I’ve been in a pretty bad head-place since getting back from Portugal. Not entirely sure if it’s a case of the post-holiday glums or just the dismal snow-ridden weather and being cooped up after all the exercise, fresh air and intermittent sunshine of Lisbon. Possibly I need to tidy up and do some house-brightening. Maybe invest in some daylight bulbs to dispel a little of the gloom occasioned by the appalling lighting setup in this flat. What I wouldn’t give to be able to repaint and move all the lights into the middle of the room and get rid of the landlord’s heavy, big, dark furniture. Feeling a desperate need for COLOUR.

At any rate, today was a bit of a struggle. I had a physio appointment in the morning. She has given me a red theraband which which to work on my resistance exercises, which hopefully will make actually doing them a little easier. The pavements out there are pretty treacherous though – ice all over the place once you’re off the main roads – so after that I just went to the local shops to get some stuff for dinner, and also took advantage of the chance to pick up BBC Music Magazine and Classic FM magazine for their Christmas music cover CDs – both very good this year, although I think (as often happens) the BBC one is the more interesting, so if you’re contemplating them, that’s my recommendation 🙂 Also treated myself to the Christmas issue of Jamie magazine, which has some yummy-sounding ideas in it.

This afternoon has been primarily spent battling the glums and not really prevailing. We pulled out the Christmas decorations and dressed the (tiny) tree, which was nice, but I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to fill the wide windowsills and our empty walls. Might need to sort out some of our posters which are languishing about the place and get them framed quickly. Our last house was tiny, so the only decoration needed to make the whole place seem Christmassy was the tree, a few wooden stockings along the mantlepiece and my marvellous Nisse in the bookcase.

But now, alas, we have huge spaces to fill, and even the addition of the new crazy robin isn’t enough to fill the void. Or perhaps to overcome the clutter that we haven’t yet found anywhere to store. Maybe bright coloured boxes for the clutter might help???

But I did finally do something constructive:

1. I made raspberry muffins

2. I worked a tiny bit on the quintet until Finale crashed (after a save, thank heavens). I am delighted to be able to report that I’m still working on the additions I made just before we left for Portugal. I haven’t (yet) had to delete all that like I was doing on daily basis before. I think this is progress.