Decluttered

Been a lovely day today - by normal people's standards, that is ;-) I let Mr G have a lie in this morning while I took part in my all time favourite hobby... listmaking! I have a tickable blank list book, I think it's called Things to Do, or something. In fact, I have two of them. I liked the first so much that I was scared of it running out and never being able to find one again, so I have a back up. All the things I want to do before Saturday, and including Saturday, went on the list. I know it's not going to be the same as a normal party, nobody is going to be in the house apart from me and mine, and my parents, but still. I like to be organised. 

I gathered up all my bits and bobs and gave them a freshen up wash; plastic cutlery, glass jugs, lidded trays and so on. 

I have enjoyed the weather today, though, and I must admit, it makes it easier when you're tidying up for a social occasion. Unfortunately it's promising rain on Saturday, so, we did the last of our garden work today, Mr G bought some lights for our palm tree, we took all the rubbish we had to the recycling centre and went to pick up some more bits. And by bits, I mean gin...

Mystical Unicorn (tastes like real Unicorn!), Strawberries and Cream and Parma Violet. 

Had a bit of a thunderstorm this afternoon, which seemed to go nowhere. It was just a good hour of constant rumbling as opposed to big claps of thunder. Tiny bit of rain, just as we were about to erect the gazebo. I thought that it might be an idea to put it up while it was dry, especially just getting the roof on, as there's rain promised from now until 2021, so when Mr G had brought the boy home from football training, we put it up quickly as there was more thunder promised later tonight. He managed to trap my pinky in one of the legs, I was bouncing. There's something definitely brewing though, the sky is a weird colour. 

Vacuumed and polished the summerhouse, so that is guest ready too; if the weather is really appalling, a couple of people can go in there. 

I'm really looking forward to it now, and I hope my daughter is too. We have to just make the best of it, even if it wasn't the day we would have liked to have given her or expected her to have. 

Tea tonight was the Nigella Meatballs with Orzo, and it was bloody lush. Definitely going on the make again list, and to be perfectly honest with you, it wouldn't bother me if there was no meatballs the next time. The orzo and the sauce alone was so delicious. The only difference I made to the recipe was that I didn't use Parmesan (*retch*) and I didn't use vermouth in the sauce, instead I chucked two red wine stock pots into the pasta sauce, as they're syn free. 

I also have an empty wardrobe! We took the not good enough to donate clothes to the recycling centre, and I phoned a charity shop in town to check they were accepting donated goods - they were - and so we put the rest of the bags in the boot of the car to take first thing tomorrow morning. Everyone seemed to go on a mad lockdown cleaning, organising and purging session - without giving real thought to where all this stuff was going to go in the interim. Mine was all in the bottom of my side of the wardrobe. Hopefully now I can better organise all my stuff in there. I have so little storage space in the house as it is, without it being taken up with stuff I no longer need, use or fits me.

The boy has finished training and come home with a nice trophy after his presentation. He and Mr G have just had this exchange.

The Boy: Dad, did you hear the trainer say tonight, that he reckoned if the season had resumed we'd have finished top three?

Mr G: Yeah.

The Boy: That would have been good, right? I mean, how many teams are in our league?

Mr G: Two...

The Boy: *stares blankly at Mr G*

Me: Stephen!

Honest to God, it's like having a fifth kid sometimes. 

Tomorrow - charity shop run, cleaning the bathroom (ugh), making an upbeat playlist for Saturday, and clearing out my camera and backing up to Google so I can take some videos on the day. I think I need to upload them to YouTube first in order to be able to post them here for the family at a distance and friends who can't make it, I can't post them here directly like I can a photograph. Or, if I can, let me know... 

Friday - baking, baking, baking and more baking, blowing up balloons, blowing up more balloons, and probably more balloons. 

So, a busy few days ahead of me, but I like it that way :-)