Christmas and more

A pleasant Christmas was had in the GATF household. Jade was delighted by her pink DS and Shannon is very envious. We've said she can have one when she's 5, and now she frequently insists that she is 5 and should have her own DS right now! Nevertheless, Shannon was delighted with her Barbie Mariposa doll and a pair of roller skates.

Jade gave Shannon her old Dora pull-along suitcase, and Jade got a new horsey one, so both girls will proudly take their own luggage to Center Parcs in a couple of weeks.

I was delighted with my Garmin ForeRunner 301 from DH (bought more cheaply than at Amazon, I must add!). I am now getting very technical with my running, charting paces and heart rates and it's great fun and distracts me from the effort of the actual running! I've signed up for a 10k run (6.2 miles) on 22nd Feb, so really need to step up the running. 5k is the most I've ever done so far.

My Mum came on Boxing Day to stay for a couple of nights. That can always be a slightly sticky situation but it went OK this time. After she left, I managed to persuade DH to start sorting out the appalling state of the hall, stairs and landing. We've had flakey, peeling paint since a water leak a year or two ago, and despite asking for it to be done as my Christmas present last year, it never was. At last we have started! I can do ordinary decorating myself, and indeed I enjoy doing so, but replacing rotting skirting boards and replastering where holes and channels have been dug is beyond me. He's done a fab job so far and it's almost ready for me to get my hands on it for painting and papering.

I'm sure there were all sorts of other things I wanted to put in this blogpost, but needless to say they have all exited my mind since I sat at the computer. I will just record here that we have just finished reading "The Hobbit" to Jade as her bedtime story over the past 2-3 weeks, and she loved it. I can't say there's much else to report on the HE front, and although I do want to get on with a bit of 'orgo-planning' it just doesn't seem to be happening so far. Constant requests from children for one thing or another means I never get to sit and look through the resources we have to decide what to do next.