Be kind

I'm taking kindness into 2021, myself and my family had recent unexpected acts of kindness, which lifts the spirit, so my overriding theme this year is to be kinder, (PS I'm not a mean person), so it should be easy to do. 

These wonderful items were sent to me by Jo from Through the keyhole, 12 days of Christmas, a parcel to open until 12th night. The mini yarns are so beautiful, can't wait to knit them into squares for my blanket, plus an extra treat each day. 

I saw on Facebook a local lady asking about growing pineapple plants, so I offered the small plant below, it's one of the babies from the plant I purchased last year. I have 2 other plants which are enough for me. 

I have more plants waiting to go to new homes, one for a neighbour at the other end of our street, we often say hello, and I love her garden, like me she has a few gaps, and I had a spare passion flower. I also have 3 low maintenance plants for my brothers garden, hopefully I can plant them later this year. 

I am a helpful person, friends, neighbours know I will always help, lifts to appointments, looking after children for a couple of hours, some sewing, anything they need, it's what makes the world a better place. I did more in the run up to Christmas, which was easier, gifting money to local charities and food banks, again reasonably simple, I didn't spend much on crafting, so I have a little more spare cash. I joined our local Facebook pages, which helps focus on local needs, and it's rewarding to see so many people helping out. We have not had any snow but loads of icy mornings and already people are checking to see if anyone is struggling. I often speak about our village, but we are not a traditional country village, on the edge of a big town, very close to Portsmouth City, the houses just run into each different place, so driving through it hard to know where the village starts and ends, but everyone tries to keep the village feel.

Both our Covid tests came back negative which was a relief, we would now like to rid ourselves if these bad colds, it's been over a week. We still have no plans to go out, it's warm and safe at home. With the new lockdown in place, we are not able to do much, we will stay local in our village and once a month use a Asda home delivery. We can still support daughter, Will and George, those rules are still in place, but Will still goes to preschool nursery twice a week, they are a good nursey and act quickly to any reports of Covid, we just have to take extra care. 

My weight loss is due to resume, I put a few pounds back on in December, I'm not worried, I now am focusing on losing a stone this spring, soon hubby will be able to go on walks again, so the exercise will help. My BMI last January was 29.6, on Monday it was down to 26.9, a very pleasing reduction. Most of our Christmas goodies are gone, we did not buy so much and have not missed the chocolate feast. The last of the cake was finished, we both agreed it was a good bake this year, strange as I use the same recipe, cake tin and oven each year. We have started baking cakes for our mid morning treat, we enjoyed having a simple treat each day and being homemade it's not full of sugar.