My mum’s theory about sleeping debunked

I ALWAYS remember my mother telling me every hour gained sleeping before midnight is worth two the next morning. I went to bed earlier than usual, and woke up at 5am.

Something’s wrong there. According to her reasoning I’ve lost an hour.

At least I was awake as the Amazon packages arrived and they weren’t left sitting in the rain.

Leo is off to school feeling conflicted. We’ve almost reached that point where, if there’s any sort of Covid outbreak in his year group, he’ll be sent home to isolate for two weeks and Christmas will be in tatters. He’s diligent and has tests next week so doesn’t want to get behind. Nor does he want to unknowingly carry the virus home and give it to one of his grandparents.

I get the feeling there will be many parents trying to decide what to do for the best, but perhaps that decision should have been taken out of their hands.

The clearing out of kitchen cupboards continues. Good news is that it’s nearly all done. Bad news is that the freezer is next.

Tedious jobs out of the way, I find the movie Scrooged on TV and decide I must carve out a ‘me’ shaped dent in the sofa. But on trying to switch on the Christmas tree lights to set the mood they’re just not working. The ravaging by kitten two days ago has done for them.

Lights are stripped and binned, then replaced.

Louise becomes heavily involved in a two-hour Zoom meeting for work which turns out to be a Christmas quiz. She’s scolded for a lack of Christmas jumper but moves in front of the Christmas tree to ward off the ‘bah humbug’ comments. Just as well I changed those lights then. Unsurprisingly she didn’t win the best dressed prize.

Gina calls to say she’ll be home from university tonight. Rowan will be back for the first time in two weeks tomorrow. We’ll be briefly back to a full family of five. There’s something special about having everyone safe under the same roof, even if they do quickly disappear to their own corners of the house and only re-appear when they need feeding, a bit like our big cat Jelly, who has been pining for Rowan who seems to be her favourite human.

Two weeks of restrictions are coming to an end and Friday plans are made. I hear a trip to Ballymena awaits.

The day out of the house will do me good though. I feel like a stuffed turkey and it’s two weeks early for that.