Tag: to do lists

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dear diary ~ a moment….ous week

Not only was it Remembrance Day yesterday but it has been a week filled with both sad and happy moments.

Last Tuesday my friend K could not come shopping with us as she was expecting a visit from her daughter. I was a bit disappointed as we look forward to her company but we agreed to catch up later in the week for a chat. We almost overstayed our welcome in Sainsbury’s carpark as you only get two hours and I was having a good browse in all the various sections including the clothes and looking out for any Nectar bargains. It was mid afternoon when we got back home and we had just eaten our lunch and put all the shopping away when a little after 4pm we had a phone call from K’s daughter to say she had been rushed into hospital. K was diagnosed with a terminal illness in October of last year and we all knew her time was limited, but somehow she managed to keep going and always keep smiling.

We went up to the hospital to see her straight away and then visited a couple of times through the week but she was mostly asleep or very drowsy, then on the Thursday teatime when we bobbed in to see her after my audiology appointment, she was raised up in her bed enjoying a cup of tea. We had a lovely little chat for a short time and then came away so as not to tire her out. I didn’t know then but this would be the last time we would have together… and I will cherish those moments. On the Friday morning K became unresponsive and eventually slipped away peacefully on Monday.

Although we had an age gap of almost 20 years, K was a dear and special friend who I met almost by accident when I gave a lift one freezing winter’s morning many years ago to her neighbour Bernard. It is a story I have told before on my blog. Bernard became my Tuesday and Thursday morning companion as I drove into work until he became ill and was taken into hospital. That evening I had a call from K his neighbour saying Bernard was asking that I should go and visit him and had passed my phone number to her. We alternated our visits as his family lived away and each evening K and I would speak on the phone to report on progress. After 2 weeks Bernard passed away but K and I continued to phone each other and eventually met at Bernard’s funeral. Our relationship continued and blossomed and we found we liked the same things especially the area of Scotland where our cottage was located. K and her partner often came on holiday to the area around Stranraer and we would meet up if we were at the cottage at the same time.

When I see the poppies now I will always remember our last moments together but I know our Tuesday shopping day will never feel quite the same without the cup of tea and a chat we had afterwards when we took her back home.

The weekend was another busy one for us.

On the Saturday we were determined to fit something in for ourselves and we chose the Sheffield Print Fair at the Millenium Gallery. As I was born in Sheffield near the Wednesday ground I love to go back and now the city centre is vibrant once again after the loss of Debenhams and John Lewis and a certain amount of regeneration and rebuilding has been occurring over the last few years. The planners I think are doing a good job, preserving some of the old historic buildings amongst the new and providing plenty of lush planting and seating around to soften the harshness of these concrete cities.

The print fair was packed and we thoroughly enjoyed browsing the stalls of some very talented young (and older) print designers. There was every kind of printing method on show but I am always drawn to the linocuts and silk screen prints rather than the polished digital artwork.

Afterwards, we had a mooch around the centre. It has been a while since we were last there and a lot of the demolition sites are now showing off the new and restored buildings. It is something I like about Sheffield that they try to keep and cherish old buildings and they sit side by side with the new.

This block housed an old fashioned jeweller in the corner shop; in the upstairs windows you could see them at work with the machinery on old wooden benches. The end of the run was obviously past restoration but they have added a new section to compliment the terrace.

They also flaunt madly the fact that the city grew on steel manufacturing and many of the structures around the centre are made of it. Because of the steel industry Sheffield was hit hard in the blitz and most of the town centre was demolished by bombs and needed a complete rebuild. Nearly everyone had a relative affected by the blitz in one way or another. My grandma had her windows blown out a few times, but was luckier than the people in the next street along whose house had a direct hit.

It is a leafy city as well – had I had the time I would have been picking up some of these leaves to press.

We walked down the Moor to Atkinsons, the family run department store, where this plaque is permanently displayed in the entrance. They are doing well to survive in this retail climate and it is such a comforting department store as it hardly ever changes, just a little updating every so often; enough to keep up with the trends but not huge changes and revamps like John Lewis.

On Sunday it was Sweetie’s 7th birthday – oh the joy and excitement of being seven. We travelled up to north Yorkshire to help at her pottery painting party that she had with a few friends and afterwards she had a second family party at her home and a mammoth present opening session.

This meant two cakes, though at the friends party we just gave out a cupcake each (far less mess than cake cutting).

She struggled at times to read some of the messages in her friends cards!

….but was overjoyed at the presents….

….and she declared the day her best birthday so far.

