Happy Christmas
First of all I would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas, with this the last posting of the year.
It has actually been a pretty quiet week, apart from the Christmas preparations. Nicky has been busy at work as usual, and Claire has only done a couple of extra shifts at Whitcoulls. I spent the majority of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday shopping and cooking in preparation for yesterday.
We were hosting the family Christmas do this year, so Claire and I prepared Christmas pud, mince and apple pies, lemonade and stuffed mushrooms. Nicky and I were up early to do rice salad and prepare the steak, lamb, chicken, salmon and vegetables for the BBQ.
Andrew was the first to arrive, somewhere between 9 and 10, I can't remember exactly when. We opened presents with Claire and Ryan and then Claire went off into town to collect Mike Cox, Josh and Tom. The family started arriving around 12.30 so I lit the BBQ and with assistance from Paul and Andrew cooked all the meats. We had a fantastic range of accompaniments provided; potato salad, green salad, home made focaccia, kumera and bacon, beatroot and mandarin, mulled wine and some other dishes which I can't remember. Then we moved onto desserts including pavlova, strawberry fool, cassata and chocolate tart.
We had a very good day, with all 28.5 visitors appearing to enjoy themselves. Most people left late afternoon but the Moss-Masons and Mike & Co stayed later playing Trivial Pursuit.
Today Nicky and I have been relaxing and just pottering round the house, as we were both quite tired and the day started off rather dull before the afternoon sunshine arrived.
Nicky is on holiday for the next couple of weeks, so we are going to have a few day trips and just "chill out".
Bye for now, see you next year,
Rick
It has actually been a pretty quiet week, apart from the Christmas preparations. Nicky has been busy at work as usual, and Claire has only done a couple of extra shifts at Whitcoulls. I spent the majority of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday shopping and cooking in preparation for yesterday.
We were hosting the family Christmas do this year, so Claire and I prepared Christmas pud, mince and apple pies, lemonade and stuffed mushrooms. Nicky and I were up early to do rice salad and prepare the steak, lamb, chicken, salmon and vegetables for the BBQ.
Andrew was the first to arrive, somewhere between 9 and 10, I can't remember exactly when. We opened presents with Claire and Ryan and then Claire went off into town to collect Mike Cox, Josh and Tom. The family started arriving around 12.30 so I lit the BBQ and with assistance from Paul and Andrew cooked all the meats. We had a fantastic range of accompaniments provided; potato salad, green salad, home made focaccia, kumera and bacon, beatroot and mandarin, mulled wine and some other dishes which I can't remember. Then we moved onto desserts including pavlova, strawberry fool, cassata and chocolate tart.
We had a very good day, with all 28.5 visitors appearing to enjoy themselves. Most people left late afternoon but the Moss-Masons and Mike & Co stayed later playing Trivial Pursuit.
Today Nicky and I have been relaxing and just pottering round the house, as we were both quite tired and the day started off rather dull before the afternoon sunshine arrived.
Nicky is on holiday for the next couple of weeks, so we are going to have a few day trips and just "chill out".
Bye for now, see you next year,
Rick
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