Fortnight in Hello.

So today marks the first day of my fortnight off work, yippee! Well, almost a fortnight, I’ll be back in on my birthday (30th).
Do I have lots of plans? Yes, I do! Will I do them all? We shall see. My current plan is trying to find a storage solution for our records. I like having them on display so I can just grab one to put on the turntable, but the cat likes scratching them and I’ve got some collectibles in there. At the moment I’ve got a sheet of glass covering part of the shelf, but I’d like to move them into a Kallax and maybe buy some clear or pretty designed doors.
Last week I got rid of loads of towels. We just seemed to accumulate lots of different shapes and colours and they were just stacked on top of a plastic set of drawers in the bathroom. So of course, they were messy and going everywhere. Plus a lot of them were stained with hair dye/bleach (Belle, not me!) I gave some to my dad for his dog and some to an animal charity shop round the corner. I bought some white ones off Amazon and some pots of dye, and ended up with a lot of lovely bright orange towels. I also bought some nice storage baskets for them to go in.
This week I want to have a go at making vegan poke bowls. Belle came home with a salmon one the other day, but gave it to me because it had corn in it. I’d never bought one before because they seemed expensive and not particularly filling. But I was wrong, they are filling and delicious! They look relatively easy to make, so that’s definitely on my to do list for this week.
I also intend to do a bit of walking. The 4,000,000 step challenge I set myself for the year is finally looking doable, as long as I’m walking every day. My daily target is currently close to 13,000 steps, but I can easily bring that down with a few 10 mile yomps. It’s looking decidedly frosty out there right now!
A couple of days ago an old school friend, Julia, popped into my work. I literally hadn’t seen her since we left school, but I recognised her as soon as I saw her. She had come in to do some shopping, had no idea I worked there, so it was a lovely surprise! When we were at school in the 6th form, I knocked about with Fiona and Julia. We did everything together. She was very posh, so I’m surprised we hit it off as well as we did! She did posh people things like going to polo matches and lawn parties of ladies with big gardens. She had friends with names like Minty and Beau. I suspect that Fiona and I were the grounding that a 17/18 year old needed, we’d go sit in her garden drinking 20/20 out of bottles, smoking weed and going to punk gigs in smoky, sticky pubs.
She moved to Dubai shortly after uni and we reconnected on Facebook for a while, but then she started talking like a wanker, having staff that she called “the boy” and sacking “the maid” for stealing half a bottle of cleaning stuff. I remember she was laying traps, trying to catch her out, leaving money, jewellery and chocolate lying around. I really didn’t like that, so just unfriended her and didn’t think about her any more.
So when she came in, I was really surprised at how unwankery she is now, she’s proper lovely and down to earth. We had a good chinwag, then the next day she popped in again as she was passing on her way back to Manchester, so she could see me again before she left. She’s still got family ties to the area, so she said next time she’s up, we’ll have a proper catchup. Was so nice and I’ve been thinking about her loads!
My nana is up and about again, bless her cotton socks. After her fall in September, she fell ill, then kind of gave up. They sent her home, where she remained in her bed. My mam and other family members are constantly with her, but she stopped eating and they all feared the worst. But then all of a sudden, she seemed to perk up again, started eating and being generally happier. Then the other day, I bumped into mam and she showed me a picture of nana sitting in her armchair, a big grin on her face! She’d walked the 10 feet or so to her chair, no mean feat when she literally hadn’t moved for 10 weeks. So it’s looking positive for her. I’m not sure what Christmas will hold, as the whole family usually descends on the house, but I’m guessing this year we’ll probably be doing it by appointment as a house full will be too much for her.
Speaking of Christmas, usually we’ll have a big roast cooked by Rob and John, but it takes all day and there’s always far too much. So I think this year we might get a seafood platter, and just have salads and bread to go with it. Rob is already really excited by the prospect, and keeps sending me nice sounding dishes that he’s found!