I have just read Gayle's Journal......and I suppose most of us heave a huge sigh of relief when christmas day comes to an end......all that planning, spending, wrapping, cooking......and when it is done all that is left is a pile of screwed up wrapping paper and a turkey carcass.....Oh, yes and as many pans to wash as they have in the Dunkenhalgh kitchens....OK, so I exaggerated a bit...we had two more than them!

I was rudely awakened yesterday morning by hubby shouting upstairs 'Are you ever getting up today? It's half past nine'
Yes, I learnt to tell the time when I was seven....so I knew exactly what time it was. I had no need to get up early - everything was under control. I am a dab hand at multi-tasking.....as most...

Margaret Pilkington

Somewhere on a stone tablet it is decreed, the tradition that the woman of the house shall work like a drone from rising until going to bed on the Eve before Christmas. It was ever thus. This is despite the fact that she has trudged around the shops looking for suitable gifts for her family,his family, friends and relatives...... she has also in her head, a list of cards to send......foods to buy....cooking to be done.....booze to be bought. Nothing is left to chance. She tells herself that there are 'only the finishing touches' to be put to her arrangements....and she expects that at some point on Christmas Eve she will get to sit down with a glass of something cold out of a green bottle and perhaps a few nuts....she hopes that she will...

Margaret Pilkington

When I read my last entry to myself it brought all those feelings back......and I remember feeling like I was on the bare back of a stallion that was charging headlong into the unknown......I knew that I wasn't in control.... in fact many a time I felt that I was barely clinging on. I would go off duty and heave a huge sigh of relief. Yet people used to think that I was very self assured and confident....whilst inside I was huge shivering mass of conflict and indecision.....all I can say was that I must have hidden it very well.

Margaret Pilkington

I was reading the thread that Gayle started...(she is a prolific thread starter our Gayle)....about when did we all finish work for Christmas.....I really didn't feel disposed to answer. Mainly because I finished work for Christmas on the 27th of September 2002. Saying that, like Lettie I think I worked almost every Christmas from 1974 to the time I finished.....I also worked quite a few of the New Years Eves too. The rota that most nurses dreaded for New Year was a late shift on New years Eve followed by an early shift on New years day. I have known nurses dash into the changing room at the end of their shift on New years Eve....get into their party duds and then off they go to their celebrations.....on New Years Morning they stagger into...

Margaret Pilkington

I feel like I am on a roller coaster.....rushing pell mell towards Christmas.....it is a scary ride. I feel like I haven't stopped today but I can't see much that I have done. I was up fairly early...well, 8am is early when I don't have to look after the kidlidids.....and I don't get much chance of a lie in any other day. I had my breakfast and dealt with the ablutions.......then I started putting a 'Lucky Bag' together for Muti.
A card with some money in it - she can get her hair done or something with that. A pot of home made strawberry Jam......OK, I own up.....I didn't make it but I bought it at a farmers market and it looked like home made jam should look - not the livid red colour, but a deep dark strawberry hue. According...

Margaret Pilkington