Daily Project round 8

[SpiritOfEdna]

A brand new shiny thread. Whether you want to do one extra thing a day, or a brain dump of what you have to do this is the place.

Hi all,

Re Christmas plans- well I think i have pretty much bought all the gifts I need to for random children and friends. I'm in a group of 11 women where we all exchange gifts. It causes me a headache every single year due to the cost etc. But it's very much organised and spearheaded by one member of the group who just loves gifting for things and in the past when we have suggested we scale back she's horrified and hurt. It's an ongoing source of stress for me. (And no doubt I moaned last year as well). But I have found a shop that sells really pretty little handmade felt and wood christmas decorations for under £10 each so have stocked up on those plus some really pretty little woollen Fair Isle mittens for my closest friend. If anyone looks askance I'll just say that COL is getting me this year. I know 2 others are keen to scale back also. I've also delved into the gifts I bought in the sales last year and think I am covered for great nieces and nephews.

I have a few things to sort for people in Australia and will give that some more thought this week.

DH and I are talking this year about not gifting each other and drastically limiting to the DCs. I did buy myself the new Richard Osman book though and have given it to the Dcs to wrap for me. I'll find them something for DH.

Christmas stresses me out every year.

Otherwise today i have tried and failed to do an International transfer of some money. But that will be sorted tomorrow. The bank here did not recognise the destination account number so I just have to ring and confirm it then sorted I hope.

I have had another drying session at the Laundrette. It's so peaceful reading a book and not having people want things from me for 30 minutes.

The rest of the day I have to do some CPD modules for some temp work I have next week. Our cleaner has come and done her magic. And I am making pasta meatballs for dinner.

It's all good really!

I know it feels early but I’m like @FourSeasonsLobelia , lots of my Christmas presents have been bought now as we need to deliver them in the middle of November to family when next visiting the oldies. I haven’t done anything for DH, DS or DD yet though. Tomorrow I’m going to have a crack at buying gift tags and Christmas cards but I think I lot of shops won’t have them out until after Halloween. I asked in our big Sainsbury’s this week and was told no wrapping paper, gift tags, cards etc until the weekend. I’ve added some bottles of alcohol to the next Sainsbury’s delivery which are presents as there’s Nectar price plus 25% off for buying more than 6 bottles at the moment. It helps spread the cost a little too!

I love popping on our thread to find so many new posts. 🥰

Got squeezed in for phone GP appt to get medical form completed. Need to go there after lunch to pay and get hard copy then forward to occ therapist.

TMI WARNING IF YOU GET QUEASY:

Handyman asked to re-sched after I advised we are sick here and that i could offer medical masks. I'm pleasantly surprised as it seems no one cares these days and I thought I might be OTT for giving the heads up. So, next week it will be. I've got lovely green and yellow coming out my nose when I do a sinus rinse and coughed up brown mucous this morning. But, really, I do feel better that I did a few days ago. 🤷‍♀️

TMI WARNING OVER

Since tidying last night I don't have anything urgent to do today, just nagging overdue things still, though.
Need to do in-person banking today and can do it after/before popping over to GP office. Forecast has changed and it is sunny so will take kids with me and stop at a nice playground we don't often go to.
Have got the towels/washcloths on a bleach was atm.
Heading out after lunch. 😊
Will mask up for errands. 😇😷

Morning! @petalpower with your description of your house I imagine lovely long country walks and for some reason I have decided that your dogs are springers! So nice to get out for an early walk with friends 🧡
The woods are beckoning me again after months of only managing strolls along the promenade on the seafront.

@Peridot1 I did have a nosey web search and have concluded that you must live either in Shropshire or Hampton Court 😆
My knee cushion arrived, complete with strap as you described. I think I prefer the very thick memory foam pillow I've been using but I'll give it a go again tonight. Bedtime is quite the performance here - DH gets in bed, head hits pillow, goes to sleep. I have a mouth splint, a specially shaped pillow and now my knee one. DH ought to be using a sleep apnea machine but won't, and I use the pillow I actually bought for him, because he won't use that either.

