Fresh Start

As the holidays drew to a close, I felt compelled to reorganise everything that I could think of that required sorting. Shelves went up in the workshop and Music Room and the decorations were tidied and put away until next Christmas. I made an effort to be a "Yummy Mummy" a couple of times and involved the children in some cooking or baking; I even let Fenella have a sleepover that involved making decorated gingerbread men and popcorn. I bought a trendy skirt in the sale when I went to get more hen food at the Farm Supply Store and wore it with smart leather boots to go out for coffee with friends. My children thought that I looked unusually smart so just to reassure them that I was just the same, I took them into Banchory wearing my old green Doc Martens and ancient multicoloured patchwork knitted cardigan so that Freya felt obliged to walk behind me and pretend that I was not her Mother.

One of my greatest bugbears is all of the wire spaghetti hidden in drawers that belong to gadgets and chargers. I am convinced that we have a collection of cables that belong to cameras or mobile phones that are now obsolete but no-one even knows what they are. I have kept all of my cables in labelled sandwich bags but whenever I go on a trip they get all muddled up and I am sure that one day I will be stopped by Security, questioning why I may need to travel with all of that wiring. I decided to make a few small drawstring bags with embroidered labels but when I laid all of the cables out separately on the table it became obvious that I would have to make at least a dozen just for my own stuff – the house is still full of many more cables for IPods, Nintendo DS, headphones and cameras!

I cut out 3 sizes of squares for a large, everyday bed quilt so that I can put the Christmas quilt away. I pieced a small section but wonder if it is a bit too girlie for me. I wanted something light and fresh for Spring but it feels odd to be using pretty prints after working with plain fabrics so much last year.

Despite endeavouring to crack on with my book-keeping and prioritising my projects, I got bogged down in making phone calls to chase up the long overdue heating oil delivery and trying to find out why my LandRover roofrack had still not been delivered. The roofrack seemed to have disappeared entirely between couriers and will need to be tracked down again this week. I felt that all of these mundane tasks had to be done in order to clear the way for greater focus during the coming week, as long as school transport is running since we have now had more fresh snow...