Stressful.

It's not been too cold, quite a bit of rain in the morning and dry in the afternoon.

My plan for today was to pack up the parcels of Christmas goodies ready for posting. It started well, Peter had the perfect thick card to use as cake boards and it wasn't long before the cakes were securely packed in the correct sized boxes to be sent off as 'small parcels'. I'd bought two plastic tubs for the biscuits which I thought were perfect for the job. How wrong I was but I didn't discover that until later. To pack the biscuits I used the cellophane bags that greeting cards come in which worked very well.

Next came the wrapping of some small crafted items. I know that taken logically the wrapping around a present isn't part of the item but for me the presentation adds to the pleasure of a gift. I really enjoy being able to create a beautifully wrapped gift which doesn't mean spending lots of money. Brown paper tied with string, a sprig of green and something drawn on with a gold pen can look absolutely stunning. That said I've got a large stash of paper and all the extras bought in the January sales. Wrapping done it was time to pack everything into boxes for posting. I didn't have the right sized boxes so began by cutting one down and that's when the stress began. The tubs for the biscuits were a couple of cms too long and too high and no matter how I tried I couldn't fit them and the other things into small parcel sized boxes. In the end I gave up and decided to send 'medium' parcels which can be up to 61cms x 46 cms x 46 cms. That's the size of a small moving box and much larger than I needed. I packed everything including and then cut down the height of the boxes. I found folding the tops of the boxes down hard to do neatly even when I scored the cardboard and it took a lot of tape to secure it all. It's finally done and now I've got two enormous parcels to take to the Post Office. I could have avoided all that stress if I'd saved the right sized cardboard boxes and thought about the best size of boxes to put the biscuits in. Will try to do better next year.

The builder has been here all day and it looks as if my study is just about boarded out.

New restrictions have been announced for Wales as the numbers are going back up again.  We'll be going into full lockdown immediately after Christmas. Shops will be shut again and movement restricted. I can't see things getting better until we're all vaccinated. I'm trying not to think about the new variant of covid that they've discovered which is even more infectious.