On a winter's day...

This week is passing me by in a blur of mood swings, tiredness and chilly mornings.

It's fair to say that the cold weather has done the job of making me feel like Christmas is actually on the way now - that, and it has removed any doubt in my mind that we were right to have ordered the new double glazed windows!

Helen almost literally had to drag me out of bed this morning. I was half awake at the time Reggie called out for the toilet at 6.45am, and I was about to climb out of bed to do the rounds of the animals, but Helen groaned and jumped up before me. I quickly drifted off into a deep sleep again, so when she came to rouse me it was nearly 8.30am and the clock was ticking for us to get to the misericordia for the second round of blood tests. The cut-off time for blood tests is 9.30am and, if you were paying attention a few days ago you'll remember that the process for this is to go into the misericordia building with the form from the doctor, they then punch the details into a computer and give you another form in return, this one bearing a barcode, which you then need to take to the hospital on the other side of the river to shove it into a touchscreen machine that reads the details and tells you how much you owe it. Only once you have paid at the touchscreen machine and retrieved a receipt can you return to the misericordia for the actual business of the blood letting required.

So when I finally opened a tired eye and saw it was almost 8.30am, I was all ready to postpone the visit until tomorrow morning and go back to my sleep - but Helen not only managed to get me up but we got all of the above done before 9.25am, even managing a very quick cappuccino along the way and Reggie got his daily walk (around town) too.

So on Saturday morning I will be able to collect my results and find out my exact levels of:

uric acid, sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, cholesterol, creatine as well as glucose, nitrogen, gamma GT, GOT and GPT! (Bet you can't wait for the results blog post!)

When we got home, we both had breakfast and went into the office (along with Reggie). As yet, I hadn't felt capable of dealing with Christmas shopping or cards in any way, and today I thought I'd give it a whirl and started with trying to get some cards ordered online. I finished off a piece of artwork to use as a card and started producing the cards - that is until the website I was using refused to play ball an hour into ordering/uploading process. I could instantly feel this minor complication calling in the dark gloomy clouds of a mood change for the worse - that's how fragile it all is right now - and I caught myself visualising punching the computer screen so got up and walked away from it all. A frustrating waste of a couple of hours and still nothing achieved. My huffing and puffing was distracting Helen from her work so I decided to stay away from the office until my mood had changed for the better.

Sue phoned just as I walked out, and I think that the distraction saved me from my downward spiral, so after a brief chat I handed the phone to Helen and went and played outside with Reggie for a while.

It was lunchtime by the time Helen put the phone down, so we had lunch on the patio in the beautiful winter's sunshine - it really was a perfect winter's day, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and while it was still decidedly chilly in the shade, the warm sunshine bathed the patio (and made it marginally warmer outside than inside). The bright, sunny weather seemed to be doing wonders for my mood, so after lunch I stayed put, coming to the conclusion that there was very little urgent that needed doing around the house/land between now and Christmas.

Helen brought me a cup of tea and I sat reading a book on permaculture on my tablet, allowing myself to think towards the growing the season and warmer weather of next year.

I was soon distracted by a little bird or two flitting around in very close proximity to me. One was a robin, and the other was what I think was a juvenile black redstart - we've seen a few down by the river on our walks with Reggie but had never seen any before that.

I was wondering whether their presence was because Reggie has made the cats more scarce or whether it was just because winter is fast approaching and food is becoming scarce.

That thought led me to switch from my permaculture book to searching Pinterest for bird feeder ideas. I found quite a few different types, but nothing that I could make instantly with what I had available. I looked down from my tablet and saw a couple of old candle holders on the patio table - and a light bulb appeared above my head (metaphorically speaking, of course). An hour later, I'd made two free-standing bird feeders - hopefully rain- and cat-proof. If we get some feathered visitors I'll be posting some pictures!

Free-standing bird feeder! (I should have been on Blue Peter).

I still couldn't face the idea of fighting with my computer again, so instead I tidied up the area where the man cave had stood, and the old bread oven before it - you can just see the foundations of the oven itself in this photo:

You can just see the foundations of the old bread oven underneath the site of the former man cave.

After a while, Helen appeared, cold, in numerous layers of clothes, with lettuce in her hands - it was already nearly 5pm and time for the geese to go to bed.

Having got them into safety on only the second attempt, and having both cats safely in the house, we both went indoors so that I could light a fire and write a blog while Helen finished up with the work she had been in the middle of.

So it has been another unproductive day again really, but a step forward (albeit a small one) in my well being. Helen says that Alex, who lives near Vellano with the ever thoughtful and helpful Donatella, has very kindly offered to lend a hand with anything physical we might need doing to make up for my lack of output lately, but for now I think I really need to start focusing on festivities and tidying up rather than attempting more jobs, and with the biggest of the Man-from-Florence jobs out of the way (the demolition of the man cave), the other 'requirements' for his visit (should he come in the next week or so) ought to be a little less taxing. (Alex if you're reading this, I might well take you up on a bit of help in the new year though, got a couple of felled oaks in front of the house that need cutting and moving that will be much easier with two pairs of hands).

Now it's time for an evening of feeding the fire to keep us warm!