Five on Friday

 

One | Here's some random photos taken during the week:

Two | Continuing with my attempts to do a new thing every day, here's what I've been up to this week:

• Saturday, I watched Independence Day for the first time
• Sunday, I tried camomile tea for the first time   
• Monday, I starting learning a new piano piece
• Tuesday, I listened to The Archers on iPlayerRadio - I've honestly never listened to this before
• Wednesday, I had lunch with a friend in a new-to-me coffee shop in town
• Thursday, I tried a hot chili chocolate drink - definitely a keeper! I've eaten chili chocolate before (yum) but had never tried the hot drink version.
• Friday, I'll be having my first meal in Julie's new house - it's our tradition to have fish and chips on moving day once everything is in the new home.  Between us we've moved home 9 times, which is how we can have a 'tradition' for this type of occasion!

Three | In January, I plan to have a meat free month so I'm on the look out for new recipes, and/or new ways of cooking vegetables.  Any suggestions, or links to tried and tested recipes, will be very much appreciated please.

Four | I've made some big decisions - well, they're big to me!  I may have already mentioned that I've decided to sell my saxophone and oboe; I no longer play them for my own enjoyment, and if I do decide in the future that I'd like to do some private lessons, it won't be for these two instruments. 

I've also decided to sell the doll's house. It's taken me ages to reach this decision but I'm now sure it is the right thing for me to do.  It was bought when I lived in a much bigger house so, now I've downsized it seems to dominate the room and to be honest, I don't have enough space for it. The main reason though, is that is was something we were going to do together; Ced was going to make lots of things for it and of course, that can never happen now.  I can't get past the fact that anything I'd do now would feel like a compromise to me, so it feels best to sell it and let someone else get the enjoyment from it.  I can always buy another (smaller!) doll's house in the future if I still feel that I want one.

Five | Yesterday I celebrated my 60th birthday.  It didn't quite go according to plan as I was supposed to be lunching with a friend who cancelled due to sickness. I'd just put the phone down from talking to her when it rang again and this time it was Julie who'd been let down by the person who was supposed to be helping her finish packing up the house ready for the move today.  So we joined forces and I spent the day with Julie getting everything ready: cats to the cattery, tropical fish to my house, precious fragile things to my house, 3 rooms and all bathrooms emptied and cleaned.  We had a Chinese takeaway last night - a sort of 'birthday party/last takeaway in that house/looking to the future' meal, which turned out to be a lovely impromptu way to end the day.  Despite the change of plans I had a lovely birthday with people who I look on as family and who count me as family too.  It couldn't have been better.


birthday flowers, a gift from Julie and her daughters

I'll be seeing my twin sister next week (when she's back home) for our joint 'it's our birthday do' (probably another takeaway, but Indian this time), so birthday celebrations will continue for a while and will, as usual, get mixed in with the start of the Christmas activities - carol playing with the Youth Band starts tomorrow when we play at the Shopper's Carol Service in the Parish Church.

Thanks go to Amy for organising this link up.