I came onto the board this morning and wah!! all the prettiness of Christmas had gone and we are back to green. All plain and practical and serviceable but no longer exciting or colourful or stimulating.

In the church I belong to we call all the Sundays that are not special celebratory days Sundays in "Ordinary time". There are a few now and more from June to November. These were the teaching times of the ancient church. The time when people learned the history and procedures of the church.

I feel as if Ray and I are back to ordinary time in our lives. The excitement of Christmas and New Year is over, we have left behind most of the family birthdays, our daughter always seems to be away for hers in January, and there is nothing special to look forward to. The bills are creeping in again and the back screen door has fallen off.

There is summer but it is humid and at our age the sun, the surf and the sand does not have the clarion call that it did when we were young and raising a young family. Now it is a choice between the air conditioned shops and stopping home and getting through each hot afternoon as best we can. On the cooler days I do the yardwork and on the hotter days I just try to keep busy and as cool as I can inside. Ray, of course, sleeps all afternoon whatever the temperature.

I know all of this is partly the let-down feeling you get after big events and noticed a couple of other blog writers are feeling the same way. So I am not alone in this. But I do feel kind of lonely and out-of-sorts.

Tomorrow Ray is having an ultrasound on his left shoulder ordered by the physiotherapist. If it shows muscle tears he can't work on the arm but if it looks okay he will give Ray arm exercises to see if he can get some more flexibility in the left arm, as you all know every bit of movement helps. If the results are good we have an appointment next week and the physio will start work. He seems keen to help and that is a plus.

Soon it will be back to routine, three more weeks of school holidays to go and then back to meetings etc. Time may still be ordinary but it will have a framework to support whatever else we find time to do.

So we had better pick ourselves up and make the most of each sunny, overheated day. Or maybe find one of those Pacific Islands and sleep in a rocking hammock under a shady coconut tree. AHHH!! Dream on.