Word of the week - Preparation

I've been under the weather since Boxing Day and I've been a bit foolish with dosing myself up on meds going to several football matches, going away over the New Year and even doing a parkrun on New Years Day and I ended up with the flu, a hacking cough, had a couple of migraines and even lost my voice. I went back to work on the 5th of January for the morning only then was off for two days. We then had a snow day, followed by a lazy weekend and then went back to work.

I'm still not 100%, but I'm getting there slowly.

Normally I can manage a day at work and out for coffee, the gym or a run and a couple of hours pottering around the house and weekends are spent at the football, housework, visiting, out shopping, work in the garden, a longer run, the gym or a combination of all the above. But since the new year I've either just managed to get myself dressed and feed myself or go to work or just go out.

My word of the week should have been UNWELL, but as I'm trying to focus on the positive I've gone with PREPARATION. Whilst I can't run or go to the gym I can do quite a few other things to prepare for my marathon on April the 12th.

I've already signed up to an Ultra Challenge on the 24th January in London the Winter Walk which is a Marathon walk which I'm aiming to complete in under 8 hours. I need to complete the Brighton Marathon in under 8 hours to get a medal and as well as running in memory of Stephanie and raising funds for Bowel research UK, I want to get a medal for myself. 

So this weekend I've signed up for an end to end walk over the Malvern Hills. An 11 mile walk with an elevation of 900ms/3000ft to be completed in 5 hours.

Whilst I was at my worst I was able to write a couple of birthday cards and letters that needed sending the first half of January and a gift for the neighbours son that was dropped round yesterday. We went out for a couple of hours last weekend and I picked up a couple of gifts for February birthdays and some gifts to send to my son and his girlfriend in Australia and there is a pile of cards and gifts in the hall waiting to be posted. 

Over the past week Peter and I also moved furniture around and I'm now sharing my craft room in the loft with a single bed so when our granddaughter and eldest grandson come to stay we have room or the cot for their younger sibling to sleep over in their own room, eventually we will purchase a toddler bed for when they outgrow the travel cot.

We've now prepared room in the lounge to move stuff out the other loft room to get rid of stuff for the charity shop and the tip and then we will have room to finally sort though and upload some of my late father's stuff onto eBay along with some stamps that I've been sorting through that need to go down to Stanley Gibbons in London after already making some initial enquiries.

I've set up a Vinted account that I've been selling some baby clothes on from my DIL and I'm going to upload some vintage clothing from the 1930's that belonged to my Gran up to the 1980's that I used to wear.

Unfortunately whilst preparing the room above the other loft room is now a bit of a mess, but there's no rush to get it sorted.

I'm linking up with Annie over at Raisie Bay with my Word of the Week.