Weekly Blog - W/E 20/11/21

After getting back from Cardiff on Sunday night, this week has been about catching up at home and on medical/dental appointments and getting back into my normal routine. It's nice to go away, but I love coming home and getting back to normal.

On Monday, I was booked into my Zumba class as normal, which was great. I did the weekly shop afterwards at Lidl. It was a biggish one, as there wasn't a lot left in the fridge, due to us going away. 

On my return from doing the shopping, I had some lunch and then had to head out to my first dental appointment in over two years. It went ok, a different dentist, covering for my dentist's maternity leave, who seemed nice enough. He did try to suggest that I get some crowns replaced at a cost of £2-3,000, but as they aren't really a problem for me at the moment, I have no intention of paying out such an amount in the immediate future. 

I did end up having an extra xray to check the crowns and then a clean and polish, so the final bill was £100, which was more than I expected just before Christmas, but it does mean that I don't have to go near the surgery for another 6 months, which suits me down to the ground. 

I booked LB in for a check up in January, as I can't afford another appointment this side of Xmas. She has never had a single filling, so I'm hoping that she'll be fine, but we'll see.

On Tuesday, I headed back to work. As I expected, there was a whole cage full of Gift Aid donations to process. The Shop Manager had warned me that donations had picked up over the weekend, which is a good thing, as they had virtually dried up before I went away. 

A volunteer had started work on them and I then pitched in, so that we managed to clear the whole cage by the end of the day and I also managed to price a huge pile of clothes on the pricing table too. I felt pretty satisfied that I'd done a productive day's work at least on my first day back.

A night out at the pub had been organised after work, and as a consequence, I'd come to work on the bus. After finding one pub full, we'd walked on to another and managed to bag a table so that we could all sit together. We had a nice couple of hours in the pub and then I headed home.  The bus home was full, which wasn't great, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. 

On Wednesday, I was glad to have a free day, as I had a few errands to run and I needed to ring the doctor's surgery to get my thyroid and cholesterol blood test results, which I did first thing and then waited for the doctor to call me back in the afternoon. The former results were fine, the latter not so, so I'm finally going on medication for high cholesterol, as I think it runs in our family and it was higher than it's ever been. I'm not thrilled, but I need to do the sensible thing. I've seen what can happen when someone is struck down by a stroke and I don't want that to happen to me. 

I put away some laundry next, that had been hanging around for a while, and then I got ready, as I needed to wrap and drop off my donation of an Operation Christmas Child box to a shop in our local mall.  I jumped on the bus to do this, as it's cheaper than paying for parking at the mall. I stopped in at the Card Factory whilst I was there and bought some birthday cards that I need early next year, so now I'm all set and can just post them off when they are due.

When I got home, I had some lunch, did the washing up, took the dog out, caught up on some financial stuff, blogged for a while and then made us some supper. I ticked a few things off my to do list today though, so that was good.

Thursday and back to work. Back on the electric bike too, which was preferable to the bus, I have to say.I had a difficult day at work. That's all I can say about it. I came home feeling a bit stressed out and found it hard to get to sleep. In trying to hunt for some second hand trainers for LB, I joined Depop and took a look around the site. I felt a bit old to join this app, but it was interesting.

The saddle bag for the electric bike came today. I'm very pleased with it. It fits perfectly on the rack at the back and will allow me to carry a water bottle on the bike. (There's nowhere to put a bottle holder) The saddlebag itself is not huge, but that's good, as it stops me trying to carry too much to work.

On Friday, I was up quite early after a lousy night's sleep. I got up and ready, whilst OH took the dog out. I had a few errands to run today. I needed to pick up my new prescription and also get a form from the pharmacy. There is a new system for getting hold of free lateral flow tests, whereby you have to register with an app to get a collection code. I went through the process and later picked up a couple of boxes. I guess the govt are now starting to try to monitor (police) the use of them.

I also needed to pop to ASDA, to do a food top up shop, as we'd completely run out of a few things. Whilst there, I also went into TKMaxx and had a look around and then went to Poundland for a few more bits, some of them needed for work. 

I was tired today, so didn't get much done at home, save for hanging out some laundry. I just wasn't feeling it. My final outstanding eBay purchase came today - a pack of Xmas face masks. They're quite jolly.  Christmas starts here.

Saturday I was working as usual. Cycling in it was pretty cold today. My new saddle bag did the job. I can't fit very much in it though. All I managed to take today, aside from my lunch, apron and small handbag, was one toilet roll out of a pack of six. At this rate it will take two weeks to take the whole pack into work!!

I understand an arctic weather front is on it's way next week. I had an okay day. I didn't feel like I achieved a whole lot. I was back processing Gift Aid donations. I did manage to put away some out of season stock into a cupboard to clear some space in the stockroom and to rearrange the toy corner of the stockroom and get some toys out into the shop, so some progress was made.

I was happy to get home tonight and be able to chill for a couple of days. I started my new medication on Saturday night, so I have two days off to get used to it. OH and I booked some tickets to go and see Handel's Messiah at St Martyn in the Fields in Trafalgar Square the week before Christmas. I'm looking forward to it.  Unfortunately, there were only restricted view tickets left on sale, but hopefully we'll enjoy it all the same.

Hope you've had a good week.