Things that I achieved this weekend

Sometimes a weekend, especially one in which entertainment options are limited, can feel as though it passes by in the blink of an eye without me actually doing anything. So I thought I'd make a list of all the things that I achieved this weekend! 

My Tax Return. Yay! We both have to complete one and usually leave it to the last minute. Mine is quite simple to do but I need to wait for Ram track down all the interest statements and to double check it for me. We did make a mistake and managed to overpay my National Insurance contributions by a small amount. They don't make it easy to find the correct figure to pay! Hopefully they'll either refund the difference or it will come out next year...

Harry's presents. It's his birthday this week and it has rather crept up on me. I have a few extra presents to wrap this year as family have sent them direct to us from Amazon. When I went to wrap them I discovered that I didn't have much 'boy' wrapping paper left so he has a mixture of blue, pink and Christmas wrapping paper. Luckily he says he doesn't mind!

Sorting out the junk corner. In our guest room I've been collecting things that the children have cleared out for garage sales, school fair sales and so on. Obviously these were all cancelled this year so I've had a sort through and got rid of some things and streamlined the rest so it all looks a bit neater.

Sorting out the cruise box. We last cruised in November 2019 and booked a Disney cruise placeholder as we were confident we'd be cruising again soon. Unfortunately cruising isn't going to happen again for a while so I sorted through the bits that I keep aside for cruises, gifts for exchanges and so on, and packed it away. 

Dragged the children out for some fresh air. We visited our closest beach for a quick walk and some fun chasing the waves. It was a bit of a mission to get out and we encountered a fair bit of resistance, but it was well worth it for the fun that they had once we were out.

Reading. I finished Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell which I'd been wanting to read for a long time. I enjoyed it very much, although it did make me feel quite sad. I liked picking out the references and inspirations for Hamlet. Now I'm reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow which is also shaping up to be a great read.

Exercising. Normally I do my exercise during the week, but Ram was keen to go for a run and then we ended up doing some Joe Wicks workout videos together. It was his first attempt at a Joe Wicks video - they aren't for the faint hearted!

We had a family Zoom call for my niece's birthday which was lovely. I'm not very good at video calling but I do like to see everyone on screen.

Baking. I made rice crispie cakes with Mia which has become our lockdown baking staple, and I also made a batch of easy brownies.

Maybe I was quite productive after all!