I'm not ready........

Nearly a week has past since I have last blogged here - sorry! I've been doing a lot of thinking (uh, oh!) and realised that my illness has largely been down to stress rather than a bug. I've had time to think, time to relax and let my mind wander - all that knitting is really rather meditative. So, on Tuesday, I got up and decided to attack the thing which has caused me the most stress - the school governor situation.

I made some phone calls, I am sure I have made a little stir, and things are happening. Most importantly, I am getting the professional support I need from various agencies in order to help the school to progress. And I feel better - I have spread the load. I have a mentor assigned to me as a new Chair, so I bent her ear as well, and she reassures me that I am doing OK, and reminded me that actually, we do this job as volunteers, for nothing, and should be treated with some respect, not as dogsbodies! So that helped, too.

I have also been plodding around the house - not in a despondent kind of mood, but in terms of doing one thing at a time and not thinking of the next 10 things I need to do!! Taking my time, sitting and reading a book near the fire for an hour if I feel like it, knitting a spell, hanging the washing up and then doing something I enjoy for a while. So if People have rung to ask how I am, I have said, "Plodding along!" and felt quite happy about it.

But, I am not ready for Christmas - the cake has not been draped in marzipan, the tree is not up, the lounge is not cleaned, the parcels have yet to be posted.......but so what? I still have a week!! I'll keep at it a little at a time and it will be done, eventually. I have done some things - ordered oil for the heating, the ironing, sent the Christmas cards to the post, sent some messages to friends. We are warm, dry and well fed - and together - and that is what matters!

Bugs and burst pipes!

I have been suffering with a stomach bug now for just over a week, so I am not doing much at all. I am very pleased with how independent and mature the girls have proved to be, as they are managing to get themselves out of the house in the morning to go to school with no input from me - they are making their lunches and their breakfast. They go out of the house looking smart and shout out, "Love you!" as they go.

The FH has had to take over the care of the chooks, which has been challenging for him, but they are all doing OK. They will get cleaned out next week when I am better.

The burst pipe seems to have happened last night - in the workshop this morning the FH found about an inch of water all over the floor. The pipe to the water heater over the hand basin is the one which burst, so that is a lesson learned. For now, he has turned the water off at the stopcock in there and will sort it out when it is a little warmer.

So, this episode of illness has taught me that I am not indispensible, and that things go on - we have had to put plans in place for the YFG to lead the preschool session at gym tomorrow morning, and a Songs of Praise tomorrow evening at chapel will go ahead anyway, of course - I have planned the service, put it together, arranged the readings and the participants, but the FH and the girls will actually lead the service for me.

It has also meant that I have had a bit of time for rest and recuperation! I have read a few books, watched some tv, done some knitting etc and generally had a rest - although I have been a little bored at times - I am definitely looking forward to getting better and being able to take part in the preparations for Christmas. I have done an internet shop at Sainsbury's to be delivered on the 20th, so I hope that the weather doesn't deteriorate and prevent that happening!

Hope everyone else is OK!

Do we really need this?

I have just received my latest Tesco vouchers through, just in time for Christmas, they say! I was really surprised that over the whole Christmas and New Year period, the local Tesco will only actually be closed on Christmas Day....it will be open Boxing Day and New Year's Day, albeit on a slightly reduced opening hour system, but it is still open for business. Is it that the supermarkets are so desperate for our business, or is it consumer-driven? Who will really be wanting to trawl the aisles on Boxing Day? Not me.

It has begun.......

The flashing lights are up in the cul-de-sac we live in - the neighbours have started to decorate their houses for Christmas. I always think of Advent as a little but like Lent - a time of waiting before the big festival that is Christmas or Easter. My thoughts on the period are that we should be a little bit austere in our tastes at this time so that we can more fully appreciate the celebrations. Our Christmas tree goes up the Saturday before Christmas, so that'll be on the 18th this year, but there are already Christmas trees aplenty adorning front windows everywhere. It seems to me that "Christmas" has become a season, much like Autumn, and has to be stretched out over a huge period - a little of November, all of December and some of January!

I much prefer to think of the Twelve Days of Christmas, beginning on the day itself and ending a few days after New Year in January. That is enough for me - and I am not being miserable, but more realistic! Children get so excited these days about things that it seems silly to keep them hyped up for weeks on end, building up their expectations. At the other end of the spectrum, a friend of mine let her children believe for years that Father Christmas brought all their decorations on Christmas Eve, so she and her husband decorated the house after they had gone to bed that night - inspired woman!

In the middle of all the decorations and gift giving, the matter of the babe in the manger often gets overlooked. That is really what it is all about, and we, as a Christian family, will be doing all we can to keep that at the centre of our celebrations.

