was the conclusion of the visit to the quacks. So, lots of heavy duty drugs to sort me out. And thank goodness, because I am starting to get somewhat cranky about feeling unwell all the time. It means no alcohol for me to see the New Year in… I may well not stay up that long anyway. We declined the invitation we had for the evening, so it may just be an early night.

Tricia seems a bit brighter this evening.

Happy New Year to everybody.

Whilst I am up and about, I am far from right, and I am still needing plenty of paraceta-wotsits, and I have an impressive cough. Off to the doctors for me tomorrow. I certainly won’t be working.

Tricia has gone down with it. She spent all of yesterday in bed, and had to go back to bed early this evening.

I don’t think we will be doing too much in the way of seeing the New Year in tomorrow. We are due at a friends house for the evening. We will have to wait and see. It has certainly been a gloomy Xmas / New Year break this time around.

Well, I caught the lurgi, and spent Christmas Day afternoon in bed, and a good part of Boxing day as well, feeling sorry for myself. Feeling a bit brighter today, but after all that hard work, Xmas disappeared.

When I was a child I enjoyed Christmas Eve as much as the day itself. The great sense of anticipation, and the build up was fantastic. As a young adult, I enjoyed it for the family camaraderie, and again, the sense of anticipation.

As an adult, with a family of my own, I see it as the culmination of a whole load of work. When you are young and soaking up all the Christmas activities, you don’t really consider what goes into delivering a family Christmas. It just all happens around you. Now, having to deliver the Christmas so to speak, I can only truly appreciate the hard work my parents put in.

Well, we are there. All is wrapped. All the food is in. I was at work for most of the day, and when I came home I took Ellie to the carol service in the local church. I had been asked to do a reading so I was going to be there anyway, but it was nice she wanted to come along. Tricia, Nikki and Robbie will go to midnight mass later. I will stay here, and do the santa delivery. The end of an era. Ellie won’t be having a santa visit next year.

Tomorrow it is just a family day. On Boxing Day we have Tricia’s folks coming across for the day. After that, I jusy intend to do as little as possible for a few days and recharge the batteries…

The reading I did this evening was from the old testament. Micah 5, 2-5. Now depending on which version of the bible you have, the texts vary slightly. However, the passage talks of the coming of a ruler for Israel, and it says he will bring peace.

Well I hope we all have a peaceful Christmas.

Happy Christmas to one and all.

Robbie has been working on a piece of art at school. It came home in 3 pieces of today. Each piece is A1 size –  flip chart size. Here are two of them. Terrific work.

He has taken inspiration from a Japanese style of art. I have to be impressed, I couldn’t do anything remotely like it. It must be a talent passed down from my father, that missed me out.

The christian festival is upon us, the time of peace and goodwill to all men. The time of giving gifts, and making time for the nearest and dearest.

I am all for that, but this year Tricia and I seem to be struggling with time and expectation… normally we have wrapped everything by now, and we can just enjoy the time of year. We haven’t bought everything yet, let alone wrapped it. I suppose once it has been done I will move out of the humbug phase.

When Robbie and Nikki were younger they had a stocking each. They were knitted and very festive (as you might expect with a xmas stocking). One was green and one was red. What they didn’t know, was that Tricia and I had bought two of each. So whilst they had their stockings on Xmas eve, the duplicates were in the loft already filled, so all ‘Santa’ had to do on Xmas eve when they were asleep was swap them over. Nice and easy. Ellie, has a Santa sack. Tricia and I did the same thing and bought a duplicate. This has worked well. However, last weekend when getting the decorations down, I inadvertantly got the bag with the stockings and sacks in. Ellie rifled through and discovered she had two sacks….. with the intensity of a Sun journalist we had to face a hard line in questioining from Ellie. What with the ‘playground talk’ I am not sure now who is fooling who, is Ellie just playing along with us about Santa, or is she buying into the Santa idea….

In other news, Ninja has not been up the Xmas tree since Sunday evening. Hopefully the stern talking to I gave to him has been taken on board, I’m not sure if he understood the words ‘take to the vet and be put down’ but I am sure he understood the tone . His sister however, has been found to be taking chocolate decorations off the tree! Knocking them off and trying to nibble them. It wasn’t Ellie after all !

Ninja has been found under the tree this evening, but was given some ‘discouragement’ about staying there. So, no tree mishaps today.

Last evening of Brownies for Ellie before Christmas. The Brown owl gives the Brownies points throughout the term, for being good Brownies etc, doing tasks and so on. Ellie came 3rd on the points list, and was given a little prize, so she was happy.

Nikki went to the A Level presentation evening at her school, and has now gone out with some of them to catch up. Robbie is still revising. His last exams are on Friday.

I am tired after the weekend, so will disappear shortly to catch up on some zzzzzzzzzzz’s.

Ghosts of Christmas past (more recent). Part 4

Ellie on a Christmas morning. Happy in her ironning! The devastation of opened presents lay all around.

