Today is Candlemas which was when Jesus was presented at Church and the purificiation of the Virgin Mary 40 days after having Baby Jesus, a tradition which lasted well into the Twentieth Century and fell into disuse at the Second Vatican Council in the 1960’s although some women do still go to Church after the birth of their children.
Candlemas is also the day that people would bring their candles for the year to be blessed at Church to light the dark nights and to show that Jesus is the Light of the World.
It is also Groundhog Day. The little so and so saw his shadow so anothr six weeks of Winter! I really would love an early Spring as I have a mountain of jobs to get done in the garden but hey ho it will be what it is!
The tradition for Groundhog Day actually began in Germany where the locals would watch the hedgehogs and other creatures to see how they were behaving and this might mean it would be an early Spring. February 2nd is the midpoint between the Winter solstice and Spring equinox and tradition says if there are clear skies and there will be more winter, however overcast meant an early Spring.
DH had a busy weekend at the swimming pool with the events and I was busy getting some quilting done which I will show you when it is done and gifted.
Today DH went away for the week for the business exhibition so it is just Coco and I with Youngest, Fiancée and Little Lady with Gordon & Blaze. The weather this week is due to be cold and raining again, although the sun did manage to break through the clouds for all of two seconds today! I am really hoping it is going to get better soon!
Wow last day of January already and it has been, to be quite honest, chaos as always! Getting myself ready for an eye op which did not happen (!), waiting for the safe arrival of our new Little Lady (she was late), getting back to work after a wonderful Christmas with our lovely family seemed harder this year and finally the weather. There has been quite a bit of rain but it has also been very cold, a lot colder than previous years, although we have avoided the very heavy snow. We have not done too much else, I always think of January as being a bit of a hibernation month after the fun of Christmas.
February is up next of course and as a little girl I always thought it was the longest month of the year, even though it can be three or two days shorter than all the rest! I think because it is the end of Winter and here in the Uk sometimes our weather in February can be worse. The swimming county championships have moved, AGAIN, and it is this weekend and next whereas normally it is the end of February so that has thrown me! I am definitely having my eye op done at the end of the month and will have to wait another four weeks until I am able to drive again!
Monday is Groundhog Day and will Phil see his shadow and we have six more weeks of Winter or not and we have an early Spring? I think he will see his shadow and we have six more weeks of winter!
February 17th is the start of the Chinese New Year and 2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse. This animal only comes around in a 60 year cycle and brings with it intense energy, independent and rapid transformation! It also says that it will bring with it a year of passion, ambition and volatile fast paced atmosphere which apparently encourages bold actions and significant although sometimes distruptive change! The way things are going in the World at the moment I would say that the Fire Horse has already been making itself known!
Of course not forgetting February 14th Valentines Day! Do you bother celebrating for those in relationships? In September this year DH and I will have been together for forty years and my love for him has never changed from day one. However I am not bothered about Valentines Day! I have always felt it was one of those days for the card suppliers to try and make more money out of everyone, especially after the Christmas period. Also we, as a family, do not tend to go out for meals on these types of days as the one time we did the food was dreadful, the place was full of course and the whole evening was just not good. This year it is on a Saturday so if anything DH and I will perhaps have a takeaway and curl up on the sofa with a film!
I hope you lovely lot had a good January and avoiding all the negative news that is out there at the moment and February will be kind to you. My Op is due on the 23rd so I am trying to get as much as possible done before hand and afterwards I will be relying on my trusty Book Beat subscription to keep me from going stir crazy! Have a wonderful weekend.
Today is Blue Monday apparently but I have been trying to change my mind set about January as I always associate January with Monday mornings! You know the feeling how Mondays feel and I always think January is like that, especially after a wonderful Christmas. However……
I think I will be changing my view because possibly tomorrow I may be having a macular hole repaired in my left eye! You know how I said that I would be leaving all medical things in 2025 and 2026 was going to be a much better year? Well it’s not! Apparently this type of problem with the eyes is often inherited (!) but after the Op is actually worse this time as I have to spend 45 minutes of every hour for five days with my head on my forearm which enables the gas they put in your eye to press on the hole for it to hopefully close! The Op is done under local again so I will be awake for it all!!!!
