That's how life feels at the moment!
After a leisurely, and much needed, 4 months of taking things easy and pottering about - life has suddenly gone into warp speed.
I started back at work last week in my new department - Rheumatology. It's great. Sad as it may seem, one of the highlights is having my own printer. Which works. And is fast. The team are lovely - I think I've typed for most of them now and everything seems straightforward. My working hours have changed. I work Wednesday afternoon through to the following Wednesday lunch time (not Sat or Sun though). Then I get a week off. Then I do the same again. Not bad eh? So I''m just into my first week off and I have soooo much to do.
House-wise things are very manic. Simon is trying to get as much tiling done in the bathroom as he can at a weekend. I have a bath in my livingroom, and a toilet and sink in my hall at the moment. He's hoping it won't take more than another 3 weekends to be completely finished. I know I keep going on about it, but I am soooooo longing for a bath!!!!
Jenny is in Llandudno with her mates for the week so I seized the opportunity to redecorate her bedroom. I've managed to do most of it in 2 days - tomorrow morning I'lll put the second and last coat of paint on the walls, and then get to with the stencil design. All being well it should be finished for her coming coming on Sunday.
As well as a bath in the living room, we have 3 flat pack bookcases. They're for Jenny's room. Like me, she accumulates books and is running out of space. So we've invested in some IKEA modular cube thingywotsits which should be able to house all of her books and some of her nik naks with a bit of luck.
Great news on the Becky front. She did better than she expected in her GCSE's. She had a bit of a disaster when she sat them back in May as her friend Naomi had just passed away, and also Becky was really ill the week leading up to the exams. She did great though getting 6 A's and 5 B's to add to the A* she got in Maths last year. She's really pleased and we're very proud of her too.
Pepper our cat has been poorly. We found a large lump on the back of her neck a few weeks ago, so Steve our friendly family vet took her in to have it removed a week last Monday. While she was in he checked her teeth and two of them were rotten so they had to come out. He's not sure if the lump is just a cyst or something more sinister. She was so sorry for herself when she came home from her ordeal. She had to wear one of those plastic cone things for a few days until her stitches started to heal up, and we had to keep her in the house for a week, which drove her insane. She sat by the cat flap and cried and my heart did little flip flops because I felt so sorry for her. She's a long haired cat so looks very strange with a huge wad of it shaved off and a long seam half way down her back where the stitches are. For a little cat it's a major incision really. Anyway, a week and a half later she has been out and about is back to her normal spirits. Steve's been back a couple of times to check on her, and had to give her some more antibiotics because she has got a little pocket of air inside the stitches, so we need to keep an eye on that, but hopefully she will be ok now. And her fur has started to grow back a little so hopefully she will look better soon too.
As well as all of the above, this week I've managed to make my first ever lot of jam. Hilary and Stuart next door presented us with 20lb of damsons last week, most of which are soaking in gin at the moment - but the excess I've made into jam. I found a cheap site on the internet for jam jars, but when they came I'd ordered the wrong size. They're nice and diddy though and I've used them anyway and took them to work for some for the girls. I had to have a trip into Chesterfield in search of some normal size jars, but could only find double the size, so have ended up with 2 large pots of jam too. Anyway, it all worked and is edible so I'm really chuffed and will definitely have a go at making some more soon.
Innocent Smoothies are running a things called the Big Knit. They're asking folks to knit little beanie hats to go onto their smoothy bottles and for each one they will donate 25p to Age UK. It's years since I attempted to knit anything more than a scarf a couple of winters back, but I thought I would have a go. Jenny put me onto it really, she is BIG into knitting and has inspired me to get involved. So tonight I couldn't sleep so have sat and rattle off some little hats. I just need to brush up on my pompom skills now to finish them off.
I'm tired now though. It's been a hell of a busy week, so I'm off to me bed. Goodnight!
