The Pleasure Report. Week 40. The sleeping like a cat edition.

Then there are the magicians who feel with their hands what your body needs and concentrate there, where it's needed, adjusting as they go.

The Pleasure Reports are notes on the pleasure I found in my life each week. This purposeful focus on pleasure began in 2010. I was working with countless managers who were working themselves sick, our aim was to establish new ways of working that would not make them sick. And then realising that whilst ‘not sick’ might have been a good aim to start with, it was a terrible one to stop at. How about ways of working that are a pleasure?!  And so the study of pleasure began with The Pleasure Reports – a weekly record of -how many things were a pleasure -how many a pain and -what the pain to pleasure ratio was that week. I thought I’d do it for one year and ended up carrying on for three. You can read the whole story of how it began here and here.

Week 40 in the year of pleasure

Hello. I’m here. It’s me this week.

I’ve packed, I’ve moved, I’ve paperworked.

Boy have I packed and paperworked.

Now I’m settled into my in between, temporary home and the paperwork pile is nearly at in box zero there is, once again, time to do the weekly round up of the pleasure and the pain.

I’ve loved having guests posting their pleasure reports while I’ve been moving and would love to have guests again.

There’ll be a week when I move into my permanent place so if you’d like to do a guest spot, do let me know.

The Pleasure

Forty one points, thirty four in week 36 (the last week I wrote)

And a 14:1 pleasure to pain ratio

A selection of the pleasure

An unexpected hour

I allowed for way more traffic than there actually was and then didn’t need to do a detour that I’d expected to do.

So I arrived a whole hour early for an appointment to view a house.

I bought a book and read it in a cafe with wine sipping and olive nibbling. Mmmm hmmm.

WHAT a pleasant hour.

A really good night’s sleep

Right through the night. All in one go.

I’m thanking the lowered stress levels, having now moved, the new soft cotton mattress topper and a particularly enjoyable red wine.

I slept like a cat.

Ayee like.

A good massage

Not such a big deal you might think, surely good massages are fairly normal.

I don’t think I’ve ever explained how I got to be so fussy discerning about massages.

I’m big into personal development, as you might imagine. I like to take an holistic approach, mind, body and spirit all attended to.

While looking at the body part of the trio I became very interested in massage and body reading, I took a course and am now a qualified holistic massage therapist.

I’ve given and received hundreds of massages.

Many, many training programmes teach the techniques and put them together into a standard full body or back, neck and shoulders massage. This many minutes on the back, this many on each limb and there, you’re done. It makes for a pleasant enough experience.

Then there are the magicians who feel with their hands what your body needs and concentrate there, where it’s needed, adjusting as they go.

Tailor making the massage for you.

And that makes for a heavenly experience.

I generally set my expectations low, perfectly happy with a pleasant enough experience.

This week I had a heavenly massage.

Big smile on face. Much gratitude expressed.

The Pain

Just let me show you something

I had a mechanic get my car ready for it’s MOT this week. He’s a mobile mechanic.

He turns up at your house and does all the mechanicking on the driveway while you give him tea.

Very convenient.

I’m there, inside, in the warm, getting on with the urgent paperwork.

He rings the doorbell.

“Just want to show you something”

I go out.

He points to the side of the car.

I look.

“Your fuel filter hasn’t ever been changed”

I bend down a bit to see if I can see this fuel filter

“Oh you won’t be able to see it”

I wonder why I’m outside looking at the car door.

“OK, so it needs replacing does it, that’s fine” I say

And I go back inside.

Minutes later he rings the doorbell again

“Just want to show you something”

He points to the engine.

“They’ve never greased these” he said pointing to some sticky up bits which I take to be the parts that have never been greased.

“OK, so they need greasing do they, that’s fine” I say

And I go back inside.

I lost count of the things he wanted me to listen to him complain about.

I felt my capacity for responding as a grown adult slipping away and my desire to curl up in a little ball and pretend he wasn’t there take a hold of me.

It was all I could do to stop my face screwing itself up into the grimace that would accurately reflect my feelings.

I managed. It wasn’t graceful, or elegant, but it remained civil.

The pain I did something about

Uninterrupted time to think

My temporary place is lovely.

It does though have a lot less quiet and being at peace than I’m used to.

It has a lot more chat and a lot more tv and a lot more movement and to-ing and fro-ing.

The peace, it was needed. So I went out for a drive in the car where I could be unavailable and empty my head.

Note to self. That works. Good.

The Pleasure Posse

Oh yes, the pleasures are flowing on twitter.

Mmmm parmesan. Can. not. resist.

sarahbairstow #hunks #parmesan #itsapleasure #possiblehashtagabuse

sarahbairstow The way the air smells after a good rain. #itsapleasure

loupardi i think about food most of the time… this time I just wrote it down… #itsapleasure

LadyChrisMyers The first Fall breeze. #itsapleasure

LadyChrisMyers Autumn Mix Candy Corn #itsapleasure

How about you?

How’s your week been?

Plenty of pleasure?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

1 Comment

  1. Heidi Fischbach

    At first I thought, ohmygoodness! Do I live in the wrong country! A mechanic that does house calls! But oh. Whah-whah-whah (sound of sad trombones).

    Glad you’re all moved out. And so happy about your fantastic massage. yay!

    Reply

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