Trying to get back into a routine isn’t easy when you’ve let everything slide for months.

 

My house is full of clutter and rubbish (No! Not the smelly kind!) Post by the ton, interspersed with photographs and family history documents. There are piles of it everywhere.

 

I decided to blitz the house and started with the large dresser in the dining room. It has six cupboards and four drawers. The shelf parts I keep tidy with some favourite ornaments but that saying, out of sight, out of mind is very true. Having crammed the parts not visible with goodness knows what for years, they are now too full to put anything else in. The same is true of the writing bureau in the sitting room.

 

The truth of the matter is, they are full of stuff that we never use, or look at. There was 13 years accumulation in the dresser. Well it’s sorted now, as is the bureau and I filled a black bin bag with rubbish and the breakfast bar is now piled with items going to a car boot sale. (Don’t hold your breath on that one! I’ve been saying I’ll do one for the last two years.)

 

I bought some beautiful new bedding back from Ikea in Frankfurt, it’s a wine red satin cotton, with self colour flowers embroidered on the top part, with a love ly faux, fold over detail, which I can’t explain but it looks very luxurious. I bought the big square pillows and pillowcases to go with it. I can’t believe the price, the kingsize cover and pillowcases were just over £30 and the pillows £5 each.

 

When I got home I bought some new cream curtains and with the cream carpet and walls and the dark oak Jacobean style bedroom furniture and antique washstand, it looks really good. Mike was very impressed when he saw our ‘new ’room.

 

I'd been speaking to Catherine on the phone earlier and said I had to hurry, as I wanted to get the bedroom finished before he got home. She said "Oh, are you planning a 'Big Night' then?" We both had a good laugh about that. My idea of an exciting time in bed these days is......a good book!! 

 

Autumn is truly on the way and I don’t mean because the weather has gone colder, it will more than likely go very hot in September, it usually does. No, the reason Autumn is here is because I’m sitting here by an open window and I can hear one of my Robins in a tree in the garden, singing his ‘Autumn Song’. I don’t know why they do it but it is the most hauntingly beautiful sound and they seem to improve it over the next few weeks, so that by mid September it’s a sound that fills my garden.

 

I remember one glorious September day, a couple of years ago. It was one of those days when you get that wonderful hazy golden sunshine. The apples were ripe on the trees and the smells of warm, moist, earth and fruit and the more  pungent,bitter, scents of leaves starting to turn colour, were filling the air. It was so still and quiet and then a Robin started to sing on an apple branch ,just above my head. The experience is one I shall never forget, it was so heady, I felt as if I’d had a glass of wine and a warmth coursed through my veins making me light headed. It was almost as if I was floating and somehow the Robin’s song became part of me, it was inside my head as much as it was all around me. I stood there for several minutes, entranced and hypnotised. I felt I never wanted to move outside that moment, yet it was as fragile as a bubble that could have burst at any time.

 

Autumn days like that are my favourite times of the year, much as I love certain aspects of all the other seasons.

 

Well, I’m waffling on far too much here. I need to get on with sorting out the rest of my house, which will no doubt take me weeks!

 

I’m very impressed with fellow J-Lander Rachel, who has lost three stone .....Actually, if she lost anything, it was probably in one of my dresser drawers, the rest of the world seemed to be in there! Anyway because she feels her success is due in part to support from other people, I am going to try and do something about my three stone that need to go.

 

Before I went to Germany I had got down to 12 st 12lbs. When I returned I weighed 13 st 3lbs. This is no doubt due to the Black Forest Gateau I ate, on several occasions, including two days when I had it for breakfast!

 

Anyway, I’ve managed to get back to 13 stone exactly this morning and I shall now do a weekly weigh in and post it here, even if I don’t have time to write anything else some weeks. Maybe that will get me a bit more motivated.

 

I had a lovely time in Germany and will write more and put some photos on later. Catherine and Flo do live in a beautiful place but I can see why they find it a bit back of beyondish, you have to drive over an hour to get to a city with a good selection of shops. While it might suit me at my age, I can see how they find it a bit quiet.

 

I will put one picture on here today. I took  it last week, on Catherine’s 30th birthday. Of course I’m biased but I think she is so beautiful and little Isabella looks so pretty too for a two month old baby.

 

 

 

Catherine said they measured Isabella at the Doctor’s yesterday. When she was born on June 14th, she was 53 centimetres. She didn’t feed too well for the first month and when she was measured on July 20th, she was still 53 centimetres. Yesterday she was 60, that’s 7 centimetres in a month! I think she may take after her Uncle Simon, she already has the big feet  that indicate height.

 

Oh well, back to the housework now.

  

             

 

 PS. Just as I finished writing this, the heavens opened and for the second time this week we seem to be having monsoon type rain. At least it saves time watering all my tubs and pots.