I was off work last week. Let’s call it annual leave – ‘holiday’ conjures up too many memories of flights to foreign places and things that might have been.

Anyway. This was the week that I should have taken just after Easter, but due to You Know What, it was cancelled. Which meant I hadn’t had a break since Christmas – which meant I’d had a lot of time to think about it.

I’d made plans.

So here’s my list of things I intended to do – and what I actually managed to get done –

• Paint the garage floor – yes, I did this. It involved moving everything from one side of the garage to the other, sweeping it out, then hoovering it, then painting it and leaving it for several days to go off before moving everything across to the painted side and sweeping, hoovering and painting the other side. I also did the basement steps and passage. The cat isn’t impressed – that paint is very pungent.
• Go for a proper long walk – no, didn’t manage this, although I had a couple of short walks along the canal. Wasn’t the weather just lovely!
• Spend some quality time with my family tree – yes, I spent a good few hours on it over the course of the week. There are 12,500 people in the tree now.
• Wash the spare bedroom nets – yes, in fact this was the first job of the week, and they dried on the line in about 5 minutes!! (Did I mention the weather was just lovely?)
• Tidy up the back of the house – yes – and it looks so much better. I swept all the leaves from all the corners, pulled up the weeds, and planted some herbs in pots by the back door.
• Clear out the shed and repaint it – yes. It really wasn’t a big job – it’s only a small shed, literally just enough room for the lawnmower and a few tools. But it looks so much better. I gave my very old garden bench a lick of paint while I was at it, as the weather was just lovely.
• Go to Tesco’s – yes. There isn’t a Tesco near to me, but somehow I’d managed to accumulate a load of Clubcard vouchers. When I added them all together, it came to £25 – totally worth a special trip. I decided I would only buy ‘extras’, things that I can’t get on my normal weekly shop at Aldi. And that’s what I did. Such fun!!
• Clean the hall carpet – no, didn’t manage this. Shame, as the weather was just lovely, perfect drying conditions – I’ll add it to the list for my next annual leave...
• Visit Mum and Dad – yes, I went to visit them as soon as I was able to, on 1^st June. We sat outside, suitably socially distant – the weather was just lovely. It was great to see them, but so sad not to be able to give them a hug. When I left, Mum did a ‘namaste’ instead, brilliant.
• Cut the grass at the end of No Mow May – I started to do this, then the lodger came down and offered to help. I think it’s been bothering him that it needed cutting. So, he cut the grass and I trimmed the edges, and the whole garden looks much better as a result.

Over and above the things I’d planned to do, I got some other stuff done as well. I finished one book (‘1000 Years of Annoying the French’ by Stephen Clarke) and started another (‘Un Cadavre dans la Bibliotheque’ by Agatha Christie). I took the car for its MOT – and she passed! And of course there was the usual washing and cooking and shopping.

And I spent some time sitting in the sun. The weather was just lovely – did I mention that?

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