March 2010, the start of holiday

Almost up to date....

So in the first half of March Mum & Dad came to stay for a weekend. We had thoughts of being very busy and almost boarded out the loft and replaced the vinyl in the kitchen but in the end we just replaced the toilet seat :)

Finally it came time for my holiday. I'd booked a hotel at Heathrow for the Friday night due to the early flight the next day and somewhere to leave the car for the two weeks but hadn't booked the Friday off work, which was a mistake. So I worked through til about 1.30pm and left early to get home swap my work bag for my suitcase and set off for Heathrow.

I knew that driving down to London on a Friday night was never going to be a good idea but there wasn't much that I could do about that. Thankfully most of the journey down, although the news reports were full of incidents on the M1 they were all on the northbound side so it was just the M25 to tackle. As expected it was bad and that last part of the journey took about 1.5 hours to get round to the hotel but I thought being in my room by 7.30pm wasn't too bad.

An early start the next morning and I was at the airport for 5.45pm, if I'd arrived half an hour later I wouldn't have had to queue up for most of that time but I managed to arrive at the same time as a lot of others, including a very large party of Japanese who took up all the space at the self check in machines so I managed to sneak onto when they weren't looking. As I was on the same flight as Helga's Mum, Rosa, I waited for them to arrive and check in before going through security and meeting her at the gate. I was a little concerned about the communications problems ( me not speaking Portuguese, Rosa not speaking English) but generally it seemed to go ok. Rosa kept talking to me and I kept saying I didn't understand before getting to the point where I just had to guess at what she was saying and try to give a response. This worked quite well for a while and we managed to pass the 3 hours together waiting for the connection in Lisbon. The problem was once we got to Belo Horizonte, Rosa was looking for the person collecting her and I was looking for Catherine, she went one direction, I stayed where I was and never saw her again. I did get in touch with Helga though and she assured me that Rosa got home safely!

February 10

Either not much happened in February or I didn't keep my calendar up to date. I'm hoping it's the latter and not that I didn't have anything to do.

I do remember going over to the Lavers after a Huddersfield work day mid week and finding out that we were all going to be up in Stockton at the weekend. Mum & I went to Northallerton Saturday morning to order picture frames and then met Dad for lunch at the lovely Roots Farm Shop. Saturday night Vicky, Charlie and I went out for drinks, in true old woman style we also had chips and were home by 10.30pm!

At the end of the month we went to see Beauty and the Beast in York. As always with York Light Opera it was well done, it's not one of my favourite on stage musicals but I did find myself singing along to a lot of it and the actor playing the Beast was really good.

And that was February.

January 10

As there had been so much snow in December it stopped me visiting the Lavers to meet Isaac when he was born, despite my attempt to get there after 3 hours driving in the snow I decided the more sensible option was to turn back home. So I re-planned my visit for 2nd January and again the snow tried to thwart me! This time after a quick call from Charlie before setting off we changed plans and I went to get the train instead which was definitely a better idea than driving. It was a lovely day seeing Isaac, building snowmen and throwing snowballs up at the house.

Most of January was tied up with working, from December we had recruited someone temporarily to cover my day job for me so that I could work on the planning for the restructure, ready for announcing the first part at the end of January. It made it much easier for me to be able to pass everything else over and just work on the restructure.

At the end of the month I managed to get a day off to get down to Sal & Rob's for the weekend. I'd booked to fly down as it seemed probably the same cost as driving but a lot less hassle. By the time I was on the plane on the Thursday after a day at work I was again pleased not to be driving so much. It was a lovely relaxing weekend, we had some house things to do, wait for deliveries, view all the plans for the decorating and watch films in the cinema room downstairs.

In January I also had my injections in preparation for my trip to Brazil. For all the travelling that I've done I've never had to have vaccinnations for anywhere that I've been, which meant that I had to have all the booster shots as well. So I went for most of them on one day Tetanus, Diptheria and Polio in one shot in one arm, Typhoid and Hepititus A in the other. Then a few days later Yellow Fever (for a price) that was the only one I was worried about but of course the actual injection was no worse than the others and I didn't feel too ill after it. Now just to get to March for the holiday!

Christmas 09

I finished work on 23rd December this year and because of the snow decided to get straight up to Mum & Dad's that day rather than wait until Christmas Eve. It was definitely a good decision as it snowed again overnight and was much worse for travelling in.

