Christmas shopping

Good grief, I was too exhausted last night to post my Christmas shopping haul. It wasn't really a haul anyway, although I managed to get a fair few fiddly bits. Once I had written all the Christmas cards, and stuffed the money wallets ready to post to Mr G's lot in Wigan, I was more than ready for bed. Sofa. So I wrapped everything this morning, and assembled the boxes. 

I got a lovely dark grey chunky knitted blanket for the foot of my still non-existant bed, some new Primark undies (gotta love new Primark undies) and some fleece lined leggings. The little hippy shop was a little disappointing yesterday, there didn't seem to be much stock of interest there. There weren't any oracle or tarot cards out. None of the crystals called to me. Hay House have a Black Friday Sale on so all is not lost, and Mr G ordered me three more decks for Christmas - when Hay House have a sale, they mean a sale too. He also ordered me some new harem pants from Amazon, once I showed him how to use Amazon Smile. We have set our chosen charity as the local foodbank on the island. Now more than ever, charities need our help, so if you do use Amazon, please use Amazon Smile. It costs nothing, the same log in details, the same stored bank cards, but your chosen charity gets a donation from Amazon. Apparently I have raised over £8 for them since I've started using it, not a life changing amount but £8 can buy you a fair bit of food when you're on your arse, right? Most of us have been there, I know I certainly have over the years.

Made good progress on the Christmas Eve boxes, three have pyjamas on the top now, and I have a duck onesie on the way from Amazon, for the duck obsessed one. I still need hot chocolates, stirrers, popcorn and sweets for three of them, but I can get those locally, so no biggie. 

We (my cousin and I) managed to take a lovely selfie in front of the tree at Eagles Meadow yesterday. 'Oooh' she said. 'Beautiful tree. Selfie?' So, we took the selfie, I nearly fell through the fence surrounding the tree, and she sent them to me when I got home.

Jesus H Christ. 

I'm going grey. I knew this, it's no secret. In fact, I'm relishing going grey because I can't be arsed dying my hair brown any more, it's so long at the moment that it would be a nightmare to do. Plus, it only needs doing again within a few weeks so why bother? It's not like I'm going anywhere right now, is it? I have visible grey hairs in my fringe. I can see them creeping in at the sides of my hair when I wear it up. But because of the perspective of this picture, taken looking down at me...

The top of my head was GREY. 

'Fookinell!' I said. I turned the phone round to show Mr G. 'Why the hell didn't you tell me I was this grey? Why haven't you MADE ME dye my hair before now?'

'Bloody hell.' he replied. 'I hadn't noticed you were that grey before.'

And, as she noted when she sent me the pictures, she managed to miss out the tree completely anyway. So now, I'm thinking, cut a good six inches off my hair and colour it. I'm not grey enough to just wait it out, and I'm also not grey enough to dye it all grey without bleaching my hair and I don't want to go down that route. I've never bleached my hair, I've always been some variation of brunette/auburn. Apart from the purple Dora the Explorer phase, which we won't revisit because the memory of it still makes me shudder. So, I'm thinking chop, and then a quick dark brown colour over it. I know Mr G will colour my hair, but now I need to persuade (or bribe) him to cut it for me too. 

No, I'm not posting the picture. Here's a picture of the Christmas tree instead. 

Lovely. And the fence I nearly fell through. 

Next steps, Christmas tunes back on iPod, I have to take them off because I pretty much solely use the shuffle button so I don't get bored of what I listen to, and it gets on my tits through the course of the year, nothing worse than Noddy Holder screeching 'It's Christmas!' in July. Finish off the planning for the Boxing Day buffet, specifically what desserts to make, preferably ones I can make ahead and freeze because I won't have time Christmas Day, nor Boxing Day truth be told. Neither of my parents like cheesecake, so that's that out. Sticky Toffee Pudding goes down well usually, with my family anyway, and so simple to make. Finish off my Christmas food list and decide what other meat to cook on Christmas Day and what meat we're going to have on New Year's Day. I'm pretty much just fine tuning the details right now, it's amazing how I went from 'I've bought nothing, it's going to be a disaster.' to 'I'm done, everything is bought and wrapped and the tree is up.' within the space of a couple of weeks.