 As predicted Saturday was hectic. I took Robbie to the barbers. I had my haircut, and then left Robbie in the chair whilst I went off to Woolies to get some gift vouchers. This in itself was something or a more complicated exercise than it should have been, but I will put aside that frustration for another day. I returned to the barbers expecting to see Robbie’s hair tidied and shorn of a few feet of hair, and then to pass over some of my hard earned money in return. However, a ‘hot’ debate ensued about which hair had actually been cut. I was not happy, I reckon the I was charged about 50p a hair.

In the afternoon the church tree was lit and we went carol singing in the village, and then all congregated in the village hall for mulled wine.  Tricia and I then had to dash back to get the house ready for the dinner party we were hosting. The idea was to run it to a Dickensian theme, so the house was literally decked in holly annd ivy, and the menu was based on items from a Victorian cook book. The centre piece of the table was a tiered fruit plate, decked with ivy, which Nikki did. We had a terrific evening. Good company and a late night.

I got up this morning and tidied away and washed up much of the previous evening, whilst Tricia was at church with Ellie. At 11am, I was tired and went back to bed for an hour. Then it was back up, and we all went over to my old home town to meet up with my Mum and Dad, who took us out to lunch. It was good to catch up as we haven’t seen them for a while. After lunch we went back and had a cup of tea, and mum lit the 3rd candle on her advent wreath. My brother Stephen dropped in as well (whilst on duty).

On the way back, we could see the extent to which people have decorated the outside of their houses. Driving through High Wycombe however, we saw this house, which will most likely not be beaten. Replete with snow making machine!

On getting home, Ellie was packed off to bed, and Tricia and I watched the last part of Cranford. Unfortunately, I have had to pull Ninja out of the decorated Cristmas tree. He started to chew on a fairy light. This is going to be a problem.

Ghosts of Christmas past. Part 3.

Taken one Christmas morning in the 70’s. My father passing out the presents, with my eager and expectant brother Mark sat in close attendance.

Off to bed now. Work tomorrow.

With Nikki’s car off the road at the moment I went and picked her up from Uni yesterday evening. Ellie was particularly excited about Nikki being home, and it’s good to have her back in the house. I spent all last weekend with a paint brush / roller in my hand, decorating what was Ellies old room. It had been pink/purple with fairies on the wall. It is just a plain magnolia now, but Nikki seems pretty pleased with her new room. She has a few days rest at home, and then is doing a lot of hours for Homebase over the Christmas, New Year period. No doubt she will be catching up with friends as well, but it’s good to see her.

Robbie’s band played their set at a local school last night. He was pretty pleased with their performance and was complimented on his drumming. He was less pleased that two of his cymbal stands broke. One whilst putting up, the other when taking down. I am taking him for a hair cut in a while, hopefully the barber can sort out the jungle on his head.

As usual a chaotic day here. Tricia has just already decorated one Christmas cake for delivery in an hour, and she has made up 13 party boxes for a kids party. She is then off to run her Saturday morning coaching session. Ellie is off to Waddesdon manor with a friend, later this afternoon we have the lighting of the village Christmas tree followed by a gethering (mulled wine / mince pies). This evening we have a dinner party here. Phew.

The Cat in the Tree

This is the first Christmas for out two cats, Lily and Ninja. I put the tree together on Thursday evening in the living room for the kids to decorate today. Yesterday evening one of the cats (Ninja) was found up and in the tree. Obviously this behaviour will have to be discouraged. Or else we will have tree and lights and decorations everywhere. Last year we had an eight foot real tree in the conservatory as well. It was great, I like the smell of the pine in the house. We were going to do the same this year, but we may have to have a rethink.

Poor old Robbie has his head in his books as he revises for his mock GCSE exams. He had two today, and seems to think they went well. He is far more relaxed about taking exams than Nikki ever was… not that I am saying that is a good thing. We will wait and see the results.

I have agreed my leaving date. I will finish on the 25th Jan, and start with BP on the 28th. My mind is getting into gear about all the things I need to complete for then. I don’t want to leave anything open ended.

Tricia is up to her eyeballs in cakes, marzipan etc, as she processes orders that have been coming in. Ellie is counting days until Christmas, and Nikki has a cold. Me, I am tired after a long day which started with a gym session, so off to my bed.

Ghosts of Christmas past. Part 2

These are the headlines from the Eighlem News, Christmas 1981. The drawing is of my Mum and Dad, myself and my two brothers, Stephen and Mark.

It had snowed that year. A rare occurrence at Christmas for us, despite all the popular imagery. As was tradition for us as a family we had walked up to midnight mass. On the way back Dad lost his footing in the snow and went over. In true Christmas spirit, my brothers and I laughed instead of helping him up. As a family we always had a great time at Christmas, and going to midnight mass was really the start of Christmas for us. Back home we would devour mince pies and drink sherry, and get to bed late.