Hello everyone! It’s coffee share time so welcome and grab a cup or a cuppa. No cake or cookies although I’m going to be baking a cake (later) for my Dad’s birthday braai tomorrow.

Conference week

This week went by quite fast. I wasn’t terribly busy on the work front. Thursday and Friday I attended a virtual conference where I also facilitated a workshop on team coaching. There were some great talks and workshops and it was great catching up with people I see only at these events. I missed the in-person experience somewhat, especially the coffee conversations, corridor greetings as people move from session to session, and the drinks after the day is over.

My Dad’s birthday on the 4th

It was my Dad’s birthday on May 4th and we’re getting together as a family to celebrate tomorrow. In addition to the cake that I’m baking Chè is making his popular apple pie. My sister is making more goodies and my Mom is cooking the main dish.

I went out!

I received my new Mac Mini (with the M1 chip) last week and of course, being a tech/gadget geek, it was an exciting event indeed. I went out on Monday to get a display port because my monitor only has a VGA output. I don’t get out much now so each time I do, and only when I absolutely need to, it’s always enjoyable. A simple trip to the mall becomes an exciting adventure.

It is usually a quick in-and-out operation or mission, depending on how you look at it. I park far from any other cars and take my time putting on my two masks and making sure that my hand sanitiser is in my pocket.

Gosh, it is year two of this very universal experience that we’re all in, and weathering it in different ways. Masks, sanitisers, social distancing … The numbers in SA are climbing again, test positivity percentages rising. Our medical insurance scheme sent an SMS on Friday warning that our area is now considered a Covid hotspot. As the third wave is ebbing in the northern countries, it is beginning in the southern ones.

Rituals for resilience

Rituals are important events for building resilience. I help organisations with things like this. Creating personal rituals has helped me keep my head above water during this uncertain time. Even though vaccines are here, this is relative depending on which country one lives in. In my country of 59 million people, only about 381 000 vaccines have been administered. This slow pace is inconceivable but I’m not going to give it much energy – to honour my sanity.

So I rely on rituals – to honour my sanity:

• Coffee with Chè in the morning before he leaves for work.
• A luxury Nespresso mid-morning – it’s a sensory experience: gazing upon the colours of the capsules and choosing the right coffee, pressing the button and hearing the rrrrr of the machine; comparing the thickness of the crema, smelling the coffee, tasting the coffee …
• At lunchtime, checking in on the cats sleeping on the bed, making sure they aren’t looking at each other askance, readying for a spat.
• Our team’s 15-minute daily standup, catching up on the day.
• Eating lunch in the sun while reading a book.
• A mid-afternoon cup of coffee, again.
• Removing ingredients from the freezer for dinner.
• After work, going for a walk around the garden, checking on the tomatoes while I wait for Eddie to arrive home.
• And then the evening rituals begin …

Do you have any rituals for resilience that are helping you during this time of uncertainty?

Well that’s it for this week

Let’s meet again next week, same time, same place.

The Weekend Coffee Share is hosted by Natalie the Explorer. Click here for more coffee shares.