Staying Home Part 2: Day 25

I slept much better last night. Despite waking up for an hour at 5 o'clock, I went back to sleep and ended up with around 9 hours sleep and felt much better for it. As it turned out, it was as well that my energy levels were better as it has been a much busier day than I expected. 

I sat in bed and sorted out various financial things this morning, both for ourselves and for the brass band. A package I had ordered from Whittards with coffee and hot chocolate arrived, so M brought it up for me. Just as we realised the package smelled suspiciously chocolatey, we noticed chocolate powder falling onto the bed. Oops! When we opened it, an entire tub of orange flavoured hot chocolate (the girls' favourite) had burst open. No real harm done, as everything else in the box was easily cleaned up and we were able to hoover the spilled powder off the bed and carpet. I wrote them an email asking for a replacement. 

The chocolate disaster held me up, so by the time I was dressed and ready for a walk it was midday. We did a three mile circuit in foggy, muddy murk through the fields, but it didn't rain and was good to get some fresh air. I had promised the girls we could put the Christmas tree up today, so after a late lunch we did that. Usually I wait until we are at least into December, but this year everything is so grey and miserable that I succumbed to persuasion. We originally decided on 1st December, but TG pointed out that as that is a Tuesday, it would be tricky to fit it in between school and dance. At least today is officially Advent.  

I then got bogged down in band matters again, trying to set up an account that would allow us to take online donations. This turned out to be more complicated than it looked, and two of us between us finally managed it by working through it together while on the phone. I then discovered that Facebook no longer allow donate buttons on their pages, unless they use Facebook's own set up, but I did eventually manage to set up a page on our website with a Donate button. We are hoping to go out carol playing in small socially-distanced groups, and we needed a way to ask for donations which does not involve cash. By the time that was sorted it was dinner time - salmon, potatoes, brussels sprouts and peas - then I still had to update the online grocery order for Tuesday and finish a little bit of work. At least it was a productive day, although not quite what I had planned.