Gently does it

When I get home from work there are various tasks to be carried out, most of them guaranteed to make me feel relaxed.
Walking the dog. Daisy and I go once around the block, exactly 500metres, just fine for a couple of old ladies after a busy day. (in her case busy doing nothing). That fills my lungs with fresh air and loosens the muscles that've been squashed up on an office chair all day.
Other boring housework related stuff, cleaning, ironing, laundry, etc. - very BORING.
Watering the garden - so soothing, I may have mentioned before that it's like a gentle meditation, just me and nature. Aah!
Then it's time to cook. I really enjoy that part of the evening.
Last night we were having fish fingers and chips. Nothing pretentious in our house. It turned out I only had baby potatoes and although they do indeed make fine chips I wasn't in the mood to peel those tiny things.
I set the potatoes to cooking and prepared my veg. Carrots cut into chubby matchsticks and green beans, topped and tailed and cut to the same size. Popped four baby onions into the water with the potatoes, just to soften up and when ready, left everything to drain. Into a roasting pan with some olive oil and garlic, I squished the potatoes gently so that they broke open and just for  good measure popped in a couple of knobs of butter.
In to the small oven and later, the fish fingers were added to the same dish to cook. Cooked the carrots and beans on top of the stove and let them steam themselves to keep warm. It was a very simple but delicious meal and I so enjoyed the preparation. That's why I don't buy those packs of ready prepared veg, I would miss out on the relaxation and frozen veg just don't do it for me.
After dinner I watched a Jamie Oliver programme, he was in Italy and at one point made Minestroni Soup. It was outstanding. He strolled through a veg. garden and collected onions, garlic, carrots, peas, kale, lettuce, celery, courgettes and the flowers, just think of it and it was most probably in there. He took the left over end of a piece of pancetta, put that into the pot and threw in some tiny noodles. (Thinks "I'll have to see if I can get the tail end of something at Giovanni's this weekend"). As the soup simmered gently for abour 20 minutes he made a quick basil pesto and dolloped it on top of his bowl of soup. Yummy.
It's really all about chilling at the end of the day. I often wished that I enjoyed red wine so that I could sip it as I cooked and chatted wittily with my partner. Well, perhaps red wine's overrated but my partner isn't.
So, try to find your chill factor, after all, there's more to life than work, work, work.