Saturday

Sunrise several days ago.

. . . and yes, it is absolutely ridiculous o'clock and I'm wide awake.  The yesterday evening snooze started even earlier - I missed much of Eggheads!  - so no wonder I'm wide awake now.  But you know what?  It doesn't matter.  I have a long list of things to do but I can do them in my time and in my way.  There's nothing fixed except the visit from the oven repain chap (yay) and I don't know when he is coming.  I'd like to get to Morrisons when it opens at seven to do the first stage of the Christmas Shop (the fruit, veg, etc comes later) but apart from that the day is mine.

So, by the end of the day I would like to have . . .
a tidy bedroom (and pigs might fly)
a tidy pair of guest rooms (much more likely as they're basically OK anyway)
a clear kitchen
Christmas tree and ornaments in from the garage
washing and ironing done (and put away)
bread made.

Apart from my bedroom, nothing is too much of a chore really.

Yesterday was absolutely lovely.  Despite the high levels of excitement, they were really as good as gold.  I love watching them at 'free activity'.  I learn so much about them.

I had intended to show them 'Babe' but when I looked for it, I couldn't find it anywhere.  I read 'The Sheep-Pig' to them earlier in the term and they really loved it so I promised they could watch Babe at some point. However, it wasn't to be yesterday.  As a result, I fell back on my old traditional favourites, The Snowman and Father Christmas.  These videos are actually old enough for some not to have seen them and they were entranced.

In the afternoon we had our now traditional Carols by Candlelight.  It was lovely.  Very simple and the singing was, as always, fantastic.  It was a perfect end to what has been quite a difficult term at times for me and it grounded me.  I've always loved singing those traditional carols.

And now the coffee is made (proper coffee on the first day of the holidays, caffeine laden and delicious!) and I have a shopping list to create.


Just one more thing - have you been able to access my blog over the past few days?  It's just that my blog counter showed no visitors for Thursday (that's NEVER happened before) and only a few for Friday.  Also, I've had a stupid amount of spammy stuff to deal with which was a right pain and I've had to reinstate capcha temporarily to get it under control.
If you have been able to read this blog as normal over the last few days (or haven't), I'd be very grateful if you could just leave a comment to let me know.
Many thanks.