Post office queue

Today, LSP and I created a Post office queue.

we are lucky in our village that we retain a post office. We went in today to send our Christmas cards and Post the packages.

How would we know that it would take 25 minutes. !!!!

 6 parcels, 8 overseas cards, and a stack of UK cards to be posted. 

(should not have taken 25 minutes) 

all the rest of the cards will be dropped off by hand. 

In the post Christmas Sales we do not need to buy any more Christmas Cards. We have enough in the box. I need to remember this when I see pretty cards. We do need Paper! we are down to the last roll. it did get tense. I did buy a roll of full price wrap this year when we went to John Lewis. I could not resist as it has bunting on it. This was lucky as we would have ran out. 

All of the presents have been tidied away, well those that have not been posted far and wide.

 (happy full snowmen) 

so after disrupting the whole village, we took oldest daughter to the shops. (although LSP and I finished our Christmas Shopping, the rest of the family have not) 

Its great the feeling of wandering around with no pressure. no need to buy, no need to queue, just to enjoy looking. 

oh and fitting in a hot chocolate and mince pie.....

I was tempted to buy for me as Kirsty Alsopp's Craft was only 12.99 and they had some lovely knitting books. however. I resisted. there is nothing in it that I cant find on the internet. 

Also this morning when I was tidying I realised how full the bookshelf is! I am going to have to treat the bookshelves like the cookbooks and will be operating a 1 in 1 out policy! so any purchases will have to be carefully considered. 

After a stroll round TKMaxx...OD still had not found what she was looking for so. 

We ventured to Matalan. I am not the biggest fan of Matalan, but did find something to make me smile...

(No I did not buy one as they did not do double's or king's) 

Well that's all the shopping, wrapping, packing, posting stress out of the way. 

December will be spent catching up with friends and sorting out the food....oh and putting up the decorations. 

The highlight of the day? (apart from spending time with the family)

Beautiful Sky!

All wrapped up.

Well, that's the Christmas Shopping done. just a couple of things to wrap and we are all sorted.

I love Christmas, a lot. however, I cannot abide all the hustle and bustle of shopping in December.
My Christmas shopping is done in the sales and we always have a present box in the house. some things we buy with people in mind and other's are just nice things that will get a home with someone at some point.

All of the cards and wrap are bought in the sales in January/February. However when we looked at all of the cards we possibly have enough for the next 2 years. !

I do go mad at Christmas. Lots of gifts, lots of decorations and good quality food.

I think our day is quite typical.

The day starts with present opening.

Then Breakfast of fresh fruit, Brioche and croissants.

I then retire to the Kitchen where I will cook for the next few hours. I love it. LSP and the children will play with their presents while I am basting, boiling and roasting.

We then sit and eat lunch. LSP and the children do the washing up and then  we watch the Queens speech.

We keep the fire lit all day and it is a very relaxed day.

Our most unusual Christmas was one we shared with a friend.

Our Christmas morning started as usual,  however at 12.00 we packed up the roast turkey, trimmings, roast veg, stuffing and veg into container's.

Packed it into the car and drove into town to a friends house, where we unpacked it all again.

We then had a shared Christmas, there were the 5 of us and the 3 of them. They made the starters and puddings and we brought the main. It went very well and included the most amazing trifle, which pleased SE as its his favourite pudding.

I am sat, listening to the Sunday service on the radio. Its the first Sunday of Advent. I am going to wrap up the last of the presents.

I hope all of your preparations are going well.

(for the regular readers of my blog. Youngest Daughter is recovering. She is still quite weak but in a lot less pain.My Big Sister is recovering and adjusting to living with gall stones and is adjusting to the change in her diet. My Nan is still in Hospital, she has recovered as much as she can in hospital and now just needs to go home. There will need to be adjustments to her care package as she will need some more help at home for a while)

 

Don't make lists.....

Ok so it was inevitable,

Making lists leads to a list of things not done......

My list on Friday, was as follows.....

I will code all the things not done in red, and leave the completed item's black....

Go food shopping, 

Take dog to the groomer's,

Visit Grandmother, 

Visit Graveyard, 

Do a geocache, 

Do some work at home,

fill in holes in hallway,

return an item to the shops, 

trim the hedges, 

Go to the gym, 

Clean the back yard, 

Cook a 2 course family roast,

entertain brother in law,

phone sister,

phone other sister,

change sheets, 

walk dogs,

sort out present cupboard,

buy 2 engagement pressie's

buy engagement card, 

post engagement card, 

post R.S.V.P's for wedding, 

sort out shoes, 

eat, 

sleep, 

watch movie,

talk to the children,

talk to LSP, 

enjoy not being at work, 

take lots of photo's

bake a cake, 

rest!

Hmm, As explained yesterday, cold got worse combined with rain and hail, put a stop to the outdoor jobs. I did manage to achieve some things this weekend...

On Saturday morning I started with some restorative lemon verbena tea....

The flowers that were bought for the cemetery then brightened up the windowsill...

Then a brunch of bacon, spinach and mushroom... It is the nicest, breakfast/brunch ever....

I then tried to sort out the dog toys and remove the toys that are seldom played with or are to dirty......

The dogs found this very interesting and tried to destroy my efforts....

I did manage to change the sheets.....

You can't beat getting into freshly made and ironed sheets... bliss. 

Then seeing England beat France at the rugby...

Sorted out the odd socks in the odd socks bag......(which was a special Christmas pressie) 

I then retreated to the sofa for the evening.......

This morning...started off bright and sunny.....

So I dusted off a handbag...

So we went off to the farmer's market....

However, despite the bright start, the weather took a significant turn for the worse..... rain and even hail!!!!

We then went to grab a cup of tea......

Then, we came home to do the cooking, and wrap up some pressie's, including wrapping up the stuff for the blog swap.....

So although I managed less then half the list...It was not an idle weekend....