Spring cleaning

I had a room in the house which was full of "stuff" which was generally clogging up the room. On the house plans, the room is the dining room, but we used it as that for only a year or two. The dining table is now at one end of the large sitting room, where we can take advantage of the wood burner whilst we sit at the table, eating or using the laptop or doing whatever it is that we are sitting at the table for, even if it is only chatting. So that room became a bit of a dumping ground - for the computer desk, the exercise bike and treadmill, the piano, the sewing bits and pieces, and lots and lots of books!

I have spent the past three days sorting this room out as a project in between the other routines of daily life and the celebrations for the New Year. I have released three bin bags full of rubbish, lots of books to charity shops and friends, and I have rehung some nicer curtains, and put pot plants on the windowsill again - the room looks civilised again, thank goodness. I can get to the computer without stepping over junk, the piano has been polished and is playable, and the treadmill is usable again!! Can't promise that will make much difference to the size of my backside at the moment, but it can be used, which is an improvement - just have to get the FH to use it as well since it was him for whom it was originally bought. One mile a day would be an achievement for him.....

Now that the sitting room is lovely after its redecoration, and this room is looking better, I have to hit the hall and move all the clutter dwelling under the stairs.

The weather has dampened the New Year celebrations a little as people haven't wanted to come out in the snow and ice that has come back here. We had a quiet evening and watched a DVD together before we had champagne with orange juice at midnight and enjoyed the spectacle of the London Eye's fireworks display at the sound of the bells. We even switched over to BBC Scotland on the red button to watch Hogmanay Live for a few minutes - the sound of a pair of chaps playing the fiddle and the accordion brought it all back. And we recognised the presenter from BBC Scotland but couldn't think of her name - now I think that it is Jackie something. Glad to see that she is still around - we'll have been back in England 10 years come August, so a lot has changed! Can still remember them saying the Gaelic greeting when they started the five minute Gaelic news broadcast - have no idea how to spell it but is sounds to me like "Fisken Mar!"

The EFG's cough goes on and on - she is better in herself in that she has more energy, but the cough is still troubling her. Hoping that she will be fit enough for school on Tuesday.

Yesterday the girls and I went on a little shopping trip to Ely - they were looking forward to spending a little of their Christmas money. We checked out some of the shops and there wasn't much they liked until we hit WHSmith, when there were some things that the YFG wanted to buy and a couple of books I fancied as well as one I had promised the EFG for Christmas but not been able to find. We headed for the queue at the tills after about 20 minutes mooching around the shop, and then all the lights went out! Almost everyone in the shop sighed - with some sadness - as we all knew that it meant that we wouldn't be able to complete our purchases since the tills weren't working. Bring back pencil and paper and a money tin the old-fashioned way! The whole street was out, and then some came back but not all - and none of the shops we wanted to go into. So we and most of the population of Ely, it seemed, headed to Tesco, where we got some bargains in their post-Christmas sale - slippers for the FH, a pair of half-price PJs for the EFG (yes, she has already had some, but she was very short of PJs!) and some fruit.

Today has been busy - church, pottering, lunch, Grandad coming to visit this afternoon, more pottering, supper, TV, tidying and hoovering, and a bit more TV. A good, relaxing, happy day.