Christmas Day was just going to be the three of us but with various visits to church, Sandra's and Joan & Albert's with all their family, there wasn't much time when it was just us. Boxing Day we went for another dinner at Bill and Margo's then Sal & Rob arrived on 27th from the Lakes. We had a visit from Sarah and Jon one afternoon before Sal & Rob headed back to Southampton to their new house, having owned it for 2 weeks they'd only spent less than 24 hours in there. I had another couple of days catching up with people, crashing Mark & Carlie's House Group Christmas Dinner and seeing Joanne and Catherine.

Robert and Laraine arrived to stay for a few days over New Year and I took until New Year's Eve to decide that I would stay another night and spend the evening at the Toops. Definitely my kind of New Year's, food, quiz, games and home by 12.45am.

October Musicals

At the end of October Sal and I had another musicals weekend in London so I decided that needed a whole post of it's own.

We both travelled to London on the Friday after work, my train got in a bit later than Sal so after the initial confusion of where we were meeting (why does there need to be 2 H&M's so close to each other but in opposite directions from the exit of the tube?), we found each other and dropped my bags off at the hotel. We decided not to bother with dinner until after the show so headed straight off to the Price Edward Theatre to see Jersey Boys. Sal had seen it before but really wanted me to see it as well and I really enjoyed it. There were moments when the woman next to me became quite distracting by insisting on singing along, which wouldn't have been so bad if she'd had been in tune, but still it didn't spoil it.

Saturday we had a shopping trip for my Christmas present and was successful in getting me a lovely new handbag which I was allowed to start using straight away. Then the afternoon was a showing on Billy Elliott, another good show. The language in it is really blue which the family in front obviously hadn't realised having brought what looked to be a 13 year old daughter and much younger son with them. But amazing dancing in this one.

Saturday night I think was my favourite for the weekend, La Cage Aux Folles with John Barrowman in a role that seemed absolutely perfect for him. If he hadn't been in it, it probably might not have made it onto our list for this weekend but I'm glad it did, good singing dancing and very funny. And even a little mouse running down the stairs before it started!

Now what to see next time...

October 09

October started with Dad's 65th Birthday. I met Mum, Dad, Sandra, Joan and Albert in Richmond after work on the Friday, having been in Huddersfield that day and we had a lovely dinner before going to the theatre. It was a West Country Theatre production called Home on the Range and the three actresses in it were very good and as seems to be common with their productions, very good use of very few props.

Saturday was the Amazing Praise concert, this year foolishly, I didn't start practicing until a week before and had a crisis of confidence and almost pulled out of it. Mum and I spent some time on the morning clearly marking the notes that I was going to play and which I was going to ignore. I think it worked quite well and I managed to get through it without too much embarrassment, thankfully there were two other cellists there so I managed to hide behind them. Next year must learn to say no, or have something already booked in for that weekend....

I finally had a week off work in October, having been the only one not to take much time off work over summer this was the first opportunity to take more than a day off at once. After I'd booked it in I needed to decide what to do with it so I of course, looked at who I could go visit and decided that Madrid in October would be nice so I set off to stay with Vicky for 3 nights. After arriving on the Saturday we went out for Ice Cream and cinema. Sunday was mainly sightseeing, trip on the funicular railway. There was a birthday party that Vicky wanted to go to for twins of a girl who had been helped by the pregnancy crisis service in Madrid that she volunteers as so we spent a couple of hours there. My main conversation was with a 5 month old girl as no one else spoke English but we were fine until someone else came for a cuddle with her and then I was left to play toys on my own. Monday Vicky was working for some of the time so I wandered round the gardens, read my book in the sun and then Tuesday morning we went to the cathedral and the royal palace.

I spent the rest of the week at Mum and Dad's, getting to catch up with quite a few people - dinner with Vicky and Ben and lunch with Carlie and Noah before joining them for Helen and Paul's Wedding. I think officially that makes me a wedding crasher but no one seemed to mind!

September 09

So in trying to get my blog back up to date I've decided just to have a look at my diary and see what I did each month and try and remember the highlights. Probably won't be all that interesting but we'll give it a go for now.

