A quiet week

It’s been a funny sort of week this week and quiet in a couple of different ways.

Quiet certainly in that not so small daughter has gone back to school and both my husband and big daughter have been out of the house at work so I’ve had the place to myself, but also quiet in that I have remembered that the first week back after a school holiday usually feels a bit out of sorts so I haven’t tried to do All The Things as I am inclined to do when left to my own devices!

I read on one of Lucy’s Blogtober posts that CJ who writes the Above The River blog (I’ve had such a lovely time this last month discovering new blogs to read!) calls the week after a holiday “re-entry” and after a week in a happy orbit of no school runs, lazy mornings and pretty much pleasing myself what to do now that not so small daughter entertains herself, I intended to do what I could to make this week the un-bumpiest (most un-bumpy?) of landings! 🙂

I always find it hard work getting back into routine after school holidays, and Mondays in particular are always quite slow days for me.  It’s taken me a long time to realise that I am much better not trying to All The Things on a Monday morning and I think that giving myself permission not to try to do everything this week has made all the difference.  I’ve also come to realise that I really like to be up before everyone else in the house – not hard as the rest of the family are not really morning people, or certainly not without protest! – particularly at this time of year when it’s still quite dark in the mornings.  I love to be awake and cosy, sorting out the day to come in my head and taking some time to do some quiet breathing on my own.  No phone, no computer, nothing else to do, just me.  We all need some self-care time in the day so that we can be at our best to face what comes our way, and this is mine.

This Monday, the quiet moments were accompanied by the sound of rain on the windows.  I love that sound when I’m tucked up in bed but not so much when I know that I’m going to have to go out into it.  Oh my life, it was so wet!  The rain was so heavy that it looked like fog outside.  Not so small daughter didn’t even begin to argue about going out to school without a coat.  I really did think twice about taking the dog for a walk but then I did that thing where you think “Oh, the rain will go off in a minute” (it didn’t), then “It can’t get any worse than this” (it could), and then the dog starting singing his “I’m going for a walk” song from the back of the car (if you’ve got a dog, you may know this song!) so I couldn’t let him down and I headed for the Nine Arches which was the closest place to do a short walk.  Within minutes of getting out the car, he looked like a damp dog with a fur coat designed for the rain and I looked like a drowned rat.

That step is usually not under water so you can see how much rain there has been.  By this time, I had discovered that any waterproof-ness (what do you mean, that’s not a real word?! 🤣 ) in my coat had long gone despite my recently re-proofing it but we were at the furthest point from the car so there was nothing to do but get on with it.  We squelched up as far as the little bridge to see how deep the stream was …

It was very deep – the dog stayed on his lead!

And then we squelched back to the car.  Well, I say “we” but it was me that squelched and the dog bounced about happily, tail in the air and jumping in all the new puddles that had formed.  And then shook himself all over the car seats whilst I sat in a puddle of my own.  Ugh.

Once we got home and I had changed all my clothes (the only dry things were my socks in my wellies!), I set about ordering a new coat.  My old one is probably not far off as old as the dog so I decided it would be OK to buy a new one.  It arrived the next day which was a nice surprise (I wasn’t expecting it until the weekend) and of course now that I have bought a brand new very waterproof waterproof, you can be sure that it’s never going to rain again!

Yes, it’s purple.  I have decided that I am not an old woman but I shall still wear purple whenever I want to because it’s my favourite colour.  It also goes very well with my purple wellies and I am not going to think at all that I might look like a walking grape (never Violet Beauregarde, the unpleasant character from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who turns into a blueberry, thank you very much!) but instead that I brighten up my own day which is just what I need when I’m out in the rain.  Oh, and this coat has a Proper Hood which I am very pleased about!

As you might expect, the weather has been lovely ever since.

There’s been a lot of flooding, though, and I do hope that you have managed to stay safe and dry where you are.

You can see how much the water level had dropped in the brook only a few days later!

Oh and there have also been some beautiful blue skies and brilliant Autumn colour at last.  I should have bought my new coat weeks ago!

Now, you may have got to this point in the post and thought that I have forgotten about the sock blocker giveaway, but don’t worry, I haven’t!  That’s coming up in just a minute but there’s something that I wanted to mention first.

It’s 5 November and Bonfire Night here in the UK which means lots of firework noise as we remember the anniversary of the failed attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 by Guy Fawkes.  Our dog and cat aren’t that bothered by fireworks but I know that lots of people have pets that get terribly upset so when I saw a post on Facebook that mentioned a special radio programme just for them, I wanted to add the link for you.  Classic FM has a special edition of Pet Classics on tonight (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday) supported by the RSPCA to help to keep pets and their owners calm over the weekend.  You can find the link to the programme here.

And now – thank you for waiting so patiently! – let me tell you who has won the set of child-sized sock blockers that I showed you on Day 29 of Blogtober.  The reindeer with the very shiny nose is indeed Rudolph so well done to everyone for getting that right – and thank you for the various translations of his name too!  I love that this reindeer is international! 🙂

I used the random number generator and then counted down the comments to find the winner.

The winner is MARY

Congratulations, Mary, I hope you can recognise yourself from your comment!  Can you get in touch so that I can post your sock blockers to you?  You can use the “contact me” button in the left hand sidebar.

Thank you very much to everyone who took part, it was a fun thing to do at the end of Blogtober!

And that’s me for today.  Thank you if you’ve stuck around to the end of my very long post – I might not be writing as often but I don’t seem to be taking any fewer photos so I hope you had a brew handy! 🙂  Have a lovely weekend, whatever you’re up to, and I’ll see you again soon xx