The other thing you need to know about me and eyes is I don’t do them! Whenever there is a film on with something about eyes I have to shut mine. I have worn glasses since I was eighteen for reading as I would never be able to put contact lenses in!!! Grr. The other thing is that it might not close and they have to do it all again and I cannot drive again for four weeks! Also I am not able to do anything whilst I have my head down so I will be utilising my over the head earphones and listening to some books to try and keep me sane!!!!!
On to more possitve things DH and I managed to get our garage finished with the decluttering and also tidied all the boxes so we are now able to see everything and it has all been labled. We also tidied the rest of the garage too and yesterday we did our attic so that is now complete. A job which began this time last year. We have managed to get rid of quite a bit, things we did not need or use, most to the Charity shop and the rest to the refuse centre. I also went through all my clothes at the weekend and got rid of some jumpers that I was not wearing and a couple of blouses again for the Charity shop. My final sweep of our home will be done when I do the Spring Cleaning later in the year.
I did very well for meals last week though! Jayne and I went out for lunch on Tuesday. We always try and go close to home at this time of year on the basis that we do not know what the weather is going to do. We have had a bit of snow already but it did not last long fortunately. We were okay with the weather and the pub we went to, we have been to several times before and the food is always good. There were a lot of people who had the same idea as it was quite busy. Then on Friday evening we went out to dinner with the Head Coach from swimming and his Mom, who I go out for lunch with also. It was a really nice evening and dinner was great.
The rest of this week all depends upon whether I have my eye Op tomorrow or not. If not then it is a quiet week with work and home jobs and a quiet weekend again too, but I am sure I can find some other jobs to do. If the Op does not happen tomorrow hopefully it will be next Monday.
I hope you are having a good January so far and I will let you know how things go tomorrow.
Normally DH and I stay in on New Years! I am not one for crowds at the best of times so New Year is not for me and before The Boys were born we used to do Discos and of course were booked for New Year parties and we absolutely hated them! It was almost forced partying. It was never the same with the Christmas Parties, everyone wanted to be there and they were such fun but wherever we were booked for the New Year parties everyone always seemd like they wanted to be somewhere else! We also used to end up at a motorway service area for food at about 3.00am, as in those days (1986 onwards) there were no fast food places available!!!!
However, this New Year’s Eve we were invited to our very good friends, Anne & Chris, for dinner and to see the New Year in with them and four other friends, Val & Dave, Christine & Pete, we have known them all for over thirty seven years. In fact I can honestly say they are all family now as we have been with them and they with us through everything! Dinner was great, Anne did the main course, Val did the starters and Christine and I brought dessert. Now what you need to know is that when Anne & Chris first moved to Derbyshire they invited us all round for dinner to the huge house they were renting at the time. It was a small manor house! We all brought two bottles of wine each which made a total of twenty plus what Anne & Chris had. Well we got there at 7.00pm and this was in May and we left at 4.30am the next morning when the birds were singing! We talked and laughed and had the most wonderful evening which we all still remember.
On Christmas Eve we went over to see DH’s cousin in DH’s Home Village in Nottinghamshire and have lunch with her and also pick up the meat for the Christmas period. We also went to the Village Church to visit DH’s parents grave and his Aunt & Uncle too. This is the Church above and it is really pretty.
Between Christmas and New Year we, Partner & I, took Fiancée out for lunch as a little “baby shower” lunch. We had a lovely time in the Garden Room at The Cavendish Hotel in Baslow where Jayne and I went for our Christmas lunch. Whilst we were there, DH, The Boys and Little Man went to the car museum of course!
Little Man had a very busy day and was shattered by the time they got home!
Here are a few more pictures of our Christmas at Home.
Pictures of our Sitting Room with the Christmas decorations and the stair lights which are different this year as last year’s lights were chewed by Gordon! These are the new ones and we had to hang them on the outside to stop him chewing the wires!!!!
