Kas, Turkey - Swimming Holiday

Me Lagging Behind! Photo (c) Strel-Swimmming

Well, I arrived back safe and sound and, believe it or not, I even felt rested!

I don’t know if we’re having an exceptionally beautiful autumn this year or if it’s just because I haven’t seen an autumn for two years, but I’m often struck these days by the oranges and reds of the trees around me. It’s wonderful. When I took off from Zurich airport, it was great to see all the hillsides with splashes of different colours down below.

I changed at Istanbul to fly on to Dalaman and then, from Dalaman, I’d arranged to share a 2-hour transfer with a woman who was also on the same holiday as I was. I didn’t get into Dalaman until 21:20, so it always was going to be a late night. I was a bit nervous about sharing a two-hour transfer with a stranger, having to chat when I was tired, and then having to swim after a short night’s sleep but it was too late to do anything about that.

Anyway, it all went – err – swimmingly. That’s despite the fact that I arrived at Dalaman in the warm air, enchanted to see bougainvillea flowers around me, but then to find that my bag hadn’t arrived with me. However, it transpired that what they meant was that my bag was in the international terminal and I’d arrived in the domestic one. A short bus ride reunited me with my belongings and, for once, I’d taken my mobile phone with me and had it switched on, so I was able to text my transfer companion to let her know what was happening.

She turned out to be the same age as me and she’d been on two of these holidays before, so she was able to answer some of my questions as we drove along through the dark Turkish roads. She was great company, so it was all a bit of a relief. We didn’t arrive until 1am, and we had to be up at 8am for our induction, so that stressed me out a bit and I didn’t sleep too well. There was a list of participants handed to us, so it was good to have that to remind myself during the week.

Anyway, I got up to bright blue sky and sunshine and a view over the sea. I immediately felt better about things.

We had a short swim before breakfast so that they could group us into slow, medium, and fast swimmers. It was already clear at that point that I was by far the slowest swimmer; some people managed to see some turtles even on that first swim, but I was too busy trying to catch up or turning round early so that I wouldn’t be the last back.

There were nine of us altogether so it was a nice-sized group; there was one Australian couple, one Canadian couple, a Dutch woman, and the rest of us were Brits. Most of them were around my age, with just two who were probably quite a bit younger.

The routine was to have breakfast at 8am, which wasn’t too bad a time at all (much to my relief!), then on the boat by 9.15am, sail for a while, then we’d go on our mid-morning swim of over 2 km. After that, we had a rest on the boat or would play in the sea while they cooked our lunch. Lunch was served on a long table on the boat where we sat and passed round the dishes and chatted while we ate. We would then sunbathe, read, or talk on the boat for 90-minutes, and then we’d be taken on a shorter swim of just under 2km. We swam 23km in 5 days. I feel quite proud of myself.

The weather was fantastic – sun, blue skies, air temperature in the high 20s, and sea temperature around 25 degrees. The water was a swimming-pool blue and crystal clear. It couldn’t be better.

I did end up swimming quite a bit faster than I would do given the choice, since I was always far behind the others. I was the only one swimming breast stroke. They asked me to wear a bright orange buoyancy tag so that they could spot where I was and be sure I wouldn’t drown. I felt a bit of a plonker, but I could understand the rationale. Although I swam faster than usual and felt I was racing – that was me pressurizing myself, I hasten to add – I was quite pleased that actually the distances were fine and I wasn’t even out of breath by the end of it. I could feel my arms starting to ache a bit towards the end of each swim, but that’s a good thing (I think).

There was the main boat and 2 dinghies following us to see if we needed water or help. I felt fortunate to have gone with Strel Swimming as I heard that another, similar company tends to have competitive people on their trips all trying to swim faster than each other and you’re in the water by 7.30am. For me, that’s not a holiday! This was very relaxed and no-one minded me being slow.

Everyone in the group was friendly and encouraging. The Australian guy said his mother was still taking part in 3km swimming competitions at the age of 88 years old.

It turned out that the Canadian guy held the Guinness World Record for chin-ups; I can't remember how many he did now, but it took him 12 hours! Actually, the founder of the company has Guinness World Records for open-water swimming, including swimming the Yangtze where dead bodies were floating down the water in the darkness of the night. I can't say I have any ambition to do that.

