I had a busy couple of hours before work this morning clearing stuff from the corner of the dining room. It was mainly packaging, carrier bags, paints and stuff that needed to be put in the garage. I was able to put the tree in the corner with a few presents around it so that the dining room looked a bit more festive.

In between meetings and the rain, I had a lovely walk to the shops with the girls. Although it was a bit chilly, the sun shone for the time we were out. The girls went into Asda to get some gifts and I queued up to get a prescription from the chemist and then queued up again outside Waitrose to pick up a parcel – there were actually quite a lot of people about. The girls got a hot chocolate each from Costa for the walk back. It was really pleasant, and we said that we might go for a walk again tomorrow if I’m not too busy with work.

My car gets a bit of attention

I had to clear out my car last night as it was going in for a service and MOT this morning which was one of the reasons why we had the walk today. Around a month ago, before I knew we were going to be in tier 4, I organised for it to be collected and brought back instead of having to take it to the garage. I was really impressed with Peugeot and how they organised for everything to be done in a socially distanced way.

The instructions were for me not to use my car for 3 hours before they picked it up and the driver wore a mask when he knocked on the door and I assume he wore it in my car as well. Payment was organised over the phone before he brought it back and it cost me far less than the price we had originally agreed.

The evening

I had so much to do this evening and to top all of that I ended up cooking two meals because I had a big pack of mince to use up. Three of us had chilli con carne and one had meat pie. The good thing is that we have a little bit of pie leftover for lunch tomorrow.

After dinner I spoke to my friend quickly because she wanted my advice on sorting paperwork. She also had 17 things on her list to do this evening (we are so alike!). When we spoke I told her that I didn’t have a proper filing system yet for papers or a space tidy enough to start organising one, so all of my papers were in boxes or on the counter in the kitchen. I explained that whilst she was waiting for her new workstation, my advice was to put all paperwork in one place and sort it out a bit at a time.

And then overwhelmed feeling hit me..

I didn’t know whether I wanted to wrap presents, clear up after dinner, or just have a break for a while and come back to it. I sat quietly for a few minutes in the study to collect my thoughts and saw the Terry’s Chocolate Orange on the side. I knew what I had to do – eat chocolate and watch a film. That would make me feel better.

I can’t even remember what film my daughter and I watched because the next thing I know it was now (2am) and I’ve just woken up on the study sofa. I vaguely remember the girls saying goodnight and I mumbled something about the kitchen being a mess from dinner. I also vaguely remember one of them saying that they were going to do it.

So, here I am quickly editing and posting this before going back to sleep – luckily I wrote it quickly before the film started.

I didn’t even get my soak in the bath this evening. Bit late for that now.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra

Added note… just found this downstairs. What a lucky mum I am 😊