So September, I went for a weekend to Sal's. Always a good weekend, this time we went up to London for a day on the Saturday to see Les Mis, my fourth time, Sal's sixth I think. Of the six of us that were there I think we'd seen it 22 times between us by the time it was finished. Great show as ever.

The following weekend we had a girls evening out to Harewood House to see Grease as a drive in movie. We did the same 2 years before at York Racecourse (much more convenient for getting to but Harewood wasn't too far). After a slight rearranging of cars when we first got there and ignoring the stewards waving us in so that we could get all three cars together and not park behind the tallest 4x4 there, we settled in for some food first. It was a good evening for the film and as always involved a lot of singing along - still surprised at how much of it I can quote only watching it every few years!

The rest of the month seems to have been filled with the usual work, travelling around Yorkshire, fitting in a visit to the Lavers when on a Huddersfield work day, and the start of Strictly Come Dancing seems to have marked the start of many Saturday evenings with Naomi and Gillian passing commentary on the dances - in my no so expert opinion.

Now onto October....

Birthday things

I've had another lovely birthday weekend. Similar to last year, Sally arrived on Thursday evening and we had a lot planned. Friday morning was the most relaxing couple of hours at Harrogate Turkish Baths. I think we undid any good detoxing that had been done by going to Betty's for lunch and over-indulging in an Afternoon Tea, if only I'd not eaten the last little cake...

Saturday lunchtime followed the same indulgence with a visit to Cafe Concerto before Sarah arrived (early amazingly!) from Stockton. It was another afternoon at the pottery painting studio, Sal again taking twice as long as I do, making sure her design is perfectly placed and painted. You can tell in the finished items that I should have spent a bit more time in making sure that I'd put enough paint on my mug! I was pleased though when Ruth came round after I'd collected the glazed finished products and asked where I'd bought my new mug from! Only spoilt by showing her the gold blob in the bottom where the star went wrong so I just painted the whole circle on the bottom leaving it looking like something has died in the bottom of the mug.

Saturday night I had some of the girls around, after my usual panic about having people in my house it was a lovely evening of food, drink and chatting. The whole weekend was then finished off with a visit from Mum & Dad on Sunday for my birthday, another lovely lunch out at The White Swan at Deighton (will start diet again soon...) and a lazy afternoon watching the athletics, a great birthday again!

New Car

Thanks to two lovely parents I picked up my new car today. Mum & Dad are taking my old one away with them which leaves me with what is basically the same car, except that it's only 9 months old and has only a few thousand miles on it as an ex-demonstrator. It's also got some little extras that the other one didn't have, parking sensors, climate control, cruise control, aux plug, chilled glove box... I love it!

Busy Day

Managed to get through my list of jobs for today, with help from Jill. We managed to get from Hedge End to Southampton, to Winchester, to Eastleigh and back home - without getting too lost! Very glad we'd taken Sal's sat nav out of her car before we went and programmed everything in which meant the only difficulty we had getting anywhere was finding the entrance to the Swan Centre in Eastleigh, we drove round the whole thing and eventually found it.

Sal came back from the hairdressers with new hair and beautiful makeup following her trial for Saturday and it was a quick lunch before going to the Rose Bowl to pick up a few things from the shop for presents and then back home to wait for Mum & Dad to arrive. After being very calm and relaxed so far, today was a little blip for Sal but after a big cry when Mum & Dad arrived I think she'll be ok for Saturday now.

Fun Day!

Today was officially Jen & Sal's day of fun. Sal's started off less fun with a trip to the gym while I sat in the sun in the back garden making more order of service. - almost finished now. I was also listening to the Hairspray soundtrack which I turned the volume down on after I realised there were quite a few people walking past the back wall and it was on very loud, while I didn't definitely hear any comments I did think there were possibly one or two people suggesting that they weren't appreciating the music as much as I was!

Fun day moved onto Spa treatments at the Hotel, Sal had the facial while I had the back massage (and I'm aching a little bit from it now), after we'd relaxed for a while we moved onto find somewhere for lunch. We ended up at Frankie & Benny's with good intentions that we were both going to have salads but then the menu came and we changed our minds very quickly - Sal took a little bit longer than me but then went for the pizza....and the cherry crumble, while I had the chicken sandwich....and the waffle with ice cream..... it was lovely!

