We had a very restful Boxing Day with all of us just lolling around at home. Why do people rush out to the shops/sales? I’m sure it’s a form of madness. It was bad enough that we had to go to IKEA again yesterday. We had a horrible feeling of deja vu but at least this time it was only raining and most of the roads were clear of snow.

I’m not a big fan of going to the shops, in fact I really only do it when there’s no alternative, it isn’t a pleasurable pastime for me as it seems to be with so many folks.

But as IKEA closed an hour after we got there the last time due to the snow we just had to hire a van a second time to go back and get what Duncan hadn’t had the time to buy before. We were in IKEA for four hours, and after the first one I had just about lost the will to live. He got another bed, a sofa, more bookcases, chests of drawers and odds and sods.

Then there was the horrible long journey from Edinburgh to Dundee and all the unloading and lugging everything up two flights of stairs. By which time we were saying, “Why didn’t he buy a ground floor flat?” Anyway it’s all done now and he has been warned that when he wants to move out he will have to get professional removal men to do it!

Our ’empty nest’ was only empty for about a week – and then everyone came here for Christmas. They left us today again and will be back here in a few days for Hogmanay, which is really the most important day of the year in Scotland, when it all begins again. Christmas became a holiday in Scotland fairly recently, I think about 50 years ago most people had to work on Christmas.

Because of all the shenanigans I’m way off my reading schedule. I had been planning on reading at least 100 pages of War and Peace every day but I just haven’t had the time. I had been hoping to get it finished by the end of the year but I’m only half way through it. So unless I take to my bed, (I have the best light for reading there) and read over 200 pages a day – I’m stuffed. Or should I say my 2011 reading list schedule is stuffed before it begins.

I started reading War and Peace because I’ve been putting it off for years and there seem to be a lot of people reading the new translation at the moment, so I thought I would join in as it would mean that I would have a deadline. I think the deadline is January 23rd but I’d rather finish it before then so that I can read something from my list. I’m not good at reading two books at a time, I prefer to concentrate on one and I must say that War and Peace has been a nice surprise. My copy is an old translation from 1943. I’m finding it to be much easier going than I had anticipated, so I’m able to read it at bedtime, even when I’m tired, and remember what I read when I wake up in the morning. Which isn’t always the case, believe me!

Anyway, I’m off to bed and hoping to get a good three hours of reading done before I put the light out because it was after 2 o’clock when I put the book down last night.