Way back, when I was young, free and single, I bought a lovely hammock back from a holiday I had in Venezuela with a university friend. It was to remind me of the night we slept in a hammock on a trip we did. I remember being quite taken aback when faced with sleeping in a hammock for a night at the time. And thought I’d never get to sleep. But once I got used to the motion I was out for the count, and had a great nights sleep. Although I do sleep well as a general rule anyway.
It was a lovely big blue hammock but it got left in a house I shared with a boyfriend who I split up with. And I’ve not seen it since.
Then the other year my daughter saw a hammock on sale in a local camping shop and asked if she could have it. Initially I said no, we’d got nowhere to hang it. Then I gave in and bought it almost without any thought to where we would hang it.
Naively my daughter assumed you could just find a couple of trees and hang it up somewhere, anywhere. My husband thought I’d gone mad (he often thinks that).
A year or so later in a friends garden, I saw they had a hammock stand that could be put together and taken apart. I had previously only ever seen the enormous wooden stands and didn’t have space for one of those. So later that evening, I was straight online ordering us a hammock stand. This cheap hammock in the sale was now starting to cost us a little bit more money.
It was only when the stand arrived and I hung up the hammock we’d bought that I realised how small it was in comparison to the one I’d bought in South America all those years ago (or I’d grown significantly).
It was certainly better suited to my daughter I thought. But after all, it was down to her we bought it in the first place. So I wasn’t worried.
After the initial fun though we hardly used it. The stand sat out in the garden but the hammock was rarely hung out on it. And even if it was, rarely sat in. Even during lockdown we’ve not used it as much as I thought we might.
But today, this evening in fact, it has come into its own. I am lying here watching it get dark, completely relaxed, (almost) cocooned in our little hammock, swaying gently to and fro. I am eventually relaxing. Something I have hardly found any time to do since lockdown began. What with work to catch up on once my little girl is in bed, or home schooling to prepare for the following day, clearing up, filling the dishwasher, virtual Guides to plan for, or just another Zoom call to be on. There’s always been something.
It’s not so much that there’s nothing to do now, because the clearing up is still inside waiting for me, the home schooling sheets still need sorting and the dishwasher ….. well …
But I’m out here, I can’t see what’s in there, and whilst it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. And I am just enjoying relaxing in my LITTLE hammock.
Is it just me? How and when do you find the time to really relax?
