This is my first go at ‘day in the life’ as organised, this time, by the lovely Catherine of Merulapie. I almost gave up halfway through, as I didn’t think my day was interesting AT ALL, but lovely encouraging twitterings from Catherine and Claire kept me at it. And I’m glad I did – it’s amazing how much you do in a day without realising it. It’s kind of an exercise in mindfulness. Funnily enough, the next morning I was still in that mode, and had to remind myself that I didn’t have to note everything I was doing in order to blog it later.
So without any further padding, here we go. As I said, I’ve not done this before so I might be a little verbose, in which case, forgive me.
8.04 – wake up, 2 year old has somehow snuck into our bed during the night and is lying in-between us and as a result I am clinging to the edge of the mattress to stay on
8.17 – persuade husband to take 2yo downstairs for milk and tv. Doze off again, relishing all the space.
9.00 – a lie-in! husband brings me a great cup of milky tea in my favourite moominmama cup. I get dressed and go help get 7yo ready for skiing lesson, and fill a bag with books so 2yo can be amused at the ski centre too
9.37 – they leave, I eat breakfast – toast with my sister’s homemade marmalade. It’s nice but a bit too chunky for me, but as I didn’t get it together to make any last year I’m in no position to complain
10.00 – enough prevaricating online and drinking coffee, time to get down to work. I promised to make cushion covers for a friend ages ago and am finally getting them done, just in time for her daughter’s birthday next week
10.30 – finished cutting out cushion covers. Drink more coffee, eat a gold bar biscuit, go back to sewing
1pm – family arrives home. I’m still sewing the damn cushion covers. Girls excitedly show me the goodies their Grandma brought back from Israel. I go back to sewing the last few seams while samosa from farmers market heat up.
1.30 – lunch! And the end of the sewing
2.00 – children go outside with a large stick and several buckets of water. Anyone who’s ever been or known a child knows how this is going to end. And it does.
3.00 – children changed into dry clothes and relaxing in separate rooms. I watch approximately 10 minutes of Octopussy while discussing birthday party arrangements for younger daughter, then start to make adjustable hairbands for tomorrow’s market at Mono. Both daughters wish to help – the small one decides to take the ribbon and hide it under the table then sit on the bag of toggles, the large one gives me fashion advice.
3.45 – my wee sister phones from her local supermarket to ask for recipe advice for dinner party this evening. I recommend stuffed peppers (aubergine, anchovies, capers, garlic, parsley….mmmmm). Her menu sounds delicious, I wish I were eating it too.
4.00 – Watched Ebay auctions end. Bought old singer buttonholer for my other sister for Christmas, oh and one for me too.
4.30 – take cushion covers to friend and am delighted to see how well they look in situ. 7yo plays wii, badly, with friend’s daughter and father-in-law. Return home to find husband and 2yo gone to shop. Try to jolly 7yo into piano practice. It sort of works in that she half-heartedly plays through a couple of tunes – benefit is that tomorrow’s practice won’t be as bad.
5.30 – husband returns home from supermarket to pick up wallet
5.45 – husband and shopping return home
6.00 – pizza and spinach salad for tea! yum
6.45 – watch 7yo putting her invisible dogs through their paces at obedience and agility trials in the hall. Tickle and Rex did very well. I especially enjoyed the leapfrog finale
6.50 – husband gives children ice cream and flapjack, 2yo is pushing a small stool around the kitchen and singing, I escape to watch Strictly in relative peace
6.53 – joined by children, invisible dogs, retracting metal tape measure, princess tiara and construction set. 7yo proceeds to watch tv from a headstand position on sofa.
7.50 – break in tv so try to decide between gluing fabric or drafting a bag pattern. The bag wins. Oh! Riverdance! Maybe I’ll do tags after all…
8.30 – 2yo in and out of bed – not a bad night though, only four visits
9.30 – finished gluing tags, children gone to bed, back to bag pattern.
10.10 – nope, is foolish to try to draft and sew another bag tonight. Take out the big box o’ stuff and lay it all out to see how much I’ve got for tomorrow – thankfully more than I’d thought, so I should be ok. However, I do not have a natural gift for artful arranging of stalls, so it’s always a trial to pile things up nicely. Scout around the house for creative solutions to the problem. Vintage suitcase? Salad bowl? Consider a late-night Tesco run for festive accoutrements. Husband doing laundry which leads to guilt on my part.
10.20 – use leftover glue from business cards to fix 2yo’s tissue paper butterfly creation which shed quite a few tissue paper balls earlier after 7yo threw her large toy dog up in the air and walloped it. Still no further on in hunt for display items. Thus far have also considered baking tins, wedding china and shoe rack. Jings.
11.00 – lost about half an hour on twitter/email/blogs. Still no display solution.
11.35 – paused for glass of wine and charcoal crackers with smoked trout pate
12.08 – packing up the box for tomorrow’s market. I have managed to find a couple of tins and cases for display, but mostly my plan is to take lots of stuff and see how it fits on the table tomorrow. Plan to make price cards tomorrow. No doubt I’ll forget.
12.30 – want to watch Thick of It on iplayer before bed, but tv is on the fritz. Read for a while then in bed by 1am.
Thanks, Merulapie, for organising this! I had good fun 
Tags: day in the life