I guess they have the privilege of saying that they had the author of 25 New Year’s Resolutions—For Fish! on their trip, but somehow I don’t think that’s quite so impressive.

Anyway, it was great. We had time to ourselves during the day if we wanted it, we swam in beautiful water in stunning scenery, and in the evenings we’d meet up and go out for a meal together. Kas was a lovely town. I wasn’t exhausted by the end; I’d felt I’d had a rest and with all that exercise I felt I’d managed to totally switch off.

It did make me miss Egypt a bit – that kind of lifestyle really is my idea of perfection.

Zurich - Booking a Holiday

Badi Enge - "Are you able to swim back, too?"

I mentioned a while back that I’ve booked myself on a swimming holiday. I stumbled across it in the summer months when I was searching for some long-distance swims that I could take part in. There were two in Switzerland (2.65 km and 3 km; the 2.65 km one I’d done before, so was really looking for something a bit longer) and, actually, I ended up missing them both. They were both on the same weekend and it happened to be one of the very few weekends where it was raining, so I opted out. Typical!

Anyway, because it was “swimming season”, I was feeling all enthusiastic and full of desire for new challenges. I like swimming in the lake, but there’s only so far you can swim, so you have to repeat stretches if you want to swim a certain distance. Consequently, I was trying to find these “long distance” swims to take part in. During these swims, the waterways are closed off to other boats, and the way is indicated and lined with rescue boats for a safe swim.

I finally found a really good site and it asked you to state your competence for it to select you swims of an appropriate distance. I naively thought that if I could swim around 3 km, I could be fairly termed as an “intermediate” swimmer. To my horror, the intermediate swims started at 10 km in length. Even the beginner ones went up to 10 km, so it was a reality check. Maybe it was meant more for professional open-water swimmers?

The other problem I have is that the longer swims usually require you to swim crawl, whereas I swim pretty much only breast-stroke. I can see the logic, because they can’t close the waters all day while people just go along casually at their own speed, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating when I’d like to have the opportunity to push myself a bit.

Anyway, on the left-hand side of the website there was an advertisement for a swimming holiday. When I clicked on it, I found that it was doing exactly what I wanted. You go out on a boat, swim 2-3 km in the morning and the same again in the afternoon. You have lunch on the boat. You’re accompanied by a few dinghies so that all swimming speeds are catered for, and you swim from bay to bay or island to island. I will definitely be in the slowest group, since even my breast stroke isn’t that fast. If you want a rest from swimming, you can just sunbathe or read on the boat instead. Perfect!

I’ve booked myself on a week’s holiday to Turkey (taking in one Greek island as well) and they are claiming the water will be 24 degrees. I hope this is true as I’m not very good with water that’s much colder! I’m a luxury swimmer at heart. On the first day they also film you from below and above water and give you tips as to how to improve your swimming. It should be interesting.

Of course, now that I’ve committed to it, I’m feeling a bit nervous. What if I can’t do those distances, will we have to get up really early in the morning, what if I’m so much slower than everyone else, what if the water’s too cold, will they try to force me to swim faster, what if I need the toilet, will I be too exhausted when I get back to do any work?

By the time you’re reading this, I will have returned, so I’ll let you know how I got on next week!

Zurich - Long Night of the Museums

Zurich Tomato Festival

Zurich is full of festivals; it’s probably one of the things I miss most when I'm in Hurghada. In Zurich, there’s always something new happening, something going on. In Hurghada, it can be a struggle to think of something else to do. It’s partly a function of Zurich being a larger city and partly a function, I guess, of it being located in a richer country. There are, of course, also advantages that Hurghada / Sahl Hasheesh has over Zurich, otherwise I wouldn’t be living there.

Anyway, when Geraldine came over to visit, as well as it being the month of “Zurich Eats!”, it was also the weekend of the “Long Night of the Museums”. This is the one night a year when all the museums stay open until around midnight and you can buy a single ticket for entry to them all.

We’d done this in a previous year, but we messed up a bit when it came to the clock museum because we got lost. Looking back, I can’t understand how this happened, because the museum is in the main shopping street and we’d ended up in some rather dodgy back streets with no form of public transport. And, when we did finally find it, the tickets were sold out (it has limited entry). But I could swear that when we’d found it, it wasn’t on the main street, but I could also swear that the museum hasn’t moved. It doesn’t really add up, but that’s memory for you.

