Getting ready

This morning, Keith took Mike to school while I made a start on the garage. I didn't know what to do first, to be honest, but by the time he returned I'd swept up all the leaves and put quite a bit of rubbish in my car to be taken to the tip.

It was a dry day and not too cold so ideal for working outside. Monty was very bemused when I re-arranged the sofa and chair we have in there and I'm not sure he was too happy about being ousted from his bed! By 11am it was looking so much tidier (and cleaner!) and Keith put some stuff up in the eaves and used some wood to make me a little shelf where I'll put some candles and lamps on Friday evening.

We went off to the tip with the car fully loaded and then it was back home to decide what we were going to eat for the rest of the week. I thought Sophie was in at Uni at 1pm today, but just as I was heading for the shower she said she was going in for 12pm as she was meeting some friends to discuss a presentation! Luckily, Keith was all ready to go so he dropped her off while I showered.

I was not looking forward to going shopping at all. I think the novelty has most definitely worn off now! We made the mistake of trying to shop for us and also my CDWM evening but we quickly realised that we were giving ourselves a lot of stress doing it this way! Aldi was busy with people all dithering about and as the aisles are narrow it was extremely annoying! We took my trolley back and concentrated on the stuff we needed for the coming week. It meant that when we'd finished we had to put our shopping in the car and go back in to get mine, but it made it a lot less stressful!

I bought the wine, sherry, cream, butter and onions from Aldi but I had difficulty finding out where the jam was and there were no tinned raspberries at all so I bought the rest of the stuff I needed in Tesco. Keith also bought the bulk of our shopping in there (we're gradually sliding back to the store) including all the meat we needed for meals. I went and asked at the butchery counter about lamb for my hotpot and the very knowledgeable lady there recommended neck of lamb rather than the steaks I'd bought previously. The meat itself came to just over £16 but I still thought that was good value as it would feed five of us (Keith was going to share the meal but eat in the living room!).

We loaded all our shopping in the car and went very thankfully home to put it all away and have lunch, which we felt we most definitely deserved!

Dad popped around in the afternoon as he's hired a transit van on Monday to transport all of the stuff in his garage. He had to scan and email a copy of his driving licence so he needed my help. I sometimes do wonder what happens to people who can't (or don't have) access to a computer or the internet? So much today is reliant on being able to upload or scan things and not everyone has the necessary skills to do it!

Talking of which, I posted a photo of our little rocking horse onto our local Facebook page as we no longer needed it and I wanted to give it away free to a good home. Within minutes a lady living in the village responded and we arranged for her to come and see the toy on her way home. She was thrilled with it and said her granddaughter would love to have it. A good home then!

Sophie came out of uni early and was standing waiting for me in the cold, poor thing. The weather has definitely become much cooler than of late and they've forecast snow flurries for the weekend. Brrr!