Meanwhile, this week I was set the task (I don’t even remember volunteering for this) of organising a celebration for my mum when she turns 100 in January. It will be a small group of us as she has outlived many of the family members. We have decided on a private dining space in a local restaurant and will probably opt for the Sunday lunch. Their menu is quite extensive and they even have fish and chips (which I think mum might like) and luckily for us a nut roast. I think there will be something for everyone’s tastes. I just hope the weather is not against us and that no-one falls ill with colds or Covid, especially not my mum! It would be so annoying to wait a hundred years for this special day and then not be able to celebrate it.

I am making sure our vitamin C quota is kept high in the hope the dreaded lurgy in one form or another passes us by and it is a delight to go into my pantry at the moment, the colours are a wonderful sight.

I have bought all the ingredients now for my usual favourite ‘organic’ Christmas cake recipe and managed to get a smaller pack of white icing from Hobbycraft as I only ever cover the top. I am all set to make it the Sunday after next if I remember to soak the fruit on the Friday.

I have also sorted the Christmas Eve Santa pyjamas for the 4 grandchildren, red tartan for the girls and white for the boys, their mum’s choice. I nearly ended up with all the colours in all the sizes and stripped Sainsbury’s bare. Now the respective mum’s have decided on the right sizes I can return the surplus and Sainsbury’s can re-stock!

I also have my eye on these.

I don’t think I have anymore tales to tell of the last week. This week I need to finish the mountain of ironing that has accumulated and sketch out some ideas for the linocutting workshop DH and I are booked onto on the 19th November, only a week away.

After finishing my last 3 tasks I didn’t have chance last week with the hospital visits to do more but I have more or less decided on the next three.

  • Plant the bulbs and small mixed shrub selection I bought a while ago in pots or the garden.
  • Drop off the items we have for the auction at the Crisis charity coffee morning at church.
  • Trim the berberis

Have a great week and thank you for all your comments…so sorry I never got to answer some of them – normal service might resume soon.

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dear diary ~ mellow autumn, slow and easy…

I am gradually easing myself into this new season – a time to slow down and reflect.

For me it is a new season in my life too, no escaping anymore up to our little cottage in Scotland and spending hours working in the garden, but rejuvinating at the same time. It is just a year since we said goodbye and I am just starting to get a hold on my new normal, implementing a few changes here and there.

You might think as I did that we would have more time on our hands to do other things, but sadly…. no, this hasn’t turned out to be the case. With both daughters moving house one after the other we have been providing help with unpacking, sorting, decorating, gardening and childcare and my dear old mum has certainly entered a new chapter in her life.

Her short term memory is increasingly short term and living with the constant phone calls she makes to me through the day asking me the same question over and over ‘Do I know when the carers are coming in’ is frustrating but I need to keep patient and remember how frightening this condition is for her and how important routine and stability are to manage this condition. I know it will only get worse so I have to get better at handling the situation for my own sanity.

The carers are finding it hard to cope with her too so I know it is not just me feeling frustrated. Being almost 100 and still able to reside in your own home is such an achievement but also such a challenge. My family all agree that going inton a care home might not be that far away but at present she has almost 4 hours of undivided attention from the carers during the day – there is no way she will get that in a care home. During her brief spell in one 2 years ago she was lucky to have 5 minutes attendance from the overworked carers looking after her and she went downhill through lack of contact. I know from comments I receive that I am not alone in this situation and it helps to know that, it really does.

As any change can be difficult I am going slowly with the season and trying a bit of self care, carving out some time to do something just for me each week and alongside this I have a new determination to resolve some of the ongoing projects that are in limbo and constantly on my mind as no matter which way I turn I see unfinished jobs all around me.

I decided to sort my rather long project list into something more manageable, breaking down the more lengthy and involved projects into attainable tasks. I have now grouped these into short lists of three and I aim to complete the three over a week – Kanban style.

This week my 3 projects are:

  • Book a fully refundable hotel room for Christmas at the Premier Inn close to mum’s apartment.
  • Return a roller blind to John Lewis and buy a wider one, also buy a second pillowslip and a tester pot of the Little Greene paint.
  • Finally sew a casing on the edge of the greenhouse shading net so I can get it off the mending pile and pack it away ready for next year. (This task should have been done at the start of summer, but like most of my tasks got deferred).

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At the same time I am gearing up a notch to prepare myself for the next big event looming on the horizon ocassionally flicking through pages of magazines finding inspiration for making a few Christmas crafts and hoping at the same time that I will find the time to do them. I have found from experience that starting early is key to avoiding the almost unavoidable pressure that can be generated these days – gone are the days when Christmas could be organised the week or two before; I have learnt that even the simplest of Christmasses require a lot of planning to make them seem…..well simple.

You can’t help but notice that the Christmas magazines are plentiful and already on display in every supermarket and one or two have leapt into my shopping trolley lately, but they are a treat (call it part of my self care) as I decided at the beginning of the year not to renew the Country Living magazine I subscribed to. The décor featured currently is not really to my taste or the style of house we live in and the recipes, although the photography is really lovely and makes the food very tempting, they are often quite complicated or require some unusual ingredients or are decidedly not very vegetarian so I was getting very few ideas from them.

