To Do

T is for To Do List.

As we turn into the A-Z home straight, my mind can’t help but wander towards all the things that I have to do once the challenge is over. It has been the most marvellous distraction and excuse for not doing the most basic of jobs (not to mention the nasty and boring ones) for the past three weeks.

The running of Bibsey Towers has been the domestic equivalent of South East Trains on a Bank Holiday during engineering works. With Mr B providing the bus replacement service. As we speak he is dropping off Bibsey at the childminder which gives me an empty house to do with what I will for around 40 precious minutes. And what do I do with that time? Sweep and mop? Crack on with some paper work? Have a catnap? No, I have been jiggery poking around with my camera in the flower beds – see tomorrow’s blog – and sitting here tapping out today’s.

It will all be over soon, I promise. In the meantime I present my entry for T – my Post-AtoZ To Do List. And in a bid to make myself appear more clever and interesting, I have based this list, rather unnecessarily, on Malsow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Physical To Do List – to meet the most fundamental needs in order for house and inhabitants to function

•  DO some bloody cleaning. Attack winter’s dust bunnies with that thing called a broom and follow up with that other thing called a mop. DO NOT pass the fridge. DO NOT collect glass of cava. Seriously woman, defrost and muck-out the fridge. In there are lurking some real nasties.
• Get a hair-cut. And sort out those roots. My normal ‘look’ – scraped back into a bun with two glorious streaks of grey – is apparently starting to annoy Bibsey who cries “no hairs up!” at me in the morning when I go about ‘dressing’ my ‘hairs’. I normally wait until I see my sister to get my ‘hairs’ cut… but if I do that, I very much suspect it will have been a whole year since the last time.
• Work on my domestic wannabe credentials by taking inspiration and encouragement from the newly clean and tidy fridge, and getting busy in the kitchen with some new and healthy recipes.

Safety To Do List – so boring but necessary for health, wealth and security

• Send those bloody forms back to the bloody Inland Revenue and they will stop bloody well haunting you in the middle of the night (the forms, not HMRC)
• Sort out the bloody wills. If only to keep Mum happy.
• Sort out the bloody health insurance.
• And finally get el Alcalde (the Mayor) down from el Ayuntamiento (Town Hall) to have a look at the water cascading, como un rio (yes, like a river), from la carratera (the road) into el jardín (the garden).

Love and friendship To Do List – for a sense of belonging

• Read all the blogs that I haven’t had time to read, because I have been too busy blogging, and return all the lovely visits and comments that I have had on the blog in the last three weeks.
• Call my sister to see how she is getting on with all her really exciting plans.
• Spend more time in creative and imaginative play with my gorgeous little girl. She must be sick of the sight of the back of me, although I think that she may have taken full advantage with extra episodes of Peppa Pig and Charlie and Lola.

Self-esteem To Do List – in search of fame and glory 

• Tart up my blog and pimp it out for ‘likes’, awards and accolades ;). I ‘wink’ but really we all know that I am deadly, deadly serious… as you may be able to tell from my general demeanour, my ambition knows no bounds.

Self-actualisation To Do List – for the fulfilment of my potential at home and away

• Get back in the saddle with improving my Spanish: lessons, intercambio, blogging about it even. Whatever it takes to get to the next level BEFORE BIBSEY STARTS SCHOOL
• Bake some savoury muffins. I don’t know why, but I feel that this may be the answer to many questions.
• Keep going with the blog, because we are good for each other claro.

Dare I ask what is pressing on your To Do List? What do you need to get done to clear the winter cobwebs, to sleep at night or to move on in your work and life?