There's always time for a bow

Well, this is of course my last post for 2015, written as the main Christmas celebrations come to an end. In short, we have had a lovely and very enjoyable Christmas.

It has also been a very busy week. The weather gave us a promising start on Monday, and hanging out the washing was rewarded with a lovely sunny day. I had a couple of Mac jobs to do before doing a last bit of present shopping in the afternoon.

Nicky spent much of the Monday night - Tuesday morning transition making fruit cakes. I did some more laundry before going over to see Jancis and put a final coat on all four wall’s of her spare bedroom, accompanied by blue sky and fluffy clouds. I did the woodwork later in the day and some more Mac work in-between. Nicky had her hair done in the evening.

We had a great hot summer’s day on Wednesday - a proper summer’s day because it was warm enough to sit in the shade. I started the day with my final food shopping before Christmas (I had to get it done because the shops were due to be closed for a WHOLE day on Friday!). Wednesday was the day for my works “Christmas Do”, potentially a slightly dull affair when you are a one man band. To overcome this hurdle I invited last Thursday’s Deep and Meaningful attendees to join me. First item on the list was a skinny dip at Ladies Bay at 11.30. Louis came and joined me but decided he didn’t want to swim. We walked into St. Heliers for the next item - pie on the beach at 12.30. We were joined by five others and sat on the grass by the beach enjoying pies, other goodies, and excellent conversation. After lunch everybody moved onto other commitments and I moved onto dessert at the new Ben & Jerry’s in Ponsonby, where I was joined by three other D&M members. It was really good to have such a range of activities, foods and company. I got home around 5 to prepare dinner for Nicky and I. In the evening Nicky went over to Stella’s to deliver things for Christmas Day, and Jancis came and collected me so that I could put her spare bedroom back together now that the paint was dry. A really good day.

Thursday, Christmas Eve, dawned cool and with rain threatening. I was very pleased to have my water and wind proof jacket on when in town because the breeze was chilling. I had a Mac job to do first thing in the CBD, before starting my now traditional Christmas Eve cooking. It started to rain on the way home and this continued into the afternoon. My usual routine on Christmas Eve is to close all the windows, kill all the flies, and then just put up with the heat from the cooking so that I can get on without being concerned about things being walked on by the fly-boys. This meant that one year it was above 30° for most of the day in the lounge, but not this year. It was the coolest, wettest Christmas Eve we have had since we arrived in 2007, and this made cooking much more comfortable. I made bacon & cheese and tuna & almond individual tarts, 12 of each, but by the end of the afternoon as I started to put dinner together I wasn’t feeling too good. My back was starting to give me some grief again, my head didn’t feel right, I was having periods of nausea, and something was doing very disruptive things to my intestines. I don’t know if it was the previous day’s pie or mango sorbet, but I have a suspicion it was the sorbet as my reduced sugar intake these days seems to have made my insides much less tolerant when I do consume some. I hope it wasn’t the two scorched almonds I ate as we have three boxes to get through!

Shortly after dinner Nicky went off to church to start with the production of mulled wine. I enjoyed watching Arthur Christmas again (an Aardman film) and Nicky saw some of it before returning to church for midnight mass.

Christmas Day started out cool and cloudy, and I was very pleased to feel much restored after a reasonable night’s sleep. We had a leisurely breakfast of tomatoes on toast with bacon before opening our presents. Among other things, Nicky gave me some wonderful emerald green skinny jeans.

We popped round to see Dawn and exchange gifts, did final food preparations (heat pudding, make custard, make salad) and then as the weather started to warm up headed off to Stella’s. Stella, Kate and Tim had been working hard and the house looked great when we got there. Our numbers were a little less than usual, but the company was good and the food as excellent as ever. It was a lovely, low-key, contented family gathering.

It was around 5ish when we all left, and we dropped some gifts off at Becky and Dave’s on the way back but didn’t get to see them or the new arrival. We had a late tea of lobs and watched the Tailor of Panama on DVD before enjoying a walk along the road to take in the fairy lights and evening air. A very good day.

Yesterday started with blue sky and fluffy clouds and turned into another gorgeous day. We had a gentle morning at home doing a few small loads of washing, bit of shopping, some reading about, and relaxing. It got to 40° in the roof by the time Dawn came over for tea and cake in the afternoon. We then returned to Stella’s for Scrabble with Steve while Kate and I played Monopoly. We stayed for tea and helped Stella with her lobs. Another good and gentle day.

This morning’s cloudy start followed a warm night, but while I was walking along the beach at Karekare and Nicky was at church, the sun broke through and it really warmed up. Jancis came home from church with Nicky, and stayed for lunch and an afternoon of mah jongg. We took Jancis up Mt Roskill so that we had a little exercise before tea, then the three of us watched a couple of programmes about Downton Abbey which I had recorded. A good way to end the weekend.

It has been a lovely Christmas. I hope you have all enjoyed yours as much.

Take care, Rick