Oof..Christmas! I opened my mother's Good Housekeeping Christmas edition yesterday and reminded myself why I intend to bypass the whole thing. There are one or two articles about alternative Christmases but they are more about going to Dubai, or on a European river cruise. The latter would be fine were it not for the excitable descriptions of the Christmas markets which sound a lot like the winter wonderland thing in Hyde Park which just made me overwhelmed and irritable the one time I went.

Bah Humbug! Sorry 🙈 Sorry you have friends with expectations @FourSeasonsLobelia 💐 The gifts sound nice though.

Aiming to create a peaceful, vaguely Christmassy space for the children here ( Christmas tree and the nativity scene) Did my gift shopping on Amazon yesterday whilst waiting for keys to be cut, plus an added one to the toy bank they had in the shop. I'm not all Grinch 🙃 The house across the road has their tree up. Long as it's not in my house I don't care. It brightens up dull evenings, is my successful reframing of that.

Need to get a pumpkin, or the local children won't be knocking on our door this evening, and then who will eat all the sweeties I bought?

I hope your lurgy is gone soon @Mumtobabyhavoc Not fun, feeling like that 😢

I will investigate what's going on in my larder today. It probably need a bit of stock rotation. I also need to drop some papers to my mother's accountant ( she's never done her own tax returns and I'm not about to start doing them for her, poa or not!)

Happy Halloween 🎃

Here is my haunted rectory

Don't blame you for not doing your mum's tax returns @WinterFrogs , IMO!! DH used to be an accountant but we still use a tax accountant to do ours. He says you are not paying for their skills necessarily, but for their indemnity insurance! (Plus, who wants to have to deal with HMRC..... ).

Hope you are feeling better too @Mumtobabyhavoc

I confess I am usually a bit Bah Humbug about Christmas generally. But, that said, we tend to have super quiet Christmases just us and I love that. We are not doing anything for Halloween either.... last year we only had one set of children knock on the door so this year we plan to sit in with a film and eat all the sweets ourselves. The community centre near us have fireworks tomorrow night so we will go and see that I think.

I hope that the cushions do work, @WinterFrogs . Pain in the night is so debilitating.

Today i have lots of little things to sort. - and Halloween candy to buy!

Winter: your pics don't post. But, more importantly,

The house across the road has their tree up. ???

Are your neighbours insane?! 😱

@Mumtobabyhavoc I did walk in the door and said to DH ' they really do walk among us'. 😆

I'm trying to be a better human and less Grinchy though, so I am genuinely trying to reframe it all as winter lights, which are lovely.

I do have to click away from those ' have I bought my child enough' threads though. The over consumption of stuff drives me insane.

I'm hoping my perfectly innocuous photo of a house shows up soon!

I am keen to see the house also!

Living in an old haunted rectory was a childhood fantasy of mine... it would have an orchard and stables... sigh. Could still happen!

Trying again

Ooooh!!!!!

That is gorgeous!!

Isn't it!
Swimming pool and orchard certainly. Room for a pony I would imagine. And the most glorious views!

Haha, you’re right @WinterFrogs ! I‘m such a cliche!! One Sprocker spaniel (cocker/springer cross) and one black Lab who I took on when my dad had to
move to his care home. We’d already had the spaniel for a few years but the Lab has settled in well and is a very easy dog.

@WinterFrogs- you got me. I live in Hampton Court. 😂😜

Some of you are very organised for Christmas. I’ve done nothing. But I don’t have much to do really. So that makes it easier. And we are going away to Dubai for New Year. Not my first choice of destination but it suits for various reasons.

Ooh Hampton Court is so beautiful @Peridot1 . Wow!
One of the houses in the next village has all their outdoor Christmas lights up and has done since the beginning of October. Also an illuminated reindeer in their garden!
I also don’t blame you for not doing your mum’s tax return @WinterFrogs . DH is just getting everything together for MIL’s tax return and will send it to the accountant.
Today I went to get my hair cut and coloured and picked up some more Christmas presents whilst I was in town. I also got Christmas cards and gift tags - I’m very fussy/particular about what I like and really enjoy all the wrapping and ribbons etc. Also managed to take a skirt back to M and S as I’d ordered two in different sizes to see which fitted best, bought some work trousers on DS’s behalf, paid in some cash at the bank, topped up on boring essentials at Boots and took blister packs and empty toiletries to the recycling point. We have guests for dinner tomorrow so picked up some bits from the Indian supermarket that are needed for the recipes DH has chosen.
Now sitting in front of the log burner thinking about pizza and wine!