Because of my Hip Op this year I did not get to make our cake, so this was the bought one
Our Christmas Dining Table set for eight. We were all seated comfortably. Next year we will have one extra so may have to re-arrange things!!!
Present Opening with my wonderful Family.
Little Man and Grandad are best friends.
Sorry this has been a long post but I thought I would do a quick round up from the Festive Season. Over the weekend DH and I put all the deocrations away, which I absolutely hate, and yesterday I cleaned our home from top to bottom. Today I have a basket of ironing to do and then I am up to date with home jobs. I have kept up with our work and Eldest’s work and have a few bits to do later and tomorrow for Eldest.
I have also been doing the Membership Rnewal for the Swimming Club and that has been quite tortuous! It is the first year we have done the renewals electronically online and it has brought up quite a few issues which we have managed to resolve. Out of 155 Accounts, which are the parents, we only have 14 who have not responded! We are hoping to get them sorted by the end of the week and then I can get the renewals done by the end of the month. Sunday is our Open at The Arc in Matlock, Derbyshire and that is going to be a long day from 6.00am to about 8.00pm! I will be putting dinner in the slow cooker for when we get home.
We have had a sprinkling of snow here in Derbyshire, other parts of the country have had quite a bit. I think the reason we have not had much is down to it being -5°c, which is too cold for snow and absolutely freezing! It is the coldest it has been so far this Winter. Today looks like it could snow but I think it is too cold still. Hoping that it will not be snowy on Sunday for the Open as that will be fun getting there. In fact the first time we ran this event we had thick snow that day!!!
I have not forgotten about my Books of 2025 Review which I will try and get done for tomorrow and this Friday is the first Susie’s Friday Book Club Book and if you have looked on the 2026 page I am going to try and do two Books a month this year, but more on that tomorrow.
I do hope you lovely lot had a wonderful Christmas and wish you all a great 2026 and thank you for continuing this journey with me. Hopefully there will be more quilting in 2026 too!
Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx
Our Garden this morning! More frost than snow I think and it is freezing!
Only two more sleeps to go! I cannot believe it is Christmas this week it has really appeared by magic this year for me!
Over the last few weeks I have felt, for all of you who watch “Stranger Things”, I have been in the Upside down! The days and weeks have flown by and although I have been getting things done from my usual To Do lists and ticking things off, they have never seemed to be reducing.
One of the Games at the Fun Gala involved inflateable Antlers and Inflateable Characters!
The Swimmers waiting for the Results!
DH finished work on Thursday last and Friday, Saturday and Sunday we were moving the final things for Youngest & Fiancée out of their rented home an dinto storage or to our home. It is all now done and the keys handed back which is great to get it all done before Christmas. Sunday afternoon and into the evening it was the Swimming Club Fun Christmas Gala and the swimmers had a great event and Sue and I did not have to do anyting so we got to watch all the action. Yesterday we had to take the rubbish to the tip from our home and Youngest’s home and DH helped Eldest with the last few jobs he needed to do before he finished for Christmas.
Today DH is out at the company we work with locally their Christmas dinner and I am doing the cleaning, again! I also have a basket of washing and iroining to do and generally get our home ready for Christmas Day, with the two dogs and the cat under my feet!
Our Stair Lights.
We have had to change the stair lights this year because of our new lodgers! Last year DH and I bought new artifical berries which go on wth green garland and the lights. Well Blaze and Coco decided to eat some of them. They did not swallow them just picked them off, gave them a chew and then left the bits everywhere. So we decided to just put the garland and lights on. Well Gordon decided it was a good idea to chew through the wires for the lights, which fortunately were not on at the time! The new set of lights are now on the outisde of the stairs as you can see!!! I always say Christmas is about adapting things!
The double issue of the magazine I have every week, Country Life. I just love the cover.
Tomorrow DH and I are out visiting family over in Nottingham and running some other errands and I will be getting everything preppred for Christmas Day where there will be eight for dinner and festivities. Boxing Day is a quiet and chill day and then Saturday Fiancée, Partner and I are going out for lunch as a little treat for Fiancée before the new arrival in January. DH, the Boys and Little Man are all going out and hopefully going on the steam train. Sunday is also another chill day. Next week will be DH and I getting back to the decluttering of our home and the garage as well as some other jobs which never get done in the normal work day.
