Shrove Tuesday

Every so often, people as me what I 'do' now the boys are no longer being home educated. And sometimes I feel the need to write a lengthy post outlining what happens on a fairly typical day.

Of course no two days are identical, and today isn't just any old day, but I feel inspired anyway, so...

6.15am - Woke up. On my own. No cat walking over my face or knocking over lamps! Richard's in Egypt for a couple of days so he wasn't there either. It was very peaceful.

6.20am - Went downstairs to make a cup of orange-and-green-tea. Orange being the fruit, green the colour. Not an ugly kind of stripy tea. At the start of the year I decided to get over my caffeine addiction so I gradually cut down on my two daily cups of coffee, until finally I gave them up. Fruity green teas are much more refreshing, anyway. Oh, and I put out some more cat food and fresh water.

6.30am - Took sanctuary in my study after stroking various cats and letting them in and/or out as required. I find I need what we used to call 'Quiet Times' in evangelical circles in the 1980s. I'm currently re-reading 'Your God is too Small' - and various bits of the Bible. And, as Richard would put it, I chat to God about the day ahead, the family, various situations I know of. And drink the orange/green tea, of course.

7.30am - Put on the electric water heater. Solar power is fine in the summer, but it just doesn't get water hot enough for showers in the winter. Then I unloaded the dishwasher. I still love being able to say that. I appreciate my dishwasher (which we've had since we moved last summer) every day. Then squeezed a few oranges - so inexpensive here, though I do sometimes miss the orange tree from our other house - and clementines, so we'd have some fresh juice for breakfast. Using the electric juicer, of course.

7.50am - The water was hot enough, so I did a quick clean of the bathroom (two minutes) and had my shower. Then gathered up some laundry to put in the washing machine, and set that going. Then breakfast - muesli topped with some of the fresh orange juice, and a good dollop of thick Greek yogurt - and a glass of juice. Then washed the juicer.

8.20am - A quick dust of the dining-room and kitchen. We get a lot of dust in Cyprus so I do the main rooms a couple of times each week with a feather duster thing that works very well. Then a dry mop of the floor - which is all tiled, no carpets anywhere - followed by a wet mop. And a quick clean of the loo/cloakroom.

8.45am - Woke Tim to let him know I was going out, wrote a card for an upcoming birthday, let various cats in and out as required, and then walked to the Larnaka Community Church hall, where I help at Mothers-and-Toddlers on a Tuesday. I put out the chairs, the rugs, the tables, the toys etc, and then mostly work in the kitchen. Today the main leader was making pancakes as it's Shrove Tuesday - I watched in amazement as she threw ingredients in a bowl without measuring them, whipped them to a perfect batter, then used THREE frying pans at the same time to produce perfect pancakes, which were much appreciated by the mothers. Probably more so than the children.

11.30am - Helped clear up after the group, putting away toys and chairs, vacuuming rugs etc.

11.45am - Walked to Post Office, as we're expecting some books and I needed to post a card and a letter. Only a bank statement in the box. Oh well. I'll go again on Thursday.

12.00noon - Walked home.

12.15pm - Felt a bit tired and decidedly warm. Let cats in and out as required. Folded and put away laundry still on the line from yesterday, and hung out today's from the washing machine.

12.30pm - Tim was out at a rehearsal for a puppet sketch, then going on to his piano lesson, so I decided to have lunch early. Toast topped by humous, cheese and warm baked beans. Mmmm.

12.45pm - Switched on computer. Quickly read about 40 emails that had arrived. Vegged out for half an hour on the quote-puzzler site, followed by today's IronSudoku. Medium level, quite satisfying.

1.15pm - Checked website statistics, glanced at the news. Read a few blogs via Bloglines, which alerts me to new posts in about 50 blogs I read regularly.

2.00pm - Feeling a bit chilly, so made some decaf coffee. Let cats in and out as required.

2.10pm - Caught up on accounts. Which sounds straightforward but despite having done a maths degree many years ago, I'm not at all good at accounting. Just better than Richard, so I'm the one who does it. I don't actually mind, once I get started, and it's good to be able to sort through the various receipts and bills stacked up on my desk and get up to date. Even more satisfying is to count the cash I have in my purse and discover it matches the amount that Quicken thinks I should have. And even MORE so to log onto online bank accounts and find that they, too, match the figures. I paid two utility bills online, and this month's Barclaycard, and transferred some money to a savings account.... so easy from the comfort of my study!

3.00pm - Read more blogs. Spent fifteen minutes at the Babble site. Over 300 words in today's grid so I wasn't going to finish it, but I managed to find 100. Then I did some updates at my home education site - just minor ones, but that too takes time.

4.00pm - Wrote entries at two of my other blogs, and submitted one of them to a blog carnival. Wrote a couple of emails.

5.00pm - Read more blogs. Looked more at the BBC online news. Wrote two or three emails. Decided to write about today in this blog....

6.15pm - Tim was cooking this evening (hence my extended computer time this afternoon) - he makes excellent curries and had made garlic naan bread too. Mmmm. He had thought about making some pancakes, but neither of us was hungry by the time we'd eaten a large curry. And we chatted a bit, and I let various cats in and out as required...

6.45pm - Back to finish this blog entry. Which is what I've been doing for the past half-hour, and when I've posted it I shall switch the computer off and go to clean up the kitchen which probably looks like a minor bomb-site after Tim's been working there. Then I'll put out the rubbish as the bin-men come on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Tim's out this evening at the church international students' group, so I shall probably do some peaceful reading once the kitchen is clean.