Last day of the year...

Today dawned beautiful and sunny with clear blue skies. What a difference to yesterday!

Sophie had to be in earlier today as she had to help with the cleaning and at 8.45am we were sitting outside of the building but the gate was locked. Keith tried the old combination but the new owners must have changed it so we had no option but to wait for Maureen to arrive. It was unbelievable to think that the business was due to open in just over half an hour and no cleaning had been done. When we ran the place we would have been in at 8am (the three of us, with sometimes Sophie helping as well) to get the place cleaned and opened up before the public came in.

When Maureen arrived we all went in and I was shocked to see how dirty the place was. It was obvious that no proper cleaning had been done for ages and the slides which we used to clean on a regular basis hadn't been touched since we sold the business in August.

Sophie started mopping the floor while Maureen swept and I was itching to help out but Keith said it wouldn't be a good idea. The business no longer belonged to me. We left them to it (I felt so guilty) and went to see Mum and Dad on the way home.

Later in the morning, as I was battling with a crossword in the paper, the phone rang and it was Mum to say that Dad had fallen over while washing his car. We drove over to see him and he had a large, egg-shaped bump near to his eye. I made him promise to tell Mum if he felt sick or had problems with his vision and said that it wasn't worth going to the hospital as he would just wait around for hours and be told the same thing. He promised to rest for the remainder of the day and not do anything else silly!

We left and I put some diesel in my car before going home and having a shower. We'd planned on going to the pub in the village to see if we could book a table for their "Hangover Breakfast" on New Year's Day. Michael emerged from his bedroom looking very bleary and demanded to be taken to Moulton to see his girlfriend. With that sort of attitude I refused so we had a bit of a row... I told him to take the bus (it stops outside our estate and would take him almost to her door) so he went back into his room and slammed the door!

Ever resourceful, he called Heather and asked if she could come to him so we went off to the pub and had a very pleasant hour sitting at the bar with a quiet drink! We also booked a table and was told that the pub was very busy, so hopefully there will be a nice atmosphere with not too many bad heads!

In the afternoon we watched three more episodes of The Bridge III and enjoyed the end of the series very much. The ending left the way clear for a fourth season so that's good. I think all the actors are tremendous.

We picked Sophie up a bit earlier, at 5pm, as Maureen had decided to close earlier than the advertised time of 6.30pm! On New Year's Eve! We had a quiet evening with a delicious three course meal (pate, Tesco Finest Lemon and herb chicken and desserts) and opened a bottle of Champagne at midnight. Keith did his first-footing and we shared a slice of Christmas cake which was lovely and moist, thank goodness!

Happy New Year and let's hope 2016 is the best ever!