So, this meant that we both had a certain determination to get in this year (and not to get lost!). I was a bit more on the ball (at least I’d learned from past experience!) and discovered that you can reserve places in advance from the museum itself. This was helpful because not only were we guaranteed entry, we also knew exactly where it was before we had to get there.

Although special buses are laid on for the event to take you from museum to museum, in practice it’s not so easy to see that much because it requires a lot of coordination. There’s not one circular line; there are five or six separate bus routes, so you need to know which buses go from where and what times and to which places. Inevitably, I haven’t worked all this out in advance to military precision.

We didn’t do so badly, though. The cactus collection (yes, not really a museum, but the zoo and botanical gardens were also included, for example, so the term “museum” is quite broad) was just up from the Street Food Festival that we went to, so that was our first stop.

For the Long Night, they’d laid on a musical performance as well to reflect how music, like plants, can also adapt. They hadn’t really made any concession for foreign visitors though – not only were all the introductions and explanations only in German, they were actually only in Swiss German. I could get a rough gist of what they were saying, but I was lost for quite a lot of it. Geraldine, who doesn’t even speak German, was probably completely flummoxed.

We also visited the Botanical Gardens – not that you can see a lot at night, but they’d got food stalls there, a special display where you sniff things hidden in barrels and guess what they are (I think I identified only one out of six!), and a display of saffron, which was their theme. They even offered a saffron cocktail for you to sample, but I’m not sure I’d drink it again.

After that, we finally made it – without problem – to the clock museum. It’s inside a very posh shop – I can’t quite remember but it wouldn’t surprise me if the salesmen were wearing white gloves – and, again, the tour did not consider the possible presence of foreign visitors, so the spiel was all rattled off in Swiss German. However, with it being an upper-end shop, the snacks provided were also rather delicious. It was just sandwiches, if I recall correctly, but I also remember that they tasted very good. We even got a glass of Prosecco with the snacks and then a Lindor chocolate ball as a leaving present.

Oh, and the museum was good too (I almost forgot in my excitement over the food and drink)! It took you through the history of clocks from using water and sun to tell the time, and even incense sticks, to modern-day waterproof technology and, of course, fine, high-end timepieces as well.

And that was about all we had time for. I think I’ve been three times now and have never repeated a museum yet!

Zurich - New Year's Resolutions--For Fish!

Now Out on Kindle! Thanks to Everyone who Voted.

It’s that time of year again where I indulge myself in talking about the release of my annual New Year’s Resolutions book.

I’d kind of committed to releasing 25 New Year’s Resolutions – For Fish! (NYR Fish!) in October this year, since I’d stated the date in my other books ( –For Dogs! and –For Cats!). At the time, I hadn’t realized that I would be back doing a full-time job in Zurich. It would have been much easier to get it out in time if I hadn’t needed to work!

I also didn’t know that I would be so busy in September (I haven’t had a single free weekend), so it’s been a bit stressful getting it done and even now I’ve only managed to get the kindle version out so far (although the paperback should follow this week, if I’ve done the set-up correctly).

NYR Fish! was enjoyable to write as it took me back to being in Sahl Hasheesh and my daily swims; those swims already feel like another world now. I’ve even started to forget the names of some of the fish, whereas when I was living in Egypt I was completely absorbed in it. Most evenings I would spend time reading my guide books and trying to identify which fish I might have seen that day.

As usual, selecting photographs was the most time-consuming part of the process. On this occasion, it was a bit of a mixture between my previous two techniques. I had the resolutions first and then found the photographs, but some of the resolutions had been inspired by photographs that I knew I already had.

Collecting fish is allegedly the second most popular hobby in the world, and to my great joy this was borne out by there being loads of good photographs available on Flickr.com. Unfortunately, there were two resolutions (“Do the longest poo” and “Contribute to the environment”) where I experienced particular difficulty in identifying a suitable picture. I’d found two really good options on the internet (one of which had inspired that first resolution), but neither of them had an attribution to the photographer. Consequently, I was stumped as to how to get the copyright / permission for using it in my book. I spent quite a lot of time sending out enquiries, but to no avail.

At one point, I considered risking it and adding a note in the copyright section of my book asking the photographers to come forward if they found their work printed in my book. Neither of them were professional photographers, so I didn’t think I was taking away income from them.

