A Mad Week!

What a week! Time just flew last week with one thing and another which left me with very little time to think about anything! Son2 spent the first night in his new home on Sunday after a day spent ferrying bits and pieces around. I’ll confess to feeling a tad wobbly on Monday and Tuesday but that feeling soon passed. Of course I miss him but, as with Son1 when he moved out, not in the way I thought I would!

I had yet another birthday on Wednesday, they just keep on coming, and the boys both came round for dinner – that in itself was a weird experience – quite tiring! Now that neither have a bedroom to disappear to after dinner we had to entertain them! Yes we all sat around talking as if we had real visitors! When they went I sank into my chair as if I’d been entertaining all day! I had some lovely presents as well – a Radley umbrella, two quilting books, a crochet/knitting book, a lovely bundle of fat quarters in a batik fabric – very pretty – and some lovely quilt label fabric. Unusually no smellies or chocolates!

Oh nearly forgot to tell you – I bought a new food processor! A couple of weeks ago I saw a man at the checkout in Sainsbury’s with a huge box containing a processor. At the time I nudged John and said ‘oooh look at that – think I might treat myself next time I come in!’ I sneaked a peak and saw that it was £99 which I thought was OK as I’d got quite a lot of loyalty points that would help reduce the cost. Anyway, I went in the other evening to find that it was now reduced to £79!! With £67.50 in points I got an absolute bargain! I don’t feel too bad about my treat as my old mixer was 27 years old – John bought it for me on our first Christmas together, it’s certainly earnt its retirement!

Day off on Friday saw me meeting up with Janet in town. We had planned to be a little more daring and go out to a local village but as we had snow the previous evening we decided not to risk country roads and played safe instead. I also finally bought John’s Christmas present – the way I was going he would have had an IOU on Saturday morning!!

On Friday evening we went out for our traditional birthday family meal (Son1 & moi!), sadly Son2 had a prior commitment and couldn’t join us so it was just John, Son1, FDIL & I. We went to Zizis  - I had the tastiest duck I can ever remember having, it was divine and the meat just fell off of the bone.

Haircut Saturday – I’ve gone a bit shorter than usual! I hope when I wash it I can make it look as good as my hairdresser did! Oh and a near disaaaaaster! The shower wouldn’t work on Saturday morning – plenty of pump type noise but no water – John went in to the loft to find that the lagging hadn’t been replaced by the engineer a couple of weeks ago. The pipes were frozen in our well insulated loft! I had the bright idea of leaving the loft open for a while to let some heat waft up and by mid afternoon they had thawed – happily without bursting. What a mess that would have made! (edited – hair came out OK this morning!!)

Being the very kind and loving mother that I am, I offered my ticket for football to Son2 on Saturday – and to the sceptics amongst you, no it wasn’t because a) they’ve been playing very badly lately or b) the weather forecast was not too good! Well, it turned out I missed probably the best match of the season so far! Played in a blizzard and with the ground staff coming out at half time and just into the second half to clear the lines we actually won 3-0 – can you believe it? I watched on the TV and it looked a fantastic game – I’m just glad I was in the warm watching it!

Nearly finished – don’t give up reading now, you’ve come so far! Sunday arrived with a really chilly 9 degrees Fahrenheit (-3 centigrade) and, as the Sunday before Christmas is usually my baking day, I set about making sausage rolls and mince pies – using the new food processor for the latter and a really easy quick flaky pastry a la Delia Smith for the former. John graciously informed me that they were the best sausage rolls I’ve ever made – not bad after 27 years of baking for him!!!

It was Son1’s birthday yesterday – he was 23, how did that happen?? He and FDIL came for dinner along with Son2 and his laundry (!) we had a lovely roast dinner – good practice for doing it all again on Christmas day!

So that was my last week – sorry it’s so long – and here’s my Christmas tree, sadly the most decoration the Ramblings will see this year!!

Merry Christmas to you all and I hope you have a happy and prosperous New Year!

The one about my day off

I might have mentioned before that I work a 'nine day fortnight' effectively allowing me a day off on alternate weeks. The premise is that I work the 75 hours I should work over ten days over nine instead – in reality I work a lot more than that but my conscience is clear when I do take the day off.

Anyhow, today started rather rudely with John jumping out of bed with an expletive because he'd slept until seven o'clock! I harrumphed and turned over but he proceeded to sit on the bed and shave – I was not impressed and dragged myself up, took an armful of washing to the machine, made a cup of tea, powered up the lappy and returned to the bedroom – he'd only made the bed while I was gone! He'd forgotten that I had told him I was off work today!

A slow start catching up with the Twitterverse and I made my mental list of the days chores – I do try to be constructive on these days but I also think I need an opportunity to recoup my energies. I made the fatal mistake of not turning the TV off before my favourite 'Homes Under the Hammer' came on at 10 – so rewarded myself with a cup of coffee while I watched it.
We have had the most glorious weather here in the East of England over the last couple of weeks and today has been no exception – I ventured into the garden to start tidying up and it was so hot I couldn't believe it! I want to know why it is that weeds seem to grow whatever the weather but the flowers fade and die, I'm sure that every time I plant a new shrub or bedding plant it brings with it a new breed of weed which invades the whole garden.

Here's today's list (not terribly successful!):

Sort out the bedroom (yes – the astute amongst you will be asking 'what? Not again', but I have this little problem of not enough space and far too many clothes which I keep adding to!) - Fail

Go to the supermarket to top up before the home delivery tomorrow (crazy I know but needed milk and cereal for breakfast tomorrow) -Success

Tidy the garden (oh how I would love a man to come and 'do' for me, you know the type just a little man (or a big man) who has time on his hands and knows what he's doing and won't charge me the earth) -Success

Arrange for the old furniture to be collected – tried but couldn't get an answer from the local charity that collects

Tidy the vanity unit in the bathroom – the lovely plumber who did some work for us pulled everything out and put it back higgledy-piggledy - Fail

Change the flowers in the front room -Success

Descale the shower head the water here in the East is so hard all of our water using appliances need regular descaling - Success

And that's it – doesn't look like I achieved much but actually I feel quite satisfied with what's been done and here is the evidence to prove it!

Have a great weekend everybody! Oh – almost forgot, see the new button on my side bar? I had an email from this organisation asking me to host a button for them – seemed rude not to – take the time to vote!