Thursday 22nd December

356/365: nothing flowering in the garden so let's look at the Christmas plants ... today's choice is poinsettia 
(I don't know why it's such a strange colour as the original is true to the proper colour)

I'll start with an apology and then bring you up to date with the saga of the bread-maker. The last couple of days I've run out of time to visit your blogs and to respond to all your comments on mine, so please accept my apologies and I will do my best to catch up today.

As for the bread-maker ...  I decided to wait to reorder until I received my refund which I'd been told would be 5 - 7 working days after the seller had received the returned item so I'd thought that there was no hope of enjoying home made bread until the new year. Well I was woken in the early hours of this morning by a (loud!) notification from my bank to say that the refund has been credited to my account ... can't complain about that. So at a more reasonable hour I thought I'd take a chance and reorder as Am*z*n was advising a delivery date of Dec 23rd but the only problem was that it was now £40 more expensive. I think the original order was a sale price but that was no longer available and meant that the particular brand and model I'd chosen was now more expensive than I was prepared to pay. I may have sworn at this stage!

I had my breakfast while I thought about what to do and decided to look at what other brands and models were available in my price range and that proved to be my best decision of the day as Cu**ys is still selling my original choice at the sales price. I ordered it straight away, before they could change their mind on the price, and the order acknowledgment is confirming delivery for Dec 27th although I don't think that their automated system has taken account that the date is the substitute Bank Holiday for Christmas Day. Anyway, it looks like I will get my bread-maker before the new year so there's a good chance that I'll be waking to freshly baked bread on New Year's Day. I'm back to being excited again!

Personal training was ramped up a notch and It. Was. Hard. Still good fun, but definitely the hardest session I've done and I can feel the after effects today. After the session I was able to buy the rest of the food I need for my Christmas meals and I've now delivered the rest of the cards. The baby's bauble still hasn't arrived but apart from that one thing, I am now ready for Christmas! 😊

I don't need to go out today so will have a quiet day pottering at home. I have bits and bobs of housework to finish off, some paperwork to deal with, and will use the last of the older veg to make some stock for the freezer, none of which will take too long so I should have it all done before lunch. I'll see what Christmas films are on this afternoon or, if there's nothing I fancy watching, I have the family tree to work on, a bookcase full of unread novels to choose from, and a Les Mis piano book to work my way through.