In praise (maybe) of doing nothing

I am on holiday. I should have written and scheduled something before I went. But I didn’t.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, this is a proper holiday, not a digital nomading trip. I have a completely and utterly work-free week. I very rarely manage one of those, though usually do for family holidays. The interrailing trip last year was almost completely work-free. I think I did a total of 3 days work over the whole 5 weeks. And, actually, thinking about it, the year before I took two trips with my kids and worked a lot on both of them. The first was with the eldest and her best friend on finishing GCSEs and they were doing their own thing most of the time. But I worked more hours than I usually would. And another trip was with both kids amd we did a lot of stuff together and ate together, but they slept in quite late, so I got in 4 or 5 hours work most mornings, and an ocassional hour or two in the evening. Oh, and there was the trip to Tenerife this year with my youngest where I again worked more hours than normal, so maybe finally holiday aren't usually work free at all.

My trip to Antibes in May was full of work, but I still got to wander and appreciate the winding streets and the sea. My trip to Nice in November had a decent amount of work, though I also fitted in trips to museums and a day on the train nipping across the border to Italy.

Now, I am in St Nazaire for a week. With no work whatsoever. I have read. I have wandered along the seafront and seen some of the street art here. (There’s quite a bit, but nowhere near the amount they had in Badajoz.) And then, my body shut down and made me spend two days on bed.

There was a probable reaction to some cream, following on from a day and a half of junk food, the combination of which triggered a diverticular flare-up. Tummy pains and a slight fever, but thankfully it seems to have been a mild flare-up, as it can give me a really severe fever and require antibiotics.

I had some time being VERY grumpy about it. I was planning to go to Nantes on Friday and Rennes on Saturday, to see their big market. Instead Friday was mostly spent asleep, with intermittent dips into the Internet on my phone (thank goodness for Substack, because those dips were at least more interesting than a forever scroll of Facebook or Instagram with all the ‘suggestions’ and ads and very little sign of any of the actual people I theoretically follow.

Saturday was also largely spent in bed, but not asleep this time. I spent time planning and writing down ideas for projects. I read some more. I had a bath. I ventured out to the supermarket to buy lots of pureed food (have to eat very low fibre when in a flare-up). And then sat and watched the last episode of the new Bridgerton, followed by half the series if Geek Girl. And I painted in my sketchbook while watching.

Nothing mind-blowing, but giving myself some time to do little bits of pleasant things was probably positive. And I had to remind myself that I had no work to do. So, even if I ended up being ill the whole holiday, it would still be a rest.

I am questioning today, though, whether having a full holiday and the quote at the top of this post are right. Because it feels like whenever I do stop to have a full break I get ill. And I think I actually get way more ideas for projects when I’m really busy with work than when I am sat doing nothing.

Now, to be fair, the most common time for me to stop for a full break is Christmas and that’s a time of year that is full of viruses. And I think there is probably an argument for me getting ill precisely because I work far too much and don’t take care of myself while doing so. If I was better at the self-care during busy periods, and also didn’t let myself work extra hours quite so much, I probably wouldn’t get ill the second I had a proper break.

I am supposed to be experimenting with taking a proper holiday. I need to fit in these pockets of travelling, and my instinct is to always make them digital nomading trips to some extent. If I can work while I’m away, it gives me some framework. It gives me an impetus to get the work done so I can get out to explore. It pushes me to be more targeted and efficient with the work. But also to be more targeted and efficient with my exploring – to know what types of thing I want to fit in and to make sure I do. Four or five hours a day is optimum, I think, but ideally with one or two fully work-free days. Oh! That’s actually what I think the optimum is for normal working days.

One of the things I feel I miss out on when on a digital nomading holiday is art. I feel I never fit much sketchbooking in and might only manage a couple of go-with-the-flow floral spreads. So I was hoping to do more of that during this proper holiday and so far it’s been almost identical to my other trips.

I’m obviously not about to give up on the idea of proper holidays based on being ill for two days. In a moment I will be off to shower and drink a smoothie and then I will head to Nantes for the day to look at art and history and whatever takes my fancy (and depending on when it’s raining). And hopefully tomorrow I can make that trip to Rennes. And on Tuesday, we’ll see. Maybe I will get off at every station on the line and do a little wander. Or maybe I'll pick somewhere else within about two hours and go get inspired there.

Because actually, if the aim is to take a proper holiday I shouldn’t be measuring it based on how much art I have creates or how many ideas I have sparked. The rest and stopping work is, on its own, the point, and if I can also soak up some art, architecture, culture and just being surrounded by people talking French rather than English. That will be very much be worth it.

Sorry, this was more like my daily(ish) pondering, which I haven’t been doing much of lately rather than a ‘proper’ post. But I am on holiday. I have a ridiculous number of posts I want to write as a spin-off from my note about AI images, which went a little bit nuts, but also had some interesting perspectives in the responses, that I would like to explore, but that will need to wait for me to be back at a desk with a keyboard (this is being written on my phone).

So, see you next week, and I may dig deeper into how I am feeling about the proper holiday in my daily(ish) pondering space (that doesn't get automatically emailed, to swve your inboxes from too much self-centred introspection).