A New Week and New Freedoms

This week felt a little strange. Not needing to go to work, left me with lots of free time, and wondering how I was going to fill it.

On Monday, I eased myself into it. I had a walk with the dog. It was lovely and sunny, so it felt relaxing. When I got back, I decided to do a bit of patchwork, because I could. I've been tentatively dipping a toe back into making my current quilt, but I've not done much work on it at all for over a month, since before we went on holiday, so it felt nice to work on it again.

I have now realised that I don't have enough of the chambray fabric I bought to complete it. I did check at Boyes last week, to see if I could get more, but I couldn't, so I'll just have to finish the edges of the quilt with a navy blue cotton or something similar. It should work out okay though. (I ordered a metre on eBay later in the week)

Later, in the afternoon, I went to bed for a nap. I seem to be very tired at the moment and still catching up on sleep from our time away. 

On Tuesday, I was up and out with the dog again. We had a lovely favourite walk over a disused golf course. I spent most of the afternoon doing some work on my finances.  I needed to provide some financial information for LB's application for a student loan and I caught up on my own finances too, which I'd neglected of late. It's even more essential to keep a close eye on them now I'm not working again.

LB came home for a short visit in the late afternoon, as she was going somewhere in East London the following day. It was nice to have her home for the evening and to catch up with her news. She's busy trying to finish work for Uni deadlines at the moment, so she spent most of the evening working, which was fine. It's nice to just have her in the house with us.

On Wednesday, I had a mostly quiet day at home. I've been a bit of a homebod this week. Making up for all the time I've spent outside of the house over the last few months. I'm quite content to potter and chill for a week or two and get my bearings again.

In the evening, (once the rush hour traffic had died down) I ventured back to my old workplace to return my uniforms which I'd laundered. It had to be done and I was in and out pretty quickly. I combined this errand with dropping into the nearby Lidl for a top up shop. I used a £2 voucher off my shopping whilst there. I also dropped into B&M for a few other bits.

Thursday, I was back to volunteering. I wasn't working late the night before, so I wasn't quite as tired as usual getting up early in the morning and I actually managed to get there on time for once. The shift went quickly, it always does, and before I knew it I was on my way home.

LB was waiting until I got home before she headed off back to Uni, so I got to say goodbye to her before she left. It was nice to have her home for a couple of nights. I napped again in the afternoon. I think I must have been more exhausted than I thought after leaving work, so I'm being gentle with myself and letting myself nap in the afternoons whilst I can. I'm hoping that in a couple of weeks time I'll feel more energetic.

I got up later and took the dog out for a walk. It started to rain on the walk, so we both got a bit wet, but we enjoyed it. I made a chilli for supper when we got back, after which OH and I settled down to watch some TV. We're currently watching our way through The Last of Us.

Friday, I had a bit more energy and wanted to use my time a bit more productively.  I decided to take myself off to the gym and try to sort out my membership. Since getting a new phone at Christmas, I'd lost my membership number and password and needed to see if they could help me get logged into my account again. A very nice lady helped me get hold of my account number and logged back in, so now I can go back to the gym and the odd class again.

From there, I decided to walk into the town centre to go to the building society, as I was interested in transferring some money from one account there into a new ISA, which was being offered with a good interest rate. It will at least earn me a little more money from my savings than I currently get. I had to make an appointment to do this in a couple of weeks time.

I also visited my favourite local charity shop to drop some donations in. I'd not been in for a few weeks and just fancied a mooch whilst I was there, but didn't see anything I wanted to buy. I'm always on the lookout for plant pots, as my houseplants are constantly outgrowing their pots. It's a good thing, but it means that I need to keep finding bigger pots so that I can pot them on.

Later in the day, I took the dog for a walk and OH made us a chunky chicken and vegetable soup for supper, which was very tasty.

On Saturday, it felt great not to have to go to work. I had a completely free weekend for the second time in a while, but the first time at home. In the morning, I did some laundry and then took some clothing to the clothing banks which removed more stuff from the pile on the upstairs landing and then I took the dog for a walk.

I also spent some time quilting today. The fabric I'd ordered on eBay arrived. Just in time, as I'd done all I could on the quilt up to that point. So, today, I made more pieces from the new fabric, ready to add to the quilt which made the afternoon pass in a very pleasant fashion.

Lidl were having a Spanish week this week, so I treated us to lots of Tapas for supper, which we enjoyed. We then watched a good movie on Netflix called Land. Definitely worth watching.

As a consequence of the last couple of days, I feel like I ended the week being a bit more productive, which felt like progress. So long as I manage a couple of productive things each day, I'm happy. I hope you had a productive week.