This is very unusual. 

My presents are wrapped, and cards were posted before (ok, on) the last posting day. Christmas dinner is bought. We hosted a small festive gathering, and I made food in advance, the day before we went to the seaside.

I'm not quite sure what's come over me.  

Normally nobody gets a Christmas card, and I'm running round on Christmas Eve despairing because I haven't found the perfect present for somebody-or-other. 

Somehow, this year I got organised. 

Personally, I'm blaming a combination of Flylady, and a friend who used to work in retail, who bought all her presents before December even started, as she'd be so busy at work. I have a love/hate relationship with the Flylady system - I'm drawn to it again and again, and for a while it works, then I lose focus and become overwhelmed with chaos again.

If you've not heard of it, it's a system for getting your home in order through a series of routines and small daily actions. There are some things about it that don't work for me, and some that do, but I've never managed to stick to it for long. A few weeks ago, I started Day 1 of the 'babysteps' -  a 31 day hand-holding to get you started. Each day is really straightforward, some are the same as the last, but over the course of a month they build routines, which I was sorely lacking. 

My family will tell you I've never really been interested in housework. I was telling a friend the other day that my mum always said I was an 'enthusiastic' washer-upper (read: not very good at it - I noticed my friend did rinse his own mug out after that). I've never got into the habit of putting away after myself, and often feel overwhelmed in this house which at times feels too big, with too much stuff.

But not any more! Well, not for the time being anyway. It's quite simple. In the morning, I get up, and get washed and dressed while I'm still upstairs, before breakfast. I check to see if there's washing to be done, put the kettle on, open the curtains and straighten the sofa cushions. After breakfast I wash my bowl and get on with my day. 

At some point in the afternoon (after work, or after lunch) I hang the washing up if I put any on, put the recycling and compost outside, and spend 15 minutes pottering in the current 'zone' - (each month the house is divided into five zones, one per week). This week is the bedroom, and the 15 minutes is usually spent decluttering, or cleaning, or whatever needs doing in that zone. If nothing needs doing (unlikely in this house), I sit down with a book instead. Then I check my diary, and prepare my bag for tomorrow. 

After tea, I wash up, clean the sink, and get my clothes ready for the next day. 

I know that some of you will be reading this and thinking 'er, isn't this just normal life?' Well, yes, for some people - but not for me. In the past I've been far more likely to still be in my dressing gown at lunchtime, last night's pots still in the sink, washing not done for a fortnight, and after going away for a weekend clothes might stay in the suitcase for another fortnight. 

So it might not last, but for the time being I'm enjoying the feeling of being far-more-organised-than-usual. Long may it continue. 

​All this waffle is to say that yesterdayI went into town to meet a friend, and didn't buy a single Christmas present. (Actually, that's a lie - I spotted a small cheerful thing for Peter in a charity shop on the way home, but I wasn't looking for it) Instead, I ambled there, looking at the scenery and bits of town that I don't usually have time to stop and look at. 

I sat in a cafe for a couple of hours with a friend and her baby, nattering and playing without a nagging feeling that I should be somewhere else. 

Today it's Christmas Eve, and the only thing I *need* to do is wrap Peter's presents. That feels good. It's grey drizzly, and I'm not planning to go far from the house at all. Tonight we'll watch Father Christmas, The Snowman, and The Snowman and the Snowdog (which I'd highly recommend if you've not seen them) and we'll settle ourselves into a quiet, nothing-in-particular-to-do Christmas. 

Hoping you have a peaceful festive season too. 

We escaped for a pre-Christmas trip to the seaside. 

We did the same thing a couple of years ago, to the same hotel in the same place - The Grand in Scarborough. I was convinced it was last year, but my own blog informs me otherwise. Time flies. 

A love a seaside resort in the winter. Some things are closed, of course, but there's always an amusement arcade (I have a guilty love for 2p machines) and a cafe or two. 

We had a wander along the beach, lunch in a cafe, and a bit of secret shopping, and the light was already starting to fade. 

We went out for tea, watched Star Wars at the local cinema, then fell asleep with the balcony doors open and the sound of the sea drifting in. 

I love the winter morning light at the seaside. 

The breakfast room at The Grand is spectacular, with views right across the bay. In the winter, breakfast is just at the right time to see the sunrise. 

