Thursday photo #346

When Christmas decorations started going up in November, I thought Christmas would be a long time coming. Even I agreed to put the tree up early in December against my better judgement. Strangely though, despite everything that has been going on, the month seems to have flown by. We’ve got a busy day planned before we ring a bell at 6pm to help Santa on his way.

Planning for the year ahead

After much deliberation following last week’s musings, I’ve decided that next week will be my last one of these Thursday photo posts. It seems right to finish at the end of the year. As the girls get older, there aren’t always family updates that are appropriate to share, particularly in these rather odd times. Instead, I’m going to commit to posting at least one useful post each week on this blog.

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into how to free up more time. I have a couple of projects starting in the new year and I know they’re going to be time consuming. This blog has always been a record of what we’re up to and I intend to keep it that way, but I want to make it more useful. I want to dedicate proper time to it in a structured way.

Another step I need to take is to move my daily runs to early mornings several days a week. I usually go after the school run but if I get it out of the way before I drop the girls off, I’ll have a full day of work. On days when I meet a friend I’ll continue to run at the same time, but I do need to get better at getting up early rather than attempting to get back to sleep when the girls have woken me up. I do hope that next year, I’ll be better at finding more time and filling it in a useful way. There are so many things I want to do that depend on it.

A quiet Christmas

Like most people across the UK, we’ll be appreciating a quiet Christmas. There are things we’d usually do that we won’t be able to do like seeing extended family. We’d often have a few days away during the school holidays too. But there are some advantages to a quiet Christmas. We’ll be having lunch at home with my mum who is in our bubble anyway. We’d usually pop over to see my dad and siblings but that won’t happen this year. Instead, we’ll pop the television on and watch something festive. The girls can spend some time enjoying their presents and we’ll appreciate the time to relax.

On boxing day, we’re booked in to go to this year’s version of the pantomime at Malvern Theatres. It’s a one-man show this year with a socially distanced audience so it’s going to be very different. We are hopeful that it will still go ahead though because we are still in tier 2 at the moment. We feel very lucky to still be able to do things like this and I’m happy to be able to support the local theatre while they’re able to open.

This week, I’ve been trying to get the girls outside every day. We’ve been walking and to the park and the girls have had a day horse riding too. At this time of year it’s so easy to stay hidden indoors but we all feel better for some fresh air. Getting muddy is inevitable though.