Coffee shop, cakes and boobs

It's been one of those weeks, you know the kind; super-productive but somewhat hectic. Besides the job workload I've been managing a building project at home and juggled between the two leaving me somewhat drained, but satisfied.

At work, I'm stacking up opportunities and whilst I would have preferred to have reached my annual budget in my first month that's not a reality. I'm quietly confident I'll smash it when some of the current opportunities reach the tipping point and drop though. It's exciting; not just for the commissions I'll pull in, but the satisfaction of the win I feel when my hard work, skill and effort comes together to create a successful account. This week I've taken no prisoners, figuratively speaking, and have pushed very hard.

The home project is a large pergola or about 100sqm along the side entertainment area off my house. I ordered it back in November 2021 and it's finally being built.

The existing structure needed demolishing and removal and with the new product delivered on day one my front yard has resembled a construction site for a week and I've not been able to get my vehicles into the garages. Typically there's been supply issues with various components not arriving, a delay or two and some rain as well, but the crew is reasonable, a few Australian chaps I get along with well, and they've been plugging away at it all week.

There's been a few discussions with the architect and home improvement company I went through for the design and product, I've issued a few attitude adjustments as has the construction crew chief, but generally it's been ok-ish.

It was all completed last night and looks great, certainly better than the previous one.

I have added more height, more honey-combe opaque panels for light and the structure itself is more able to deal with rainfall due to my explicit instructions on guttering and roof fall. I asked for 4° of fall away from the house, rather than the 3° they suggested, to ensure the water sheets away well. There's some additional bits and pieces I have to do like some repair work to facias left damaged by the old structure, electrical for lights and fans and a little patching up of pavers where the old poles were cut out but G-dog has skills, and that'll all get taken care of in due course.

So here I find myself, this Saturday afternoon, at a local coffee shop unwinding from the weeks' activities with a little cake and some books.

I had to bring two as I'm almost finished the first of a series and didn't want to be left short whilst relaxing here for the afternoon. I've taken a pause to tap out this quick little post but have basically been sipping coffee and eating that legit looking cream-filled lamington cake you see pictured for the last couple hours.

I find relaxation in so many different ways, one of which is sitting in a café people-watching, reading or working on my computer. I know people often say they can't concentrate in coffee shops but for me that's not an issue. It also provides the ability to feel a little closer to society but maintain distance which works well for me; people irk me most of the time. (Here I wanted to say, people vex me, but I chose to go with irk as I've not used irk in a sentence for some time...which irk's me.)

It's been a nice Saturday, relaxing and tasty; I don't just mean the cake though, I had a pretty legit egg and bacon toasted sandwich earlier as well. I've finished the first book and will start on the second when I finish this post. Sunday I'm looking into that electrical situation for the pergola, a couple ceiling fans and the wiring to do the job. I'm also considering doing an outdoor kitchen so will do recon what's up and available out there to see if there's something I might like.

I hope y'all have a great weekend. Feel free to drop me a comment below and tell me about it, what you have planned and, don't forget, if you are looking for something to write about on Hive you can follow this link to this week's #weekend-engagement writing options post or just head over to the WEEKEND EXPERIENCES community as the post is pinned to the top of the community feed.