New Year we have been invived out to some very good friends for dinner and to see the New Year in with them which will be lovely.
Little Man went with Mummy & Daddy to have breakfast with Santa all together this morning. Here he is seeing Santa although he does look a little worried! They said he had a lovely time though.
Here he is the other day with his cars.
I know I am behind with things, one of which was to do a review of the Year with our Book Club but I will get it done over the holidays. I did manage to achieve and surpass my Goodreads Reading Challenge this year, which along with my Aim of 2025 to read more I set the goal at 50 books! I managed since January to read 55! I am going to set next year’s Challenge at 100 and it will also be another of my 2026 Aims! Look out for the Book Review.
This is Eldest & Partners very good friend, Tractor Ben, who also helps at the garage. He, his father and their friend, dress their tractors up for Charity Drives in the Town of Ashbourne and then they have also done charity drives around Derbyshire as well. This picture is coutesy of Jim Bell who got a great picture of Ben’s tractor. Have a lovely Christmas Ben and we shall see you in the New Year.
Coco had all her beeding, towel and quilt washed in time for Santa Paws arriving and she just loves a fresh quilt cover! She was happy and snuggled in her basket next to my desk
A picture of Gordon and Coco on our stairs watching me coming up one step at a time!
I am doing well with my hip and now walking about at home without the crutch but still take it with me when I am out in case I have to walk long distances or navigate a lot of stairs. I will be able to, after Christmas, use our treadmill again which helped so much after I had my right hip done.
Our weather over the last few weeks has been dank. We have had quite a bit of fog too with the days not being bright at all and not getting light much, so we have had the lights on at home. A lot of people hate this time of year but I love it, because the lights are on and it is very cosy. We have, of course had the shortest day of the year now, so the nights will start to get a little lighter but I still like the dark cosy nights. Of course it means that I can spend more time reading which is always a bonus.
Anyway If I don’t get chance to post again this side of Christmas, I do hope you lovely and wonderful lot have a great Christmas and New Year. I would like to thank Sue & Suan for always leaving me a comment on my posts and to Judy who also comments and everyone else who follows me and reads my witterings, it makes it all worthwhile
Do you ever, in your life, think that the Universe has got it in for you? I know over the years at certain times I think it has had it in for me! Well yesterday was one of them! I had an eye appointment at the Hospital, yes the one I have just spent three days in with my hip. My Optician noticed that at the back of my eye the fluid which is normally attached is pulling away. This happens and normally it is not a problem except for me! It is not pulling away properly and is, in fact, creating a hole which if it carries on can cause my vision to be reduced by up to 60%.
The solution another operation! However the first five to seven days after it has been done I have to spend 45 minutes of every hour with my head resting on my arm so that I am at 45 degrees! Then it will be six to eight weeks befoe we know if it has been successful. If not they do it again! Apparently this can happen to anyone although it is more common in women than men and is often hereditary, thanks Mom & Dad! Of course because they both died when they were 55 I will never know if it was because of them or my Mom!
Only ME!
Of course the other complication is having just had my hip done that is going to delay having this done but I cannot delay too long because they don’t want it to get too bad! Also I have to lie on my side at night which is also not easy so another reason for the delay! I have to go back on January 2nd for another scan to see how it is, there is always the hope that it has managed to detach itself and the hole will repair itself but you can guarantee it will not and won’t so I am looking at an Op in March or April! Of course I will not be able to drive again for probably two months and I have to hope that it works the first time! I will also add this is all done under local again!
To say I am sick of hospitals is an understatement and now this after my hip. Of course I will worry myself to death over it until it happens so I am already not looking forward to 2026! I will let you know after the next scan how things go!
Well another named storm has blown through the UK and particularly for us in Derbyshire and I have never seen so much rain! It began on Thursday night with the rain and it never stopped yesterday at all and it was heavy rain too. We also had high winds so lots of branches and some trees down. It was named Storm Claudia. Can we please stop naming them! Because since we have been naming them they have seemed to be so much worse than normal, lets just call them Winter storms!!!!!!
