MY Christmas

Yesterday was a very tiring day. I worked the night shift from Tuesday night and finished as usual at 07:00. By this point I'd been up since 16:00 the previous day. I had a shower, and rearranged my bags to make everything more manageable.
I got a Tube to Tower Hill and then got a train from Fenchurch Street to Southend Central (where I had a large box of food, donated from work, that I was delivering to Sean of Hampers Against Hunger). When I got to Southend I realised that it would be too far to walk to Sean's place while carrying all the stuff I had. I decided to get a taxi. When I got there he invited me in, but as I had the taxi waiting I declined, which I felt guilty about (especially as I wanted to know more about how I could help further).
I then got the taxi back to the station and got a train to Basildon, where my sister Maxine collected me. I stayed at hers for a few hours, enduring the 5 dogs (which messed up my clothes with their dirty feet and slobber, as expected), and then my niece visited with her three daughters. I had decided to give them my collection of Smurf toys that I have had stored for years. What I didn't realise was that they LOVE the Smurfs! They absolutely loved the presents (I packaged it as one small parcel each and then a big one between them). I was a bit dismayed that they broke so many of them in the 2 hours they were playing with them, but then again they are only 3, 4 & 5 years old!
After they went home Maxine took me round to my other sister's for dinner. We had a really nice evening there and I was taken to the train station in Grays at about 21:00 for my train home. I got hom at around 22:30 having been awake for over 30 hours. I was knackered. As
soon as I got into bed I was asleep. What a long, but fantastic "day."