Impossible

Already I need a holiday.  Maybe I didn't recharge enough on my last one.  My body today is not letting me do anything so instead of having a lovely lunch in Manchester 's Ethopian restaurant,  I'm lying in bed feeling sorry for myself.
I have spent some time recently attempting to plan said holiday but it feels impossible.  Here are some of the initial requirements :
Has to be in school holidays. (I have lots of holiday remaining but that will all evaporated on March 31st so ideally before then, so that's half term then)
No flying.
Somewhere with warm sunshine

I'll stop you there then.  How can I find somewhere with warm sun that we can reach without flying when we only have a week to play with?

So for now I have given up.  As has my body.  Maybe we can try again tomorrow.

Back to black socks

I received several pairs of Christmas socks this year. As I worked from home when I was working over Christmas, I didn't have to put my uniform on, so wore said socks every day. But now its back to black.

I wrote that about three days ago and never got chance to add more. it's always a bit full on after a break.

Today has been v windy, and i had a visit next to the sea so I tried to take a pic of the large waves crashing. I got back in the car and my lips tasted of the sea :)

Marvellous meringue

The meringue at the afternoon tea was so pretty I almost didn't want to eat it. I'm a bit of a sucker for food presented in small cute ways. I'm very sleepy now tho. Maybe I'm just beginning to relax as my holiday comes to an end?

Cold busting strategies

Now we've moved the Christmas tree the lounge seems colder. Maybe it was absorbing some of the chill? Or perhaps its just that the temperature has dropped? Whatever the cause, I'm back to trying to figure ways to warm the lounge, which always seems cold. I've just ordered some radiator reflecting material ( a small step up from tin foil). I have gazillions of candles burning. I'm now back to trying to work out how to keep the draught from the window when we have a pesky dog insistent on checking passers by every 5 minutes.

Overspill

There has been a positive result of these intersecting factors :
My inability to sit still when I am not working
The winter sun showing up just how in need of a clean the house is
A rare ruthless mood when I'm able to chuck ridiculous items held onto for no good reason.

So a lot of things have been binned or recycled. I have vast amounts of dust up my nose having tackled areas not dealt with in maybe a decade - never mind writing my name in it,  I could have carved an effigy.

I'm even hoping to replace these disintegrating curtains - I gave them an extra 20 years of use when they were finished with by someone else. In fact whilst I'm at it,  I might even get some for the bedroom too,  currently bedecked with ones that don't fit and are a colour I don't like but again are ones I liberated from the scrap heap.
I'm not sure how long this urge will last,  to live in (and so somehow try and create) a home that is less cluttered,  more ordered. I might even just settle for trying to get the wardrobe doors to shut rather than everything untidily spilling out.  That might be tomorrow 's task.
I visit homes where the cushions are colour coordinated.  Where surfaces exist that are not totally hidden by clutter. Where swathes of carpet are visible instead of strewn with obstacles that surely could be housed elsewhere.
I only have 4 more days off tho and want to be rested on my return,  so I might have to be thankful for what I achieved today.

Recommendations

As you know I'm not really a tv person. But I'm determined to have some down time and am not very good at it if the tv is rubbish. So today I simultaneously tidied or sewed rather than stayed focussed. So if anyone has any televisual delights to recommend, please do. I may not have been absorbed by anything today, but I have watched a couple of treats over the holiday. I enjoyed Esio Trot, What we did on our holiday, and Dawn French's description of her 30 million minutes on the planet so far. I'd recommend all 3.
Meanwhile I officially have no more novels to read. Still plenty of books on the reading pile, but I want some fiction and have just finished my book group book for the month. Yes, already. So what should I seek out in the charity shops tomorrow?
I await you lists :-)

New year!

Lots to be grateful for already this New Year! My children are back home ( 7 hours, driving on new year's day is ok) and thankfully their dad is now out of intensive care. I have managed to finish off my work bits so now have a whole week off (excepting just a little on weds cos i ought to remember not to take time off st the start of the month!) I should slow down with my large glass of Bailey's, or else I don't stand a chance of following the Sherlock episode shortly.
Hope you are likewise finding much to be grateful for.