Eldest was out with his Fire Brigade unit over night and have, with another unit, resced 57 from a bus which was stranded in flood water! Generally in this weather it is silly people who drive into flooded roads and then their cars die because water gets into the air intake and then end up stranded. They are rescued and then ask the Firemen to rescue their cars which, of course, they do not do!!!
Coco has not been happy going out in it although last night just before bed when it was raining very hard she stood on our patio gazing around getting soaked, then objected to being dried when she came in!!!! She is going to have a much needed brush later which she will not like either but she is a mess where she got very wet!!!
DH is spending today and tomorrow here at The Arc in Matlock for one of the local swimming clubs their Open. We will be here in January for our Open. I, of course, have other jobs to do. I did not get the cleaning finished on Thursday for another reason which I cannot share just yet, so I will be finishing that this morning. Part of that reason was for our trip out yesterday, I was not at Eldest’s yesterday so I am doing his work today as well. I also want to get some quilting done too and it may be that I will get most of that done tomorrow. I will perhaps pinch a day here or there to get things done.
I am having the day off on Tuesday as Jayne is coming for lunch here, as I cannot still drive yet but I am making lunch. Really looking froward to seeing her. We have our next book to read which is Jayne’s choice and have a catch up. The next few weeks and weekends are going to be busy and in between all of that we have to get the Christmas decorations up and sort out visits to Family and Friends. Tonight when DH gets back we are going to sort out the Christmas gifts I have got already and then perhaps wrap them which will then be another job ticked off the list. Just the Christmas cards then to do!
Yesterday should have been Book Club Friday, but we did not get back until late so I will be doing it and the post will go up later today.
I hope you wonderful lot have had a good week. Next week we are due to get the first cold snap of the year which I think we have done well to get to the third week of November without it being too cold so far. We are going to have some frosty mornings and there will be scraping of car windows, quite glad I do not have to go out early in the morning! Have a wonderful weekend.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condem. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will Remember them.
Laurence Binyon
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We had a busy week last week and Friday we were with Eldest at the garage me work and DH sorting jobs out! Over the weekend we had nothing on so spent the two days in our garage sorting out boxes. We did get quite a few done and several things sorted out and ended up with six boxes emptied and cleared. There are still quite a lot to do but quite a few of them now contain toys from when the Boys were little which need sorting and tidying and some of them can already go to Little Man and some for when the new Baby arrives.
This week has been busy again and I have been doing work and sorting things out in our home as well. Coco has been helping although getting in the way is more accurate. Bonfire Night lasted for two weekends and the actual day of last Wednesday although it was not as many fireworks as might have been as the weather was not good. I had two visitors last Thursday to see me whch was lovely and Jayne is coming for lunch next Tuesday and this weekend DH is out both days at a swimming Open so I will be quilting.
My hip is coming along nicely and the only thing which is slowing me down at the moment is going up and downstairs which is still difficult, but today it has been three weeks since the Op, so hopefully the next three weeks and my checkup after the six weeks I am hoping it will have got a little easier. We shall see.
Even though it is just DH and I now, as well as Coco, I always seem to have a basket of ironing to do! That is today’s job and then Thursday is home jobs day. Friday DH and I are visiting a customer in the morning and I have a visit to the quilt shop which is near to where we are going. That is too good an oportunity to miss out on! I am going to have to get Eldest’s computer and work and do that over the weekend this week as we will not have time to go there as well on Friday.
It is our Wedding Anniversary this week; 37 years! The above is from our Wedding Album and no it is not sepia coloured just the light when I took the picture! With DH being out all weekend we are thinking of having a takeaway on Friday noght, Date Night in. Friday it is going to be heavy rain all day and the temperature is dropping so it is not making me want to go out. The day we got married it was a very clear frosty day with bright sunshine but cold and our pictures were amazing. We got married at 11.00am and then after photographs etc we sat down for the wedding breakfast at 1.00pm aand then finished around 5.00pm. We did not have an evening event but went away on Honeymoon to The Lake District, where it snowed! We had a great two weeks.