Instead, I switched to buying the seasonal issues of Country Living – Spring, Summer, Autumn and Christmas as quite often the features in these are pulled from past issues. I do tend to keep these seasonal issues to refer to each year and actually find them more inspiring than their monthly magazines – although I did sign up for the offer of 5 issues for £5 in August as £1 an issue is too good to miss and it will include the December issue.

A lovely little magazine for easy recipes and ideas for using up leftovers is the free Tesco magazine which my daughter passes on to me. Ironically, all these magazines are piling up now waiting to be read.

To add to my growing little stash two welcome packages arrived this week – I ordered the final issue of 91 magazine a while ago; I do admire these people who manage to self publish their own individual magazines and sadly, although I didn’t buy many copies, I will miss this one.

The other package was the 6 monthly little pamphlet produced by Persephone books that keeps you updated with details of any new titles and excerpts from some of their books in print, it came with the little red Victory postcard too, presumably a wartime slogan.

I have a passion for the Persephone books – I am working my way through many of them and there is something very appealing about their plain smooth grey covers opening up to those glorious prints hidden away inside.

I am patiently waiting for Christmas now when I know DH will ‘surprise’ me with a couple of new Persephone books to read…… meanwhile, I content myself with rereading one or two old favourites from my bookshelves. 

The one by my bedside that I currently fall asleep with after a chapter or two is The Fortnight in September by R C Sherriff,  a day by day account of a family’s two week holiday repeated every year in Bognor – a very typical British seaside holiday and very reminiscent of our own family holiday in Scarborough.  It has a nice leisurely pace very conducive for sleep and a glimpse into the ordinariness of their everyday lives.

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I had a bit of an unintentional spending session last Saturday – I say session, rather than spree, as I spent more than I thought but not more than was affordable.  After going to Mount Grace Priory we called in nearby Northallerton and I took Little L and Sweetie to The Works to treat them to one or two craft items to keep them busy in half term.

I chose the pack of spooky balloons to decorate along with the make your own pumpkin paper lantern and then let the girls have a free choice of something they would like to do – and what a mistake that was…I should have known better – whilst the display had some lovely laser cut wooden lanterns to paint or strings of bunting to colour….what did they choose….the most gruesome and hideous plaster figurines to paint that came at a gruesome price!

Let that be a lesson to myself not to take them with me to buy Halloween crafts.

I consoled myself with a few cute little Christmas bits that I have no doubt I or the children will create something Christmassy with.

Taking a short cut through the Yorkshire Trading Company I noticed this twiggy wreath at a very reasonable price. All I need now is the time to develop all the ideas I have floating around in my head.

But it won’t be today as DH and I will be out and about taking garden rubbish from my daughter’s garden to the tip and then another go at that bathroom.

Take care everyone, back soon xx

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dear diary :: moving swiftly into March

It feels like winter again here – we awoke to a dense grey landscape of fog this morning and I could easily have pulled the covers over me and stayed put. There was no wind but the damp coldness seems to penetrate through to the bone and after a jaunt around town for paint samples, plastic water pipe and screws I was glad to get back home and in the warm.

It is perhaps just as well no gardening was undertaken this weekend as the little shoots springing up here and there are better off hidden and protected by the dead leaves and stems of last year’s plants which I leave for this reason. Our garden is 700 feet above sea level here with the Pennine hills looming above us at about 1600 feet over the ‘Isle of Skye’ road (a local name – you can read about it here) …..and Holme Moss not far away at about 1720 feet. So we know about cold and chilly weather and I can guarantee we will lose some of the plants over winter.

I bought a nice little terracotta planter from B&Q for my friend’s birthday. I would have planted it up with herbs but couldn’t find any so I bought 3 pots of dwarf bulbs instead. I took it round to him later in the afternoon, rang the doorbell and stepped away. He was delighted with his gift and once the bulbs are over he will be able to grow herbs in it.

Before tea I looked at the February task list to see which of the tasks remained – anything without a satisfying tick against it is rolled over to the March list – to my surprise there were only 3 tasks out of 28 not completed (two of which are craft related and not urgent by any means).

  • Sand down the DAS clay tags I made
  • Cut out the interfacing for the tablemats and tack together
  • Email the new owner of the caravan site by our cottage

I like to have my plan of action mapped out for the month in my year book. I assign a few pages each month for jotting down any tasks and ideas, books to read, websites to browse…..whatever takes my fancy. I stick in cuttings from magazines of recipes, decorating ideas that catch my eye or a new beauty product I might try. It is basically a catch all. Each year I begin a new notebook and the old one is placed on the shelf for reference. This month will be all about Mother’s day and preparations for Easter and I have no doubt a lot of gardening notes.

