This afternoon was spent shovelling 5 tonnes of gravel into the areas next to M’s driveway. It took us over 4 hours to do it, and at the end we were both sunburnt. Fortunately we had hats on, so our faces were ok, but I’m burnt on my arms, and on my back just above my butt where my top wasn’t long enough to cover me while I was shovelling. I put moisturiser on when we got home, but it’s still stinging a little. My back and arms are totally stuffed - raking and shovelling gravel is not trivial work!

I’m hoping that tomorrow marks the first day, in over a month, of us spending a weekend day doing absolutely nothing renovation-related. The current plan is to go into the city and try to start a bit of Christmas shopping, and then go clothes shopping. I hate clothes shopping, but my clothes are all so worn and awful that I’m embarrassed to wear them. I obviously look pretty bad at work, because whenever I wear a particular dress that I haven’t worn for a while, I always get a few compliments. Which is nice, of course! It just highlights the fact that I look crap every other day. But then, if I buy a whole lot of nice clothes and actually start trying to look half decent, people will expect me to look like that all the time, which is just too high an expectation for me to live up to. I’m doomed to failure. I like wearing nice clothes, though - don’t you feel so much better about yourself when you’re wearing something nice? But there is a plus side to looking like a frump most of the time, and then basking in the compliments when you make an effort. Everyone likes a bit of ego-stroking every now and then, right?