But I chickened out. I re-read all the copyright stuff that I’m so familiar with. I even toyed with the idea that maybe I could argue that the photographs were being used for commentary. But in the end I had to admit that I shouldn’t really use them without permission.

I also discovered a blog where someone had been prosecuted and fined for using photographs from the internet, even though she hadn’t used the photographs for commercial purposes and she’d removed the photographs immediately once she realized she was breaking the law.

And then I read claims that one company finds people who have not asked for permission to reproduce photographs, they then purchase up the copyright themselves, and subsequently prosecute those people for using them without permission. These rumours may well be completely false, and in my opinion it’s dodgy on legal grounds (at the time of implementation, the photographs were not under that company’s copyright), but it was enough to scare me. Having said that, I can’t see how anyone could have located the photographers of the photos I wanted to use because I, at least, found it impossible.

Anyway, I ended up playing safe and staying 100% legal. Life is too short for the potential stress that could occur later.

But it left me with a problem, because I couldn’t find any Creative Commons-licensed images to fit my needs. I ended up looking at photographs with rights reserved where I could find out who the creator was in order to ask for permission. I got there in the end, but it was a lot of work that you don’t really appreciate when you look at the end product.

I’ve also learned from past experience to keep a screen grab of the Creative Commons license for each photograph; I’ve had cases in the past where people have removed the Creative Commons license and demanded money as soon as I informed them that I’d used their picture in my book. I couldn’t argue that they were bound by the agreement, because I had no proof that they had initially licensed their work under Creative Commons for commercial use. In these cases, I’ve always removed the photograph and used another one – I’m not going to reward that kind of behaviour!

Anyway, the kindle version (US, UK) of NYR Fish! is now available; the paperback should be out by the end of this week, with any luck. To find out about price changes, free giveaways, etc, just visit and like the dedicated facebook page!

Zurich - Theaterspektakel

Theaterspektakel - Taking Cover at the Back!

As I was scratching my head, wondering what to write about next, I realised that I hadn’t yet said anything about Theaterspektakel. This is a theatre festival of sorts – it’s located by the lake and a stage is set up for paid performances. In addition to this, the area is laid out with various stalls selling food and drink.

You can wander round and watch various performances for free – usually magicians or other types of street performers.

I’ve been there many times with Lena but we have a bit of a history of managing to wait for each other at different entrances and thus spending quite a lot of time hanging about beforehand. It’s not helped by the fact that I’m not a mobile phone type of person and often forget to bring it with me / charge it in advance / have it switched on / bring a note of my SIM password. There’s such a lot to remember, I really don’t know how people cope.

Anyway, this time we settled for an unambiguous meeting point at Buerkliplatz, so that we could arrive in style by the boat that’s laid on by the event (you have to pay a nominal fee unless you are Lena and have a special card).

It’s one of the many summer events in Zurich that rely on good weather. I envied the swimmers a bit as we arrived, but the evening was a good temperature and we strolled about looking at the various acts and deciding where to eat. I usually have a Mistkraetzeli (a small chicken described in wonderful Swiss terminology as “shit scratcher” as Lena likes to point out), but this time I was in the mood for a lamb curry. It’s the usual process of paying a deposit on your glass which you get back when you return your drinking vessel.

It seemed to me that there were slightly more acts than usual this year – one guy doing balloon animals, another performer slicing a sheet of newspaper with a whip into ever tinier sections while a petrified volunteer held it steady, another magician cutting a girl into two.

We sat down for a drink, but the only place was beside two smokers. It’s so ironic that the Swiss, who are such keen skiers, swimmers, cyclists, and mountaineers, are also avid smokers. I guess they have to have at least one vice to show that they are, after all, human.

The wind started to pick up out of nowhere. People started to move themselves to places where there was cover. Lena and I sat there, believing it would just blow over. A few big drops splatted onto our table, but we clung to our belief that it would be only a shower. Eventually, as we got wetter and wetter, it became clear that it wasn’t going to be just a short flurry and so we, too, took cover, only there wasn’t much space left at this point.

We ended up in the actors’ entrance just behind one of the free acts on the main stage. The act was a slapstick acrobatic magic show type thing and really it was as interesting to see the childrens’ faces as anything else (I’m not entirely sure the performers realised that so many children were going to be present as some of the humour was a little adult). I don’t think I’d seen so many children in previous years, but Lena said it was earlier this year and so the children were still on holiday. We were probably a bit of a nuisance to the actors who kept on pushing past us to get to their lockers, but they were very polite all the same.