Hi all. A very quick dip in @petalpower to say that sadly I really don’t live at Hampton Court!

@petalpower I think you've probably mentioned their breeds before, but also things you've said about hair and mud! And obviously village life. I just naturally came to that conclusion 😁
We are dog-free by choice at the moment but spend far too much time looking at videos of springers and their antics!

Halloween was a literal wash out round here sadly. We had a few little ones early on, including GD, but then the heavens opened.

Going back to Christmas and the Good Housekeeping, there was an article about keeping it simple, accompanied by a gorgeously dressed woman standing by a beautifully laid out table. It didn't look simple at all! I think I just lack the Christmas gene 😔 It feels too chaotic to me. @Peridot1 my being organised consists of buying gifts ( and if I can't get it online, I don't want it!) by mid November for mum, DS and DDs, their spouses and children and my niece and her little ones. I bought dh a present and promptly gave it to him last week. We take 'the kids' out for a meal the week before Christmas then leave them in peace to go to their in laws on Christmas day, and mum's home really leans into the festive season so we join in a bit with that. I'd love to be more like you with ribbons and bows @petalpower My youngest is the same. All about the sparkle ✨️

I sound like such a misery 😆 Really I am not, just happiest when life is simple!

Are you feeling any better @Mumtobabyhavoc? I do hope so 💐

Today I am going to deal with my lists and notebooks. Prompted by another thread, i realise that my endless scribbling in a selection of notebooks is less than helpful 🤦‍♀️

The rain is still hammering down! Coffee and real rain sounds....lovely ❤️

Hope you all stay dry today!

It's a late night here for us now just past 12:30am. It was raining heavily most of the day and lightened up enough to venture out around 7pm. Then it was just a mist and gone, so all we had to do was watch out for puddkes/flooded areas where the storm sewers were blocked with leaves. Each dc filled their little pumpkin pail and had lots of fun. Some houses really got into the spirit of things, too. We ended up carving a new pumpkin family before going out. When we were done trick or treating I took the kids out for dessert before home. We sorted all the candy at home and I weeded out the pieces I won't let the kids have yet (choking risks, gummies, hard candies) and gave them some candy I bought for trading so they wouldn't feel that mummy was taking their hard earned treats. 💡
I let them have the one bag of chips they each got and a chocolate then we had proper snackss (naan, cheese, grapes, gyoza) watched Charlie Brown and The Great Pumpkin and a few other Peanuts cartoons then off to bed.

I managed a load of laundry and a quick vacuum before going out and I've got the dishwasher running now.
Stoll congested and coughing (all of us), but I think a tiny bit better. 🙏

What on earth did you say to get your post hidden @Mumtobabyhavoc ?? 😆

aaaah that @Mumtobabyhavoc . Always the rogue, that one.

I know!
It was about our Hallowe'en night with a pic of our pumpkins and one house all decorated for Hallowe'en.

🤷‍♀️

Halloween was a wash out here too. Hoping to go to an early Bonfire night tonight though.

I think I also missed out on the Christmas gene. TBF though when I was growing up, we had a very tricky difficult relationship with my mother's family and Christmas was truly genuinely traumatic. When I was about 15 my dad refused to 'do Christmas' ever again- he's stuck to that too and I'm 52 now.

We have a nice and quiet time at home nowadays so that's nicer.

She's a shocker alright @FourSeasonsLobelia 😂

aaah the post is there now. I love the pumpkins and the house!!

Hope the coughing for you all eases soon @Mumtobabyhavoc and you feel alot better.

I hope they look at your pictures and allow them @Mumtobabyhavoc 🎃

@FourSeasonsLobelia I hear that with families and Christmas 💐