The mundane

This goes down as a very low key week. While everyone else is gearing up for Christmas, I have been feeling increasingly sorry for myself. I have been hit by the common cold. Over the week it has come and gone and then returned. It has travelled from my nose to my chest and then back again. Wherever I have been, I have kept my disctance.

While this has been happening to poor little me, I haven't been able to finish my swim challenge. This goes down as a big failure this year. The challenge was for nearly 8000 lengths and I was less than 200 short. In a normal week I could do 400 lengths easily - errr.

I have also looked out at my garden with the intention of doing a tidy up. The weather has been much milder and there have been decent lulls in the rain. All I did for most of the week was look out of my window and mutter to myself. Finally on Friday I got out there and now all that remains to be done is the tree. It needs pollarding. Sammi did this two years ago now and with the rains this year, it grew back bigger than before. I am hoping Sammi will attack the tree once more. This will be his Christmas present to me!

A while ago I bought a bird bath and mini solar fountain for the robin that visits me in my garden. Either the sun hasn't shone powerfully enough to get more than a faint pulse out of the fountain or the solar battery isn't big enough - however you look at it - the dribbling fountain action is pretty pathetic. In the New Year I will get a bigger and better fountain along with more solar lights. New Year's resolution.... turn my garden into an outdoor room! I am hoping for an urban jungle effect.

The one thing I don't want for the new year is to find wildlife inside my home as I did on Saturday morning. On the stairs leading to the downstairs was a large, shiny, leaf-like thing - a slug!! I hate slugs. I know I can outpace them but they give me the heebie jeebies. I swept it up in the dustpan and accidentally flicked it on my right hand- YUK. I threw the pan and then started sweeping it up again once my heart had slowed. Then I noticed a trail around my hallway and into my boot. I bravely put my hand in. No more slugs. YAY. There was a silvery trail into and out of my bedroom too. I think it came in on the bottom of my shoes I was wearing to do the gardening. Neurosis has set in. It could have got into bed with me. I stripped my bed just in case!

Of the few social things that happened to me over the week, Nataliia's baby shower stands out. It was a small do. Her friends all came round to my place and we chatted for a couple of hours. Ezra-Mae was my little helper for the morning and did me proud with her table manners. On the flip side, she found some tablets in my bedroom, just as everyone was leaving, and put one in her mouth. Out of sheer panic, I turned her upside down, clenched her between my thighs and slapped her hard between the shoulder blades - normal, loving behaviour from Nana! Luckily, it was just the one tablet she put in her mouth.

Nataliia's baby shower

The bump

I also took Ezra-Mae to see Aunty Paula in Aylesbury. She obviously was too young to remember her last visit but she was so excited she talked about the visit all the way there. Apart from stealing an extra slice of cake, she was really well behaved. Aunty Paula gave her a very pretty Petter Rabbit purse which she instantly fell in love with. She held it tight as I strapped her into the car. 

Very soon though, after we set off she started crying and garbling on. I didn't know what was wrong and I couldn't stop in rush hour traffic so for 40 minutes she screamed while I drove home. I said things like, "Not long now", "Mummy will be so pleased to see you very soon", "Oh look at the sky - it looks full of it!" you know the stuff.. I think I even did a bit of cow spotting.... "look over there!".... 

Once home, I unstrapped her and found out what had been the problem. She had dropped her Petter Rabbit purse on the floor of the car. Mummy wasn't the issue. It was a missing plastic purse that had upset her for a full forty minuntes. Top marks for persistence, Ezra-Mae!

So with one week to go, Christmas awaits!!!