Big skies

We get an awful lot of these swans going over at this time of year; they come to the wetland reserve in the Fens for the winter. Each day they fly out onto the fields to feed, and then return to the reserve in the late afternoon for their evening feeding session, honking like mad as they fly! I wish I had been able to take a photo like this one, but this came off the internet - I never have my camera with me when they fly over, and more often than not, the light wouldn't be good enough for me to take a picture anyway.

I had heard people talk about the big skies out here in the Fens but it had passed me by. I hadn't really noticed as I suppose I had got used to them, and then we went on holiday to Scotland and all of a sudden there was Less sky, because the ground rises up to meet the sky so dramatically up there. When we got back, it hit me quite suddenly one afternoon when I was driving home with the family - the FH was driving and I was gazing around me like a loon - I could see sky in every direction for miles and there seemed to be absolute acres of it!! And I realised then what people had been talking about...

Getting used to it now

We've had a week and a half of this weather now, and the forecasters today have mentioned that it may be the New Year before this cold snap passes, so if we aren't used to it, we may as well get used to it soon!! I have adapted my habits with the chickens - I soon got fed up of breaking ice in the waterers each morning, so when I shut the hens up at 4pm now, I empty all the waterers and load them up into the wheelbarrow to bring them up near the house, ready to fill in the utility room each morning. The chooks are loving the hot mash, so I will continue with that, too.

It has been the end of an era here today: my beloved Vauxhall Astra estate car (1.7TD) (red) (N reg) has been replaced. We got it as a family car back in 1997, I believe; we certainly had it in January 1998, but the details get blurred so far back. We had just the one car back then, but on moving to England and the FH going to work for a year, we had to get a second car; we got a really old banger that I just couldn't get on with, so the Astra became "mine" then. It has never let me down - never broken down when I have been out and about - and been a lovely car to drive all these years. It was second hand when we bought it through the Network Q programme, and we got just £5 change from £8,000. We bought it outright, and it has served us well. I am not sure what I am going to do with it now - the windscreen wipers only work on full, the headlights come on when you indicate, the steering is getting a little shaky - so it was time to retire it. RIP Red. It is on the driveway now that the insurance has been transferred to the new Vectra, but I know that there will be a little tear in my eye when it finally leaves us. Soppy, I know!

I had a big baking session last night as the lunchbox supplies were getting low, there were no biscuits, and the natives were feeling hungry because there was nothing to snack on! So I made some iced finger buns, some cupcakes, some peanut butter biscuits and some Viennese biscuits which still need to be sandwiched together but I hope they will eat the finger buns first as they are a dough recipe and will dry out before anything else........

Speaking of dough, the charming Paul Hollywood who appeared on the Great British Bake-off, wrote a book back in 2004 called "100 Great Breads". I thought I'd like a copy so I started looking around the internet for one. Well, talk about rare as hen's teeth - there is one on eBay for sale at £55 (and it has a bid!!!!!!!), sellers on Amazon are offering them for anything from about £75, and there are a few on abebooks.com but they are ridiculously priced as well. I have put in a request at the local library for one, but there are none in the county and so it will have to be brought in from elsewhere, if there is one to be had in the country! The £5 I will have to pay if they find one will be well worth it........and there will be a lot of recipes copied out of it if it turns up, I can tell you!! Obviously high time Mr Hollywood turned his attention back to writing books.

The stock cupboard is looking a bit bare in places, but nothing too bad. We bought some eggs in the village yesterday for the baking, and some leeks which I soon turned into leek and potato soup. The FH bought some bread from the Co-op in town when he went to pick the girls up from art club at 5pm, and there isn't really any need to worry about anything else until next week sometime. Snow is very good for the bank balance in terms of grocery shopping, in my case. I have been tempted to look into an online order from a supermarket, but I don't want enough at the moment to justify the delivery charge, so I am not indulging.

The YFG is supposed to be going on a trip to Warwick Castle next week so I will have to contact the school early next week to see what they think about the likelihood of that going ahead.

I must take some snow scene photos one of these days!!

Minus temperatures continue

I am just gearing up to go outside to do the chicken chores for the morning - it is about -1 or -2 out there, and it is COLD! Still. And there is no sign of a let-up in the temperatures. However, we don't have snow up to the windowsills, we do have plenty of wood for the fire, food to feed the family and the animals, oil for the boiler, gas for the cooker, and electricity - at the moment. I must admit that the electricity flickered on and off about three times yesterday, so that is always a bit flaky out here in the sticks in this weather, but that is why I insisted on a gas hob when I moved out here! One of the neighbours commented only yesterday that we were probably the best prepared people she knew, what with the gas hob and the woodburner. She lives in an all-electric house, so she will be bringing her family round here in an extended power cut - she knows that they are very welcome!