The slippery slope of time

I often wonder why I always seem to have so little time for things like writing, and why the years seem to pass so quickly these days.

I (and others) usually ascribe it to the onset of old age (I'm allowed to say that. Others are just cruel.) But I'm working on a theory that it's simply because we are all so darned busy!

I present evidence thus:

What does a typical weekend look like for us?

Well, let's set aside all the mundane weekend stuff, like shopping for groceries, preparing meals, doing laundry, fetching in a stock of logs from the carport, cleaning out pet cages etc. because that's only a few hours.

But then, last weekend for example: Saturday morning, Ali and Megan volunteered at the soft plastics recycling bank while Matthew and I fetched a trailer load of logs that a friend had in their yard that they had no need of. In the afternoon, the Peninsula Guide, Brownie, and Sparks units took over the cinema in Sidney for a movie, then took part in the Santa Parade. Sunday, Ali, Megan, and Matthew helped decorate Christmas trees and the schoolhouse at Heritage Acres ready for their annual "Christmas in the Village."

A typical weekend? In a sense, no, most of those things are one-offs, but let's see...

Previous weekend: Saturday, drove up to Courtenay (a three-hour drive each way) to visit a friend who's recently moved up there. That didn't leave much room in the day for anything else! Sunday, we spent the whole day winterising our trailer. It's our first time through the procedure, so it took a bit of figuring out where everything was.

Today, the kids decorated their Christmas tree in the playroom and we put up our outdoor lights, as well as making a (belated) start on our Christmas mail. As soon as darkness fell, we went for a wander around Heritage Acres, then Ali & Megan went to help clean up the church hall after an event. Tomorrow we need to crack on with that mail if our international cards are to have any chance of reaching folks in Guernsey before the end of 2009.

Next weekend there's a Cub camp out in Sooke, and we need to cut a Christmas tree for the living room.

Hmm ... Anyone see a pattern emerging?