Lunch was then followed by shopping and then an evening of order of service making. Not the most fun end to the day but we did get them finished at least. I have my task list for tomorrow, while Sal has her hair appointment I'm making myself useful collecting the hoop from the bridal shop, the pottery that they painted on the hen day, a few more shopping things to do and waiting for Mum & Dad to arrive later in the afternoon. My main task is to keep Sal calm...hopefully I'm doing ok on that one so far!

Dress Collected - Tick

I think I've finished everything I need to do on my list of wedding things before I go to Sal's. Laraine has shortened my dress for me so now I don't need to hitch it all up just to be able to walk in it and I've been to collect it this evening. Now I just need to add all these things that have been collected to the list of things to remember to take with me, I don't think Sal would be too impressed if I arrived without my dress!

I've got a lovely long week off work to look forward to now so that we can get all the final tasks done before the wedding. I don't think there's too much to do - but it sounds like I hadn't completely handed over my order of service duty and we'll be finishing those off when I get there. Only 9 days to go now :)

Wedding Preparations

As it's a bank holiday weekend I added a days holiday in on Friday and travelled down to Sal's on Thursday night. It turned into a weekend of wedding preparations mainly so we have collected the wedding dress (it's lovely!), made all the place cards and all the outsides of the order of service are ready. We've also met with Simon who's arranging the band to discuss music and been to the hairdressers for a trial to see what we're having on the day. Sal's hair looked lovely, I tried to have it a bit curly but ended up looking more like Annie with really tight curls so have decided against that one!

As the weather was so good this weekend then we've also had a trip to Hillier Gardens on Sunday morning, it was the start of the annual Art in the Park - I'm not sure if that's the official name for it I might have made it up - so we spent a couple of hours wandering round and finding the expensive pieces that we'd never buy and then went for scones in the coffee shop.


We didn't manage to tie in my weekends here with a Hen Night in Southampton so the girls will be taking Sal out in 2 weeks time and then in 4 weeks and I'll be back for the last minute preparations.

New York, New York...Part 4

Monday turned out to be another early morning, which was probably good because we needed to pack before another breakfast at Cranberry Cafe. The weather forecast once again wasn't great so we set off for the Rockefeller Centre and an indoor tour of NBC studios. There wasn't much to the tour, a history of NBC, a visit to the Nightly News studio next door to MSNBC and a make up room. We'd already toured the gift shop as we had an hour to kill before the tour started so we set off for Carnegie Hall for the second tour of the day, collecting Sal's now incredibly sparkly ring from Tiffany's on the way.

We collected tickets at Carnegie Hall but had time to go for lunch before it was due to start. We had a lovely lady called Sheila Weinstein show us round, the tour was changed slightly as they would normally spend time looking round the auditorium but the Minnesota Orchestra were practicing for their performance that evening so we were able to sit and listen to them practise for a while. After the tour it was back out into the rain and back again to the Cranberry Cafe to satisfy my craving for hot chocolate. We stayed for two cups as the rain was worse and it didn't seem worthwhile doing the last thing on the list which was to go to Central Park so we'll wait for a better time of year and go back for that one in the sun.

It was soon time to collect our bags from the hotel and head to the bus station to get the bus back to the airport. The whole check in experience this time being much smoother and faster than 3 days earlier leaving time for a little shopping at the airport. I don't remember the flight back much, I was asleep before we even took off. I woke up after an hour as the food was coming round so had something to eat and watched He's Just Not That Into You and then fell asleep again, woke up for a croissant for breakfast and then again in time for landing.

So now it's back to work and planning for when I can go again!

New York, New York...Part 3

It pretty much rained all of Sunday. After our usual start to the day with breakfast in the Cranberry Cafe we took the subway to the end of the line at South Ferry and took the ferry from Battery Park over to Ellis Island. We'd decided not to bother with getting off at Liberty Island, having taken all the pictures of the Statue the day before and as it was pouring down we just stayed on the ferry to its second stop at Ellis Island Immigration Museum. As we didn't have any ancestors to look for in the records we just looked round the exhibits instead, downstairs are the statistic based exhibits with all the facts and figures. Upstairs in the Great Hall there isn't much to see but the hall itself is an amazing looking room. Off one end deceptively hidden by what we thought was a mirror and ignored it the first time, was a trail of rooms following the experience