By the time we went home, though, the rain had stopped, so it wasn’t such a big deal!

Zurich - Zurich Eats!

Stall at the Street Food Festival

Swimming and food seem to be the sole two topics of my blogs! No prizes for guessing the topic of this particular entry.

I had Geraldine over to visit for a weekend in September, so I investigated what would be on while she was across. It turned out to be the month of Zurich Eats, so we pretty much joined in.

There was a Street Food Festival along the lake. For some reason, I’d kind of forgotten to factor in that it would be very busy if we went at 6pm, but I guess at least we saw it at its peak.

There were loads of stalls selling hot snacks from all over the world – I can’t quite remember what they all were now, but I think there was Nepalese, Tibetan, Korean; if not those, then it felt as if almost everywhere was represented including many countries that you don’t usually see (however, the UK was not represented!).

The choice was a bit baffling and we ended up sitting by the lake with a glass of wine while we tried (and failed) to make up our minds as to what we would eat. The boat just in front of us was the one I’d hired for my 50th birthday! In the end, we just started walking round again and stopped at the first one that took our fancy (it all looked good, but nothing was a “must have”).

There were loads of people, so it was a slow process walking along to see what there was and then also a bit complicated to locate where a queue began and ended and which people were just onlookers. But I’m not complaining! People were not pushy and for such a large attendance, it was pretty civilised. It was fascinating to see all the different types of food.

The prices were not expensive (by Zurich standards), which indicated to us that the idea was probably to buy things from one or two stalls rather than get a full meal from one. However, we ended up just buying something from one of the stalls and it ended up being more filling than it looked. I think it might have been Taiwanese dumplings. The rain was probably also a factor in us cutting down our food intake.

Another part of Zurich Eats was a tomato festival (yes, a tomato festival!). We went to that on the following day after stuffing ourselves at the Hiltl where we had had brunch.

Several people had told me that the Hiltl brunch was very good and indeed it was. For a fixed price of 57 CHF, we got a prosecco, two hot drinks, plus the full buffet including breads, cereals, fresh juices, fried and scrambled eggs, as well as the usual lunch / dinner buffet that they always have, which has an overwhelming choice. I can’t even begin – there are things like onion rings and pakoras, then there’s an Indian curries section, a Thai curries section, then just general salads, then other vegetarian dishes (Roesti, mushroom sauce, spaghetti, other pasta dishes), and then a whole section of desserts.

Anyway, after brunch, we walked up to the Tomato Festival by Buerkliplatz near the lake. Unfortunately, we were both too stuffed to be able to eat anything else, although tomatoes aren’t my favourite food, so I wasn’t really so tempted anyway.

We wandered into a prize giving ceremony, but we weren’t sure what it was for and only later discovered that it was for the photography competition. The photographs were all printed on the outside of the tent and ranged from professionally-taken arty photographs, to colourful displays of tomatoes, to photographs of tomatoes in funny shapes, and just generally comedic photos with tomatoes. I wasn’t sure what the judges were looking for based on this large range of topics or if there were different categories for people to enter. It was a fun display, though.

There were also many stalls set up from people selling different breeds (?) of tomatoes and it was, as far as I could tell, a celebration of rare tomatoes. Each stall had tiny bits of tomatoes set out for you to try, so you could wander round and taste each of them in turn. The colours ranged from almost white to almost black and some were multi-coloured. One was called a pineapple tomato and I was a bit curious about that but never got to taste it.

In addition to tomatoes, there were also other stalls of handcrafted items and home-baked or home-grown food, as well as various types of grappa. Grappa / schnapps seems much more common in Switzerland and Germany than in the UK.

Anyway, it made for an interesting afternoon. Next weekend, the food festival continues in my work building on Saturday, so I think it’s following me around and not me it. I will obviously starve once October comes.

Zurich - Eating Out

Desserts at the Kameha Sunday Brunch

I’ve been trying to decide if there are differences between eating out in Egypt and eating out in Zurich (apart from the obvious – prices and location!).

I’ve revisited some old, familiar places since I’ve been back (Seerose, LakeSide, Bauschaenzli, Tao’s) and tried out some new places (Kameha, Razzia).

