Cherry takes the reins

Cherryfudge

I was right - it was a quiet shift today. One colleague back from sickness: nice to see her again. We sent one person home as client cancellations meant we were actually overstaffed. She's owed huge amounts of leave though so she can take a few hours.

Someone showed me how to claim a £50 bonus that we're getting if we can't go home at 12.30 on Christmas Eve. It means I'm getting paid for my shift plus £50 so I'm not complaining.

I've also sent in a long email putting the case for the January rota to extend another day (enables more clients, decreases the amount of people in the building on any given day, means staff aren't doing extra-long shifts etc.) I'm not sure if anything will come of it but they did ask for feedback.

I saw church online this morning but missed the carol service tonight... also missed Strictly but I can catch up with both online.

We now have our tree up. Not yet decorated, but up, and it's beautiful. Thick and not too wide but a very regular shape and exactly reaches the ceiling. I went up in the loft for decorations and found the bag with the kids' Christmas stocking which have been missing for many years! No idea what to do with them as replacements and sometimes replacements of replacements have been found but I did get some nice comments back when I sent a photo.

Tonight I'm thankful for the extra cash, the retrieval of the stockings and having at least put forward the suggestions about the rota. Also for the fog having lifted, and a free half jar of honey when I was clearing cupboards of OOD foods at work.

Cherryfudge

An at-home day today though I ventured to the supermarket for groceries and chocolate for a couple of presents.

The tree is now decorated and very lovely. The smell is so beautiful! I also decided it was time to Do Something with the beetroot and pumpkins that have been loitering on the side in the kitchen. They were never intended as a permanent fixture. The beetroots are sprouting nicely (the leaves are great roasted in oil and salt) so I've planted them! I expect they are fairly hardy but if not, they only cost pence. I've diced and roasted two of the three pumpkins with a mixture I saw in a recipe online: oil, brown sugar, sea salt, ground cinnamon, grated nutmeg and ground cloves. I've frozen most of the results but ate some too and it's so nice. One lot had a bit too much salt but I can rectify that in future.

My friend's husband came round as arranged and quoted us £200 for the kitchen tiling, which he will do between Christmas and New Year. It's a small area but horribly fiddly. He's a builder so I'm sure he will do better than we could.

I finished our Christmas newsletter which is rather long as I've not done one for at least two years. We had to get more inky for the printer but the printed copies are now ready to go and I've emailed it where possible. I really hate doing Christmas cards and was rather surprised to find it's actually not that difficult to make a list and wade through it! DH usually has to do everything except my personal ones. It does seem to take a fair bit of emotional energy just wading through, but if I push on with it, it will be easier in future. I'm far too perfectionist, which doesn't help. I must have edited that letter half a dozen times.

Spending:
Printer ink (stationery) £18
Gifts £4.68
Housekeeping £15.72
e-book 59p

Good stuff to be thankful for: cards from people and to people. I've lost touch with too many friends over the years and this is an annual excuse to touch base.

Cherryfudge

Yesterday at work was mostly all right though much evidence of senior management hurrying things through so they can go on leave - this comes home especially hard when we are required to be in work with no clients. At least we now have a list of who's on call to make the decisions we aren't allowed to make: that arrived yesterday. Essentially they have two of us on shift to man the phones, we've been told we don't need to work but if I don't get something useful done I will feel even more upset about it.

I had a reply - or a series of replies - to my long email arguing the case for spacing staff over another day. No real progress there though I see from the revised January rota that some staff are in during the daytime on another day, to support the service we have been combined with. There remains one shift on the revised rota where we are nine staff from 7.30 on a Friday morning: as the other service isn't open till 9, that gives us a ratio of 2 or 3 staff to each client, far above the Covid safety levels for the length of time involved. I've suggested some are put to computer work, but I'm going to ask to take leave.

I was quite down when I left work but H and A called round later and my underlying worries about them must have been a factor because I felt much better once I'd seen them. Our house is covered in Christmas preparations but I did most of the ironing yesterday and have a load of towels in the wash right now, and the bathroom is airing from being cleaned so progress is being made. This afternoon I have more shopping to do but DH has sorted out the tree and the turkey and cleaned out the fridge which is really helpful.

Poor Dh was up in the night with toothache: the dentist said his latest filling is near a nerve and it may cause die-back but we aren't sure if that's what's going on and Dh is limited in what pain reduction he can take so they've fitted him in after work this afternoon, bless them.

Oh, and I went wrong in my knitting again. I was very tempted to leave it but I've decided to take it back and make use of the useless time at work on Christmas Day to knit more.

This lunchtime I'm thankful for A and H's visit, washing now on the line and DH remembering to put the recycling out for collection yesterday.

