This was an exhausting week at work. We had several workshops/meetings lasting over half a day, where the tone got more confrontational and less collaborative than I am used to. In order to recover I used up some of my flex hours to take a day off and go walking instead. There’s nothing like 7 hours outdoors on my own to restore my mental energy levels.

It was a beautiful, warm day, with blue skies and balmy winds. The lakes I passed were still covered in ice and so were parts of the path, but the brooks were full of snow melt and the hazelnut bushes were in bloom – the first plants to do so.