Merry Twixtmas

 

Yes I know it's been a long time since I last wrote, but I don't need to tell you what the Christmas period is like.

I left A&E with some instructions of what to do and continued on my course of antibiotics for a few days. In a lot of pain it was difficult for the first few days to do Christmassy stuff, but nothing is going to get in the way of me when I'm on a Christmas mission.

I finished work on the Wednesday. Fortunately now he's all growed up son was quite happy for Wednesday's Christmas event to be curling up on the sofa to watch a Christmas film with a very dirty cup of hot chocolate with ALL the trimmings.

On the Thursday I was feeling a bit better and we did our annual trip to the garden centre in Ditchling where we had a muse at all the fabulous Christmas tat and had some lunch. When we got there it was chucking down rain and so we rushed in the back entrance. We couldn't see their wonderfully tacky singing reindeer (see last Christmas's post) so assumed they had gone it was only towards the end of our visit that we heard them in full throttle.

On the Friday we went over to my parents house so that son could pick up his amazing Christmas present. A very spoilt child, my mother actually gave him her car as his Christmas present. I mean how generous is that!!!!! So husband drove us over and we had lunch - my brother and nephew turned up as well. Then I drove home in son's car with him sitting next to me watching my every move and backseat driving. It all went pretty well and I managed not to horrify him too much, except when I went into 6 gear to much grinding - largely because the car doesn't have a 6th gear. 

So anyway, son is now the proud owner of a VW Up! it's far posher than my char, which as you know is on it's last legs. I found it it a really lovely drive actually. 

I was spoilt too actually, my mother gave me a gold bracelet and necklace - a family heirloom apparently. So I'm now wearing those with pride. I can never have too much jewellery.

Mum felt guilty my brother didn't get anything and tried to persuade my dad to give him one of his swords. Dad refused saying 'I still need that'. I decided not to ask questions.

I'd been walking around with a pair of secataires (literally no idea how to spell that and the spelling is so off that spell check can't help - but basically things that cut plant stems!)... anyway, I've been walking around with those in my handback for over a week waiting to discover some holly. There in my parents garden was all the holly I needed. Dad was a little surprised when I had everything I needed to hack into it with me.

Saturday I was together enough to clean - our cleaner has literally just disappeared off the face of the earth. I hope she is ok, she has a lot of medical issues. If I knew her address I'd be popping by just to make sure that she's ok - but I don't know the address. Once the house was nice and clean I set up the table ready for Christmas day. I know it was yonks in advance, but it's such a busy period.

Then Sunday was spent finalising the decorations for the big day.

I honestly can't remember what we got up to on the Monday, but doubtless something Christmassy. On the Tuesday son and I started the cooking together making bread sauce and cranberry sauce, both of which can happily sit around for a few days.

Wednesday was my busiest day. Basically so I can spend a bit of Christmas Day with people I try to get as much done on Christmas Eve as possible. I prepared all the veg. Boiled the Gammon (kept moist with apple juice once done - top tip). I even did a small additional turkey breast to make sure there were plenty of leftovers if people wanted seconds. 

All of this prep means that on Christmas Day itself it's all about cooking the turkey and then timing the veg and potatoes so they are all ready on time.

Now I'm cooking a lot less I have to admit I found the cook tougher than normal.

In amongst all of this at 14:00 I had a hospital appointment about my ear. They had a jolly good poke in it and found that there was still some ghastliness in there. Hopefully it will all be better soon. But at least I know that the right people have had a jolly good look.

Then at the end of the day son and I put the stars on the top of the tree and decorated the trees outside the house.

On Christmas Day my family turned up at the front door 35 minutes early!!!!! That's such a sin, but fortunately we had about 20 minutes warning so were all ready for them. After that it was all a bit of a blur - we had lunch and then my brother got a message to say there cab was turning up early. In the end there was days of preparation and the family were in and out on Christmas Day in the space of about 2.5 hours!!!!!

Dad had decided that he could in fact cope without his sword so my parents turned up with one. This all culminated in my brother having to walk through central Brighton on Christmas day with a sword poorly disguised with a paper bag and a bobble hat. Still it made me laugh.

There's not really much to add after that - we mooched around for a few days tidying up and then on the Sunday went to husband's family for a family get together. Here we heard that there's yet another new baby about to join the family. My side of the family is quite concise, with just 5 people, husbands side of the family is enormous and continues to grow. 

All in all this has been quite a boring blog - just too much to go through.