I have a lot of fondness for this hotel. It sits at the top of the South Bay, and is a listed building now. It was built in 1867 and designed around a theme of time - so it has four towers (to represent the seasons), 12 floors (the months), and originally there were 365 bedrooms. It's a fascinating building - you can read more about it here (don't look too closely at the hygiene scandals!) It was quite posh in its day, but now mostly caters to budget coach tours. There's evening entertainment every day of the year - the night we were there was bingo and an Elvis impersonator (we went out, not that I'm averse to a bit of bingo...)

It's rough around the edges, with peeling paint, rolls of carpet stored in the lobby, and a ludicrous breakfast queuing system which seemed to necessitate either queuing three times, or putting a dollop of jam on the plate with your beans. But there's nowhere else I can be surrounded by such splendour (not for the amount of money I'm willing to pay, anyway), and for a night it makes me feel (a bit) like I'm living in the land of Bertie Wooster. ​

I'd forgotten quite how dreadful the tea in the hotel is. I have no idea what brand of teabags they use, but the tea is barely drinkable - and I'm not really that fussy. I managed one cup at breakfast (just to get me going) and then we ambled around the seafront in search of somewhere better. We found it, in the shape of the Harbour View cafe, which mostly seemed to be filled with fishermen (a good sign, I think). 

A happy hour of eating, reading, staring at the sea, and then it started to rain, so we headed home. 

So often I forget just how much it revives me to go away, even just overnight. I spend a lot of time feeling I live so very far from the sea, but it took us just over two hours to drive to Scarborough - I spend that long getting to the office! Much better to go to the seaside I think. 

Speaking of which, I've now done my last day in my old job, and I'm feeling an odd mix of relief, sadness and slight apprehension about the new one. Running away to the seaside made me forget all about work, and now I'm feeling properly festive and am pleased to report that I have no concrete plans whatsoever for the next few days, and no Christmas preparations left to do. I intend to spend most of Christmas sitting around by the tree with a good book. 

​Hope you have something equally cheerful planned! 

Yesterday was my last day at work. 

I handed in my notice ten weeks ago, and the time since then has gone SO slowly I've sometimes wondered if it was moving at all. 

Once we got to this week, though, time sped up, and all of a sudden it was Thursday afternoon, and I didn't have enough time, paper was still piled all around, I hadn't copied the right files, not said enough goodbyes... I had to catch a particular train so I couldn't linger, and left with an unsettling feeling of things left undone. 

However, technically I don't leave until the end of the year, as I'm taking the next two weeks as holiday, so there's still a little time for me to retrieve the odd email, say a better goodbye. 

Not this morning though. This morning I had a nice lie in, and am now sat in front of the Christmas tree with a cuppa. I deliberately didn't make any plans for today, as I wanted chance to breathe, regroup after a hectic week, and let myself just drift. 

I think a day of pottering is in order. I might have tea with a friend, and I'd like to check what presents I have left to get and wrap. The last posting day is soon, and this may be the year I actually send Christmas cards through the post! Won't that be a surprise? I have some emails to send, and ordinary things to do like check the bank account and buy a new tv licence. We're going away for a night soon, and hosting a small festive gathering the day we come back, so there are preparations for that too. 

I think these are my favourite kinds of days. Sorting, finishing, pottering, socialising a little (or not), drinking tea. They make me feel settled, grounded. When I was younger I never thought I'd need days like this - I was happy in a whirlwind of activity, didn't mind where I slept, what I did, when I ate. Now I increasingly find myself reaching towards home.

I want to say more about this soon - about routines and plans and comforting cosiness. But I heard a message ping in the other room which I hope is my friend, so I may start my activities with a catch up in the local cafe. Back soon. 

I seem to have lost my blogging enthusiasm these past few weeks, or maybe even months. 

I get like this sometimes - nothing I do seems worthy of photographing, nothing seems interesting enough to write about here. 

Maybe it's the changing of the seasons, the end of my job, ongoing trouble with my tooth. Or maybe it's none of those things.

Anyway, I'm going to leave you with some pictures from the last few weeks, not going to try and catch up and tell you everything I've been doing, but hopefully this will just remind me how cheery it is to put everyday things here to look back on. 

Things have started to get quite festive around here. My mum visited at the weekend, and we went to a carol concert in a cave, which was tremendously exciting (and also tremendously chilly). On Saturday we put the tree up, and by Sunday we'd recovered enough from the effort to hang the baubles. 

I also hung these sparkly gold stars in our empty picture frame. I was aiming for a random, irregular pattern, but they somehow ended up in diagonal stripes. I took them down and did them again - and ended up with stripes in the other direction. So this is how they're staying, for now at least...