OK – I know it’s not a spectacular shot and on a day when I’ve been at home you could call it a slovenly late evening shot of what could be mistaken for a bowl of sick. However, I’d reply by saying I’ve worked my socks off today – I’ve washed, dried and put away four loads of washing, been food shopping, tidied the kitchen, cooked and frozen three big bags of dried pulses (some strange Caribbean bean that I’ve not come across before, red kidney beans and chick peas) that are now in 19 separate boxes in my freezer ready to be used for meals over the coming weeks. I’ve done all of my Uni admin so I’m just about up-to-date, made a jar of home-made cranberry jelly and mixed the Christmas pudding (see above). All of the above were done in the general melee of “normal” duties such as making meals etc.

The Christmas pud is woefully late but it’ll go in my slow cooker tomorrow while I’m at Uni and cook away gently for the day. It’s a bit of an experiment because I’ve stuffed it up with stem ginger this year. I hope it’ll be good. I should have done this job a month ago but have not had time. Better late than never, as they say.

The dishwasher has been going at full tilt all day – three cycles to keep up with all of the dirty dishes I’ve made. DM said “why are you asking me to empty the dishwasher again, I only did it a couple of hours ago…oh of course, you’ve been cooking”. All of this considered, I think a crummy pic of the pudding ingredients isn’t too bad going.

Can anyone tell me why I always seem to be busy yet I never achieve all of what I set out to achieve? Am I rubbish at doing stuff or do I try to do more than is possible?