Blog for Monday 8th December 2025

Four o'clock and time to rise and shine. W-e-l-l. I arose but there was not much shining happening until after my mug of coffee!

It is amazing the transformation a mug of coffee manages to bring about in those wee dark hours of the day.

I went up to my studio and had my Quiet Time. After which I wrote out my 'To Do List' for the day.

Ken spent the whole day in bed sleeping, which should speed his healing up, and Raafie occasionally joined him for the odd snooze throughout the day.

I spent ages working on the menus for Christmas Day and the other days that Mich', Robert, Josh' and Paulina are here with us. I pray that I have thought of everything we may need because there is no shop just around the corner if I have forgotten something.

The next thing was to write out the grocery list and in the order that I need to buy them in. The fresh stuff to be bought last et cetera. I also needed to remember what day I pick up my meat order blah blah fishpaste.

Yikes! It was a bit like rubbing my tummy and patting my head to get things in the correct order.

Then as a break from thinking, planning and writing down all things 'food', I filled in my new diary - all the birthdays and anniversaries and so on. Done. What a nice feeling!

Whilst I was doing all that I did two loads of washing too and tumble dried it as I was not sure with what the weather was planning to do today. Yesterday or overnight, we had 9mm of rain which was most gratefully received. Again, I did not have to water Paddy's trees as they were looking extremely happy with having the rain wash them clean and give them a drink.

Oh dear! Last night I woke myself up by scratching my arms like a crazy woman. I have this allergic reaction to sunburn - I come out in lumps and bumps all over - especially on my arms and legs and it is so itchy. I do not spend any time out in the sunshine because of that, but the other day my feet got slightly burnt, not that you would even notice I may add, when I was washing and cleaning those fans outside and that is what caused this itchiness. Horrible. Now my arms look very ugly with huge swathes of maroon coloured skin caused by my scratching and being on blood thinners! G-r-e-a-t!

I began to clean out the one freezer compartment but have a lot still to go. I need to cook all the fish and chicken that was de-frosted during the three and a half days with no electricity recently. I will cook it up and pack it into different meals for the dogs who will enjoy them immensely!

Ah yes! I also did the ironing for today. Such a good girl I am! It is pleasant to have only a little to iron as it gets done with a one-two-three and I put it all away too.

For our supper I cooked steaks, baby potatoes and peas and corn, but Ken only ate the steak as he was not that hungry.

As soon as I was able to, I crawled into bed and was asleep almost immediately.

What lesson did I learn today? To plan - write it down - then complete the task.

What am I grateful for today? The rain.

My saying for today is ...