Saturday

Good morning.

I'm getting to grips with my 'new' planning routine.  Colour coding is really helping as I can see at a glance what sort of things I'm doing and whether there's a balance.

I was able to get a pack of five different coloured pens so my 'colour groups' are school and tuition, family and friends, health and fitness, creative and outings and holidays.  I'm happy to see that I have a purple (outings and holidays) each week in  November, not all biggies but nevertheless an outing/treat.  This coming week there's Stratford and also out with a friend (so that covers two categories), then there's visiting two local garden centres and at the end of the month there's my weekend in Bury St Edmunds.

I've also been able to book in an aqua class and a couple of walks ahead of time and can see that I'm getting in enough organised fitness stuff.  For the first time ever, I have blocked in a 'Christmas Prep Day' when I can get the house sorted, vegetables prepped and in the freezer, cranberry jelly and mince pies made, etc - all the traditional stuff, you know.  That's instead of a bit here and a bit there which is how I had to do it when working full time and should be a better use of time and easier to keep on top of.  I'm rather looking forward to it - in case you hadn't realised, I do dearly love Christmassy stuff!

It's taken some time to get it all worked out but once done, it's done for the month, more or less, and it will get faster as I get used to it.  I just have to remember to make sure that diary and grid keep up with each other.

Well, here I am at Dad's.  He's a bit under the weather so I'm glad I'm here.  Right at the moment I'm sat in bed, looking at the glorious autumnal sunshine and colour, everything slightly frosted, with a coffee beside me and feeling pretty rested.  This morning I will pop along to Tescos to get some fresh veg and this afternoon I hope to take a walk to Bickerdikes to look at their range of artificial trees, having checked the old bank balance first!

I suppose I ought to think about getting up.  Dad's not set his alarm and I'm hoping he will sleep in a bit this morning.  Have a good day and I hope that you haven't been personally affected by any of this terrible flooding.  xx