And birthdays…….. there are lots of those in March.

I am not sure how much longer we will have Master Freddie with us but I know I am going to find it hard when he goes back to nursery; I have got so used to having him here and taking him for walks. He is an absolute joy.

Must go and get some sleep now ready for the early start tomorrow. x

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dear diary :: ticking off the tasks

Try as I might I do find it difficult to keep breaking off a project once I get started and often I just keep going to the detriment of everything else. I am by nature a completer finisher, a role that made me perfect for my work submitting claims to the legal aid agency; I know some people struggle with the finishing side of things but my problem is often the not finishing as I hate loose ends.

So apologies that I have been absent these last few days – missing in action – so that I could concentrate fully on the tasks I had set myself….to get to the bottom of the laundry basket and complete the subsequent ironing pile and also to get our finances up to date, receipts entered and bank statements balanced, so I could run a year end report.

Both tasks are now complete and I am back on a straight edge…. vowing not to let either task build up again. Famous last words though I think.

The house is also looking tidier than it has since Christmas and every room has had a quick flick of the duster and been hoovered. I even treated myself to a few flowers from Sainsbury’s – I couldn’t resist this little brown parcel of pale pink tulips. I love that they have packaged them in compostable brown paper rather than cellophane.

On Monday I had a few jobs that needed to be done before we leave for Scotland. We are hosting the Burns night supper again this year for our friends and invitations had to be written and delivered before we go. I will buy the haggis while we are up there as there is plenty of choice and some Scottish potatoes which have a lot more flavour.

I had lemons to use up too so I decided on making lemon curd. Both my daughters asked if I would make some for Christmas but I just couldn’t fit it in. Today seemed like a good day to get this done once I had stripped the beds and got the sheets out on the line to blow before the worst of the weather was due to arrive after lunch.

I chose the recipe from this book I found in The Works a couple of years ago. It has less sugar (equal quantity of butter and sugar) than some recipes that have double the amount of sugar to butter.

It is one of the most enjoyable things I make – the smell is heavenly and of course the jars wouldn’t be the same without a few hand stamped labels. No need to put a date on as it won’t last that long.

DH made two batches of soup to use up some of the veg and so we can take some on the journey and put some in the freezer. He also made a curry for tea and some extra to take with us.

My final task of the day was to make apple and sultana cake as I have a freezer full of cooked apple that I need to use up.

Once baked I wrapped half to take with us and put the other half in the freezer. You will find the recipe under recipes in the menu bar.

I am not sure what the weather will be like in Scotland – we have had numerous floodline warnings in the last few days as the tides in the bay are very high at the moment and once again the road where the two people were swept away last year has been closed.

I have a few blogs to catch up on now so need to get reading and the next time I write it will be from bonnie Scotland when we visit our cottage (caravan). For new readers you might want to read the tale of our cottage in the menu tabs above.

creating health and well being

I have been much more mindful in the last few days – noticing what I eat, how much I exercise and how stressed I feel. Even though you know you should do something it is hard to find the time in our busy lives to just do it.

My visit to the physio last Friday was a) the best £40 I have spent in a long time and b) already having an effect on my knee. I was quite hesitant about going as I had a bad experience with a physio at our local NHS clinic who made my neck far worse than it was after a whiplash incident. But I needn’t have worried the lady I saw was brilliant. She has given me a set of very easy exercises to do – I can even do them watching TV in the evening – nothing dynamic but will just give the relevant muscles a wake up call.

After only a few days I am already starting to feel the benefits.

The meditation sessions also feel like they are having a positive effect – I will take my blood pressure before and after so that I can visibly see if this is the case. If nothing else I think it has been quite beneficial on my digestion and I am sleeping better too, not that I had a big problem with insomnia but occasionally I could spend an night when the worries just crowd into my brain and keep me awake.

January so far has been a busy time for us and is set to continue. I confess that we had a couple of days with quick meals because we were home late – egg and chips one night followed the next evening with some caribbean veggie pasties. If nothing else eggs are good for B12 and iron and the pasties have turmeric in them and we had a heap of fresh cabbage to accompany them. This was offset though by our nourishing homemade soups at lunchtime and we have kept off the biscuits and crisps so not all is lost.

So far my growing list of healthy adjustments looks like this

  • drinking green tea in the morning and ginger tea in the afternoon
  • a Braeburn apple a day
  • a meditation session once a day
  • a few easy exercises for my knee
  • fewer snacks
  • homemade soup most lunchtimes
  • healthier meals in the evening with plenty of veg

It takes time to make even small adjustments and get used to doing them and even longer to educate DH into doing the changes (he still makes me ordinary tea some days) but little by little changes are happening.