A slightly over zealous evening of Aperol spritzes last night was enough to give me a banging headache this morning and to leave me feeling decidedly delicate. It's been a while since I've felt that way, but I maintain that I was merely trying to empathise with friends back in the UK - not only were a group of my best friends all going out partying for my friend Lisa's birthday, but our dojo friends were all having their Christmas drinks party too. I think I was just trying to join in, albeit remotely...
Anyway, in the cold light of day, yesterday's master plan of leaving our list of things to do until today (so that we could have the afternoon off yesterday) seemed... not such a great plan after all. Nevertheless, the jobs had to be done, so after a breakfast of toast and marmalade I rolled up my sleeves and set about making the brandy butter that I had abandoned yesterday afternoon after a couple of disasters with the butter (first, in order to 'soften' the butter I had left it for a couple of minutes on top of the log burner - clearly a couple of minutes too long as when I turned around I had a pan of butter soup; after that, I put the pan outside to firm it back up... but when I went to check on it, it had completely solidified again). The recipe couldn't be simpler, and once I'd mastered getting the butter to the required softness, it was all done in a matter of minutes and I had pots of brandy butter to put in the fridge.
While I did this, Stuart and Reggie took it easy on the sofa, reading and snoozing respectively - a perfect Sunday morning.
Once that had been ticked off the list, it was time to tackle the big job of the day - cleaning the apartment in preparation for our visitors, who arrive tomorrow. The apartment hasn't been properly cleaned for quite a while, and although our last visitors left it in pretty good shape, there were quite a few cobwebs and layers of dust to deal with. We spent a good couple of hours vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the fridge and cleaning the kitchen before we both felt utterly spent (I soon realised that it's not the best tonic for a banging headache). We decided to break for some lunch and return to the task after some sustenance.
Lunch break was all too short, but I traipsed back downstairs afterwards to mop the floors and to attempt to bring just a little Christmas spirit to the apartment. I hope our guests like it!
When that was finally all finished, I took all of the cleaning products and boxes of decorations back upstairs to the house. On entering our house, the thought crossed my mind that I would actually prefer to turn right back around and go and live downstairs in the clean, tidy apartment instead.
A combination of having a wood-fired stove (with its associated smoke and all the bits of wood being brought into the house most nights) and having a puppy (with his obsession with chewing the bits of wood that have been brought in for the fire, as well as shredding every piece of cardboard he can find, not wiping his feet when he comes in from the garden, and leaving all of his toys strewn all over the floor) means that it is nigh on impossible to keep our house clean. This afternoon, I reached breaking point and stomped upstairs to get the vacuum then vigorously vacuumed around poor Stuart, who was sitting at the table attempting to wrap some Christmas presents and Reggie, who was scared of the vacuum and who backed into every corner he could find to try to get away from the noisy sucking machine. I felt marginally better after having finished, even though I knew full well that it would only take a matter of minutes for Reggie to undo all the cleaning I'd just done. (And, for the record, it did take him just minutes.)
By this time it was getting on for 4pm, so I rounded up the cats from outside while Stuart and Reggie started bringing in some more wood for the fire. I then went to put the geese to bed and when I came back down again, Stuart had tied the Christmas wreath to the garden gate and was just finishing adding another set of Christmas lights - rope lights (one of the few useful things left for us by our predecessors), which he had wrapped around the fence outside the apartment and which looked suitably festive. I look forward to seeing them from afar the next time we're driving towards home after dark.
So there you have it, that is pretty much the total excitement of our day - a day without even venturing to the end of the drive (Reggie had spent such a long time playing in the garden and tearing up and down the path from the woodpile to the lawn, that we decided he could have the day off going out for a walk). We're now ready and waiting for our guests. They are already on their way, and we can't wait for them to arrive tomorrow afternoon.
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