a cafe on the main shopping street, watching people walk by … always very interesting, and am off to the country, well, Trier, on the weekend to celebrate a friend’s 30th Birthday, before returning in the hope that someone has fixed my email access … my addiction and curiosity just can’t be suppressed much longer … must check my email!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having spent the last few weeks traveling, attending conferences, working on papers and answering student emails, I have found myself enjoying a bit of a holiday over the last few days. It wasn’t really planned and actually crept up on me rather unexpectedly: my work email is refusing to grant me access!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horticulture","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattisonthompson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattisonthompson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattisonthompson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattisonthompson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattisonthompson.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mattisonthompson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372,"href":"https:\/\/mattisonthompson.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions\/372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattisonthompson.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattisonthompson.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattisonthompson.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}