Then the weekend after that we are taking the children to see Santa on the train. That has come round very quickly since I booked it in July this year! The last weekend in November we are babysitting, not the children but the animals! Blaze and Gordon are coming to stay whilst Youngest & Fiancé are away for the weekend at a work event for him. We will also be sorting out the deocations that weekend and the Tree and possibly all of us going for a meal out because it will be Youngest’s Birthday too. It is all go. Then it will be the headlong rush to Christmas but the best bit of it all for me seeing family and friends for Christmas. This is why I like to get everything done before December arrives so that we are able to actually enjoy the Festive Season without trying to do it all. Well that is the plan anyway!
“Remember, Remember The Fifth of November, Gunpowder, Treason & Plot!”
The Night we remember Guy Fawkes when he tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 but was stopped at the very last minute when the Authorities received an anonymous letter telling them of the plot. Fawkes was arrested that night whilst guarding the gunpowder. We let fireworks off to represent the gunpowder and we have bonfires where we used to burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes.
Here are a few pictures of the Boys and the fireworks we have had over the years in the garden. DH is out tonight running Event Control for the Council Bonfire. Normally I would have gone with him but it is cold and I don’t fancy sitting in the Truck or the cold van for a few hours!!!!
The Boys with sparklers
Fountains going off in the garden.
The firework below was at an organised event we went to.
It has been getting colder here and Coco’s quilt cover is cotton and so I decided to get her a brushed cotton one which I think will be warmer for her. They arrived last week, they have penguins on them, and she loves it. She immediately got in her basket and snuggled up!
I managed to get two for £16 which is a good idea as she gets them mucky quite quickly!!! So one on, one in the wash! This was one of the reasons she did not do her Coco’s Corner post yesterday, she was too comfy!
I have been keeping up to date with work and home jobs and getting a few other things sorted including things for Christmas. This weekend DH is home all weekend so we are going to carry on doing the de-cluttering in our garage. It is a job I am determined to get finished by the end of the year and we have a few days between Christmas & New Year to get it done finally. Part of this is also our attic although quite a bit of what was stored up there is now in the garage. We are giving things to the Boys that we have saved including baby things so that is working well.
I have been re-watching Series 4 of “Stranger Things” to remind me what happened before Series 5 finale starts at the end of this month. I have found that when you have such a long time between series you forget what has happened. I realised this when I was watching Game of Thrones all the way through with no breaks, some things made sense that never did before because of the gap between the series. So I now go and watch the previous series so I know where I am up to.
I will take some pictures of the garden, most of our leaves are now off our trees although the very big trees which are in the field at the top of our garden have not started to lose theirs yet so we will be in for more leaf gathering. Coco is enjoying the space we have created in the bed where we had to take out the Box plants and I am planning which plants to put in next Spring but I am not doing anything with it until then.
I hope you are all having a great week, tomorrow is Thursday and I have a friend coming for coffee and biscuits in the morning to see me. Have a good rest of the week.
I went in on Tuesday October 21st at 7.00am for my Op and fortunately I was second on the list for that day so did not have to wait too long before going down to theatre. I will not gross you out with the details but after four hours I was back on the Ward with DH! An hour later I was up and walking to the bathroom and getting things moving. I was in a bay with three other ladies, two had new knees and the other had had an accident and had plates put in. I was determined to get home as soon as possible but ended up staying for three days. I have found, the few times I have been in hospital, that you never sleep properly, they are always too warm and the constant checks they do on you during the night when you have just nodded off!!!! Anyway my Consultant was happy for me to come home on the Thursday evening, I did stay in bed on Friday catching up on my sleep, got up Saturday and then spent Sunday in bed. Monday I was back at my desk working.
The best bit of it all, there is no pain in the hip! Yes it is sore and of course swollen but I can cope with all of that as there is no pain. I did have the clips taken out on Friday, all sixty of them (!) and the Nurse checked the wound which is all fine and healing well. The only problem is that my skin around the wound has reacted to the dressings and has blistered in places but it is fine. I have been doing my exercises every day and the only thing which is taking time is going up and down the stairs but everything else is fine.
