Happy New Year everyone. I do hope your Christmas was good even if you were restricted in what you could do and who you could see.

Our Christmas Day was very quiet with just the three of us at home. However on Boxing Day my eldest daughter, son-in-law and grand-daughter visited so that was our official Christmas Day as we kept our presents for each other until then, as you can imagine our living room floor ended up covered in wrapping paper. 

Talking about wrapping paper I have always enjoyed gift buying and preparing for Christmas but the last few years I am finding it more and more tiring so this year I decided to wrap as I bought and then got my husband to put the gifts away for me.  I have done online shopping for a couple of years now as it is much easier for me but this year my buying seriously got out of control, I blame the Pandemic of course and not my tablet and laptop being within easy reach for me ha ha!

I even shocked myself when I saw how many presents I had bought my 15 month old grand-daughter but as the saying goes “you can’t take it with you” and if this Christmas is anything to go by I definitely won’t have anything to take with me!

Charlotte (my grand-daughter) played with some of the toys we bought her but was more interested in putting all of the wrapping paper into black bin liners.  This is her favourite pastime at the moment tidying up, she was also very keen on putting everyone’s food into the bags too whilst they were still eating so that was fun and games too!

Every year at Christmas for years now I have wanted the family to play parlour games after eating but have always been unsuccessful however this year I was determined to get everyone to comply even if it killed me!  I decided that the first game would be Charades, of course as usual I was the only person who was keen but nevertheless I decided to get the game started with an easy one so decided to go with the film Jaws, I mean how easy is that??  So I gave the sign for film, then the sign for one word and then for the name of the film I opened my mouth wide and closed it, I mean that is a doddle isn’t it?  Well you would have thought so however all my daughters kept saying was “why are we playing parlour games we aren’t living during the Victorian times?” and my son-in-law who has never played Charades before asked me why I was showing everyone what I had eaten for breakfast, finally my husband shouted out Chomp!  I mean has anyone ever seen or heard of a film called Chomp! 

By this time I was onto my second glass of wine and as I am such a lightweight was already starting to feel a little light headed well that is my excuse for when it came to my second attempt at charades.  Again I thought I would choose an easy one so decided on the TV. programme The One Show.  I gave the sign for “The” which everyone got and then the second word “One” which again everyone got, now looking back I should have realised that they were all taking the mick as by now they should have easily guessed the TV. programme. But of course they made me demonstrate “Show”, now this is where it became a little trickier as I could not think how to mime the word “Show”.  Anyway, after a bit of thought for some strange reason I reminded myself of when I was overdue with my first pregnancy and for a couple of days before going into labour had signs that something was happening.  I’ll not go into the full details but my Midwife called these signs “shows”. Thankfully I was wearing trousers on Boxing Day as my mime for “Show” was demonstrated by me pointing to a particular area of my body.  As you can imagine the family started getting all hot and bothered with my two daughters shouting out “Mam, what on earth are you doing?” and my son-in-law staring at me in disbelief saying “what the **** is going on?” by this stage of the proceedings I was doubled up laughing and eventually explained what I was doing.  Of course by this time my husband had also been drinking more alcohol than he usually would and just kept saying “I remember when your Mam kept having shows in fact she had more shows than the London Palladium!”  Anyway our game of Charades quickly ended after that and as usual everyone just sat around watching TV. and watching poor little Charlotte tidying up after us all ha ha!

Well getting back to the here and now after Boris’s announcement on 4^th January 2021 I am now back to shielding.  It is a pity that King Arthur is not around as the number of times I have shielded over the last 9 months I could have definitely given Prince Lancelot a run for his money!

On a more serious note I have got to admit at first I did have a few tears as I was just beginning to enjoy my freedom even if it was only going shopping once a week to Tesco’s. But after giving myself a good talking to I have decided that feeling sorry for myself is not going to change the situation so here I am back blogging.  I did say to my husband it is a pity it is the winter as during the first Lockdown I was able to sit at our garden table and repaint our wooden planters and also plant out some seedlings.  Of course, my husband came back with “there is nothing to stop you from getting outside, just think if it snows you can clear the driveway with the shovel”  It is just as well I don’t have the strength to lift a shovel as I may have ended up in court charged with assaulting my nearest and dearest!

Anyway getting back to the New Year. Even though I am restricted when it comes to leaving home and also mixing with others I am determined to keep my “pecker up”.

What I have started doing is creating a list of things to do to keep myself occupied and to keep the old brain cells working.

As like a lot of other people my husband and I always start the New Year saying we are going to go on diets, well I am changing that to “healthier eating” and hopefully we will stick to it longer this time round. As for hobbies well I have my online BSL (British Sign Language) course to complete, Arabic lessons to resume and I would like to get back to researching my family tree and glass painting.

I know some of you may already have enough going on in your lives with your caring roles which can make you feel tired and low but if you can try to find something which you can do just for you even if it is only for 10 minutes I know it will definitely help.  I have a Kindle and I try to aim to read one whole chapter of my book per night.

Well, I had better go as my Dad just came out of hospital a couple of days ago and I am due to ring my Mam to see how things are going.

I’ll be back soon but in the meantime take care of yourselves and stay safe.

Best Wishes

Susie x