Cherryfudge

Loads of odds and ends of shopping mopped up this afternoon though I shall doubtless be out again tomorrow. At least the presents are mostly sorted and thanks to Dh, about half are wrapped. I also found a perfect Christmas outfit for the baby, should he or she have made an appearance! I bought it because I couldn't not...

I texted A and H to ask what bits of Christmas Dinner they wanted if we had to plate it up for them, and apparently if they aren't up to coming over it's to be a turkey sandwich! I am sure if the baby is in residence this will not be enough, so tomorrow I'll have a look around for some sort of Christmassy ready meals that they can have if necessary. I can see if they are holding a very new baby, they won't be coming to ours and probably would struggle to assemble anything from takeaway boxes... and taking plates of food across town might be more well-intentioned than practical. 

I know I've spent quite a bit today but nothing very expensive so it will be a cumulation of lots of smaller items and yet more food. The supermarket shop was around £37.00 but most of this was gifts. I wonder if my kids bet among themselves which of the perennial stocking fillers they will get each year? Today I got hair gel for the lads and Nivea gift sets too... predictable me! I got a nice 3 for 2 offer on some toiletries for the two lasses, um... the third item DH is obediently adding to my stocking!  

Must go and get my bath now and leave the receipts in my purse for another day.

Some things I'm thankful for: having sorted the remainder of the gifts, especially for the baby. Having days off just before Christmas because I need them and it's nice. Not having to make more than turkey slices for A and H if they can't come here at Christmas. It's not that I don't love them but it would be hard work to get the meal together before I go to work.

Seasidegal58

I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas Cherry. 🎄☃️🎅x

Honeysucklelou2

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas Cherryfudge. I hope that H has as easy a birth as possible and this Christmas will be a precious time for all of you  🎄 🌟🎄.

Cherryfudge

Thank you @Seasidegal58 and @Honeysucklelou2, and a merry Christmas to everyone from me too.

Baby arrived on 23rd! All well and good and she's just lovely, though still nameless. They had to stay at the hospital till late on Christmas Eve and are exhausted today so none of us has actually seen her, but we've done a couple of video calls and been sent photos and hopefully in the next few days we can meet in person.

Other than that... I was doing the sleep in at work on 22nd and ended up with a load of paperwork which I felt needed to be done straight away rather than the next day, so I was quite short of sleep but the next day's shift wasn't too bad. I did stay around till 3 otherwise there would have been no staff for half an hour, then I arrived home and DH was a hero doing a huge pile of wrapping and trying to get me to rest! I did have to give a relatively quick tidy to DS2's room and make the cranberry sauce but that was about all.

DS2 was running late so we went ahead to L and J's for a very picturesque Christmas Eve. They have an older house with a real fire, candles, beautiful tree... and the puppy of course. DS1 joined us slightly later and we had a great evening: dinner and chat. J is such a good cook! However DH and I were both pretty shattered (he had a tooth out recently and the gap hasn't settled down yet so he's not slept so well) so we went home about 9.30 and DS2 decided to leave about the same time. We asked him to give us a lead as we've gone wrong so many times on the roundabouts in J and L's town and of course it was long since dark. He got us safely to the edge of town then put his foot down! A couple of seconds and his rear lights had vanished into the miles of darkness where there are no towns, not cottages, no lights! This utter blackness fascinates me and makes me realise just how empty is the distance between these places. We had a safe journey though and didn't stay up to do any more Christmassy stuff. DS arrived before us but even he went to bed instead of staying up half the night.

Today has been lovely though a very different Christmas Day. All three of us got to Church after making a start on the Christmas stocking, did some food prep on our return then had dinner and a video call with A and H and their sleeping baby, followed by the rest of the present opening before I went to work.

This morning's colleague had done some impressive tidying so we admired then sent her off home for a well-deserved rest. We were supposedly minding the phones but none rang all day. My colleague was recovering from suspected food poisoning but she picked up during the evening and we had a nice time though I insisted on doing some practical tasks. I didn't want to feel I'd been dragged away from precious time with family just to have nothing to show for it. I've cleaned the goldfish at work more in the past two weeks than in a long time!

I was home soon after 9.30 and really I ought to get to bed now.

Very thankful for time with those I love, and the opportunity to give and receive gifts - also for nothing too challenging at work so we had a pleasant time.

Honeysucklelou2

CONGRATULATIONS on becoming grandparents and to your DS and DIL on becoming  parents. That is such wonderful news. 🥳🥳

Cherryfudge

Thank you @Honeysucklelou2! sorry to have cross-posted with you: I came back and edited the comment rather than have the wrong date on it!

And yes, very wonderful - I think that belongs at the top of my list of things to be thankful for but I'm too tired to think straight and had only reflected on today!

Sun_Addict

Congratulations, what a lovely Christmas present, a precious grandchild.