At the weekend I managed to get all the cleaning done and the washing and now have a basket of ironing to get done.
Friday I was at Eldests getting two weeks worth of his work done and he is now up to date. Just before I went in to hospital there was a software upgrade to the Accounts package we use and this new version is running with AI and it is dreadful! It takes fifteen minutes just to log in and has obviously not been thought through properly at all! Anyway despite all that he is now sorted. Our work is also up to date although DH’s laptop for work, which he uses all day every day, stopped working the weekend I was home so he has had to have a new one and get all his data across! He has spent the last week doing work onhis phone which is never easy but today he is back up and running!
I missed saying Happy Halloween to everyone and we did have a few Trick or Treaters on Friday evening, although I was still with Eldest. DH came home to feed Coco and let her out and sort out the shopping whilst I finished Eldest’s work. The weather was not very nice so we think that put a few people off.
DH over the weekend raked all the leaves in our garden and had a tidy up as the weather was nice and the best bit of the weekend I got out of Hospital was that we put the Hour back and gained an extra hour in bed!!! I know that means that it will be getting dark earlier but I do love this time of year! It is cosy and I love drawing the curtains and putting the lights on.
I did get quite a bit of reading done whilst I was in hospital and will show you what I have been reading next week.
Coco missed me and spent the two days I stayed in bed next to me snuggling. When I saw Little Man he wanted me to pick him up and give him a hug which I am now able to do because my hip has been fixed! I have my six week check up on December 3rd and then I will be able to drive again, although Eldest has my vechicle at the moment as he is doing some jobs on his!
DH had his Birthday in the middle of the week so everyone came to us on Saturday for a family dinner, which was a takeaway as I am not quite up to cooking for seven of us just yet. It was lovely to have everyone here, they came early and then went home early evening and I must admit I was quite tired by the end of it!
DH has been busy with events of course, the Finale of 100 years of Carnival in the village with a big firework display where 1000 people attended. He also did two weekends of County swimming events and one of our other local swimming club’s Ghoul in the Pool Open event. Next weekend we have nothing on so we will be getting some more de-cluttering done in our garage. I am still determined to get this job finished before Year End and also empty and tidy the attic too.
I cannot believe that it is November already? The months really do seem to fly by although with me being a little less mobile this month I am hoping that I will be able to get lots done at home. I have capitulated and bought our Christmas Cake, pudding and mince pies this year because although I have a few weeks before Christmas I do not want to be rushing around trying to get things done. I can do all that I normally do next year!
I have been buying Christmas Presents as I have seen things and have a few more things to get and then I am done! I have all our Christmas cards ready for us to write and need to wrap the presents and again it will be done. We have a few nice things to do during December and also seeing family and friends which is my favourite bit of the whole of Christmas so I am really looking forward to that. DH and I are going to a concert on December 5th ” Vivaldi by Candlelight” which I am looking forward to, we also have a day planned to go around the Christmas Market and see all the Christmas lights. DH has three Christmas Light Switch ons to do and the Presentation Night for the swimming club. We are taking the Children to see Santa on the Steam Train again which will be great, we have Youngest’s Birthday and also a Fun Gala for the swimming club too. It is going to be busy as always.
Christmas will be here before we know it!!! I am planning on doing a two step decoration set up this year rather than trying to do it all on one day, just so I can concentrate on getting things done properly. Our tree, we always have a real one, will be the last thing done at the beginning of December. It made be laugh looking at the TV films on Friday it was ALL Halloween and then Saturday the schedules were full of Christmas movies!! There did not seem to be any gap between the two!!!!!! I do love the Christmas movies and will be watching them when I have had enough of all the Horror movies!!!
DH does have another two day weekend swimming event on November 15th and 16th so I am going to spend that weekend in my sewing room getting some things finished! I will show you it all when I can.
Anyway I hope you lovely lot are all okay and will have a great week.
Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx
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