The question is – which pedal? Now, I’m obviously not a driver, due to the brain not being wired properly, so I would like to apologise now for any mistakes in metaphors in this post!

I went for a run this evening, it is the first time in at least a month that I have actually ran, as opposed to running with intermittent walks, or more frequently walking with intermittent runs!!!!! There were a couple of times when I had to put my foot on the accelerator. Firstly when I was crossing a road, there was a car running, but I didn’t really want to stop and wait as I knew that I’d probably just all, so instead I sped up to cross the road. Secondly I was running and a pedestrian had spotted I was coming so had moved to the edge of the pavement to let me past, I felt it was only right to speed up so they could go back to walking centrally on the pavement again! The rest of the run was pretty consistent, with all of the splits pretty much at the same time, not the fastest I’ve ever done, but consistent and the best I’ve done in a while.

When driving, the majority of the time, your feet are over the pedals but not pressing down, you’ll press down the clutch to change gear, accelerator to speed up, brake to slow down or stop.its knowing when you need to press which pedal, whilst avoiding the emergency brake at all costs, although sometimes is inevitable. Is this not the perfect metaphor for life?

End of term for me involved numerous meltdowns – emergency breaks. I knew that I needed to stop. I made the decision that I was not going to do any school work for the last two weeks in July. He first day after we finished, I pretty much did nothing, I woke up, had breakfast, went back to bed, sat on the sofa, watched tv, sewed and slept! I stopped! Gradually since then I’ve been doing things, catching up with people, spending time in Birmingham with family and friends, session at the gym, spent a couple of days away with the us and – only 45 minuet bus ride but a lovely time was had – with lots of walking! I’ve been going along quite happily, keeping busy but not overdoing it AT ALL!

I am now ready to move it up a gear, to get work done next week. Probably only 3rd gear – I need to leave space to move on up.  Again I have made the decision that I will only work when the husband is at work, when he has time off, we have time off. 

This is the kind of momentum I need to continue once back in the work place – with the children. I know there will be times when I need to accelerate, and I’m getting slightly better at cognising when I need to use the break, but at all costs I must avoid the emergency brak where I stop because I’m not able to carry on, as opposed to breaking, and slowing down the pace to enable me to have the energy to pick up the gears later on.

The last to days taught me a lot, resting doesn’t mean stopping, it means spending time with people you love, and also laughter is the best medicine.