Keeping in touch

1.  Lunch and a fun afternoon with 2 godsons and their parents - we braved the high winds to see them and had a good time playing games with them.  (Their parents will be delighted once they can get them outside to burn off some energy though!)

2.  A brief chat with another godchild and her parents, to say Happy Christmas and catch up a little.  It was good to speak with them

(I'm realising that I've been far too cautious in picking up the phone to call friends and family for a long while now (for some reason I always think it'll be a bad time to call, or the person won't want to hear from me, or I won't have anything interesting to say, or worse I'll say something stupid/annoying/thoughtless...).  I know it's in my mind so I'm making more of an effort not to lose the people who matter to me.  And hopefully now I've put this in writing I'll keep to it!)

3.  Saw "The Hobbit" part 2 at the cinema with a friend - they could easily have trimmed an hour off the film & I wouldn't have noticed, but I'm still happy I went.  I think I preferred the first film though... a bit more of the back story and less of the brooding menace.

Late night, morning catch-up, evening activities

1. An unplanned late night yesterday when the rain became torrential and aimed downhill as quickly as possible... The neighbours all pulled together again, we put out sandbags and bailed out where we could, with the result that our houses were basically ok.  I spent a while mopping up the dribble of water coming in through our front door so that no real harm was done.  So my early night became 1:30am

2. I enjoy our Christmas Eve tradition at work of having a cooked breakfast together as a team.  And I was ready for it after last night's activities!  It was also nice to have a relatively relaxed morning before finishing at lunchtime; I need to keep my phone on while I'm off, just in case, but it's good to have some time off for a while.

3. My current (secret) knitting project is coming along well.  I've made a couple of mistakes that were just too difficult to correct, but only I would know they're there... I've enjoyed doing a slightly more complex scarf/shawl project this time and learned a bit about shaping and patterning - I hope the recipient will like it.

3b. I've painted my nails red :)  - because it's a Christmassy colour, and because I felt like it.  They're quite bright though!

Getting ready

1. A drove to Carlisle and managed to get the goodbye present for a colleague who's leaving us. I'm very glad to be able to post it to her before finishing for Christmas. 

2. I managed to get hold of some friends tonight to arrange when to meet up - that's getting close to being organised (although I don't think anyone will be calling me that this year)

3. Only half a day to go at work before a few days off :D

Clearing up and Carolling

1. The neighbours all worked together to clear the area in front of our garages of silt, stones, leaves and general debris. It took around 3 hours between us - I dread to think how long if we hadn't all pitched in. 

2. Dishes washed, ironing done (last night), leftover cakes frozen (and eaten). 

3. Carols by Candlelight 

On recognising that blogging might be good for me...

Three things to be thankful for today:

- An enjoyable ladies' afternoon tea in the run up to Christmas. I had fun baking cakes and scones and drinking lots of tea & coffee, and was pleased that the person I'd invited along seemed to enjoy it too. 

- Our front gate held off the water from the front door when the drains couldn't cops with the downpour. I came home to a closed road and lots of water in the road and garden, but the house has stayed dry. The car's still out on the road so I hope the garage isn't too bad when I look tomorrow. 

- I don't need to be up early in the morning (although I think there'll be done cleaning up to do outside...)

Who'd have thought...

I don't really remember why now, but around the start of June I decided to try the "couch to 5k" podcasts from the NHS. I guess I was trying to improve my fitness levels, keep my joints moving, and maybe burn off a few extra calories. 

Well, today was the 2nd run in week 5. This is the week when it gets a bit more serious...  On Monday I ran for 3 bursts of 5 minutes each, with 3 minutes' walking in between. Today was 2 bursts of 8 minutes with 5 minutes' walking in the middle. Until today 5 minutes was the longest stretch I'd done. 

At the weekend I'll be trying for 20 minutes running with no break in the middle. Part of me thinks it'll be horrendous, but I didn't think 8 minutes would be possible either and actually it was pretty ok. 

Who'd have thought?!

Sharing, not quite there, more to enjoy later

1. The privilege of visiting another church to talk about the schools work in the area. We were made very welcome. And I got to have a go with 2 puppets!

2. We didn't see the Red Arrows (they couldn't take off from Liverpool because it was too windy) but we almost caught the end of the Typhoon display. It sounded amazing! (and we saw a tiny bit through the trees as we walked)

3. Making a tasty meal, with more for tomorrow and 2 meals in the freezer. Spicy aubergines, peppers, courgettes, onion, tomato, kidney beans and chickpeas. Served with couscous and creme fraiche. My teenage self wouldn't recognise me ;-)