Today was a day of low-level boring admin. The type of admin which I am very good at, but it also drives me a little spare. I won't go into details, but let's say that JIRA is not my friend at the moment, and if people actually listened to me in the first place, we wouldn't be where we are now.
So, for a lot of the day, I was doing this mindless admin. I broke up the hours with reading a few pages of the book group book. Hate to say, but I'm not enamored with that either. The House in the Cerulean Sea is a cut rate Harry Potter. It's good we've given it ago, but I'm hating the writing. The other two books I have on the go - the latest Ian McEwan and a small novel Reindert gave me years ago are much better for quality, if not for story. It makes such a difference when every second line is not a cliche.
At lunchtime, I was in need of a break, something to calm my anxious, and a rather frazzled mind.
The answer. Shelling pistachios.
I wanted to get some ready to make this wonderful salad, and I buy them in bulk, which means shelling them.
There's something about keeping your hands busy. It's a mindless task. Not mindless in the way that re-dating and re-categorising JIRA tickets can be. If you don't know what JIRA is, be thankful. This is more a soothing mindless task.
You have to organise your receptacles. A bowl with the nuts, a bowl for the nuts and a bowl for the shells.
Every pistachio is different. Some crack easily, some have lost their nuts, some will require a nutcracker (or in my case, I just use my teeth - nobody else will be eating the salad).
There's a small pride in the work, ensuring the shells and nuts end up in the right container, working out the best way, the shell and place with limited movements. The feeling of the hard shells in your fingers. The sense of gratification and achievement once the pile of nuts is shelled.
It's a bit like knitting or crochet - a lot of repetitive movements which lead to something at the end of it all.
Strangely, it made me feel good.
And then I went back to my boring admin task.
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