I started off thinking that really you can eat out just as well in Egypt as you can in Zurich, but I’m now wondering if that’s true and, actually, whether it’s even fair to compare. The two countries are complete opposites – Switzerland is almost sickeningly wealthy and Egypt is so poor that even the electricity isn’t stable. Switzerland can afford better things and in addition the quality items are closer and cheaper to import. It has a larger, wealthier population to serve; in Egypt, particularly now, the “wealthy” residents and tourists (whether Egyptian/Arabic/Western) are relatively scarce, and there’s no incentive to invest in fancy restaurants. Interestingly, Egyptians and Arabs holidaying in Egypt now spend more money than the Europeans, so the recession in Europe has its consequences for Egypt as well.

Although I enjoy eating out, it’s not a “must do” on my agenda in life. However, when I was in Egypt, I used to go out maybe once a week with Nicole, trying out various establishments. The quality was higher than I was expecting, although, of course, the better the food, generally the higher the price. B’s at the marina, for instance, has high quality offerings and a great location, but you are paying near European prices (whatever that means; but lower than Swiss prices!). Thai Garden in Mamsha is also nicely designed with good food. Again, it’s not so cheap, but that’s speaking as someone who is thinking of Egyptian prices and having no income rather than as someone earning and thinking in Swiss francs!

My budget is limited in Egypt as well, so I rarely go to the very top-end establishments, whereas in Switzerland I’m earning and can afford to spend the money. This also skews the comparison. For instance, the Indian restaurant at the Oberoi in Sahl Hasheesh is supposed to be stunning, but I’ve also heard its cost is near prohibitive (for those living in Egypt), so I’ve yet to try it out.

But the selection and quality of good restaurants in Zurich is superb. I’ve already had some wonderful meals sitting by the lake (Seerose, LakeSide), some restaurants have interesting features (Razzia is an old cinema and is beautiful). You pay a price, of course, but there’s such a huge selection of places to go, many of which I have yet to visit, that it’s overwhelming. In Hurghada, we sometimes struggled to find somewhere we hadn’t tried that looked decent (by European standards). Often, the best places are in hotels, which makes eating out feel a bit clinical, too.

In Egypt, places are often not consistently good – so you can go one time and think you’ve found a hidden gem, you return, and you feel rather disappointed. In Switzerland, there’s more consistency. Usually, if a place is good, it will be good all other times that you go as well. You may feel you are paying a fortune, but in return you will often be sitting somewhere that’s amazingly well (or interestingly) designed. In the Kronenhalle, you can even go for a drink surrounded by original works from Giacometti, Picasso, and Chagall. Angkor has little channels with fish swimming round you as you eat. This summer, the Hiltl, the world’s oldest vegetarian restaurant, has decorated its exterior with fake grass. And, of course, you get a great selections of wines in many restaurants, which is lacking in Egypt.

A very German/Swiss tradition is the Sunday Brunch. It took me many years to warm to this idea – I couldn’t really see the point at first (why eat all that at this time of day? Breakfast isn’t so expensive and I like my morning cereal). However, I’m now a convert. It’s a wonderful way to spend a Sunday. Brunches generally run from around 11am until 2pm and most times it is an all-inclusive buffet with breakfast items, main course lunch items, and desserts. I went to the brunch at the Kameha the other week.

The location isn’t so great (although Lena tells me that it says otherwise on the Kameha website!), but for 69 CHF the brunch was excellent value and the food of good quality. There were all the traditional breakfast items, plus honey from a honeycomb, antipasti, a dim sum table, eggs cooked to order, a choice of mains cooked fresh to order and brought to your table (the day we went, it was veal or a vegetarian pasta dish), tea, coffee and water to your heart’s content (and a prosecco before you began). The desserts were home made as was the delicious ice cream. There was no mistaking the flavours in the desserts – the coffee mousse was stronger than my cappuccino!

If you want to experience the high life, the Dolder brunch is also good, but more expensive (and, scandalously, doesn’t include water). However, you can buy a champagne add-on option, and drink as much champagne as you like. That’s what I call getting your priorities right!

So, all in all, I’ve got to admit that it is nice to be back and to have this huge range of places to go to and enjoy. This is, however, largely helped by the fact that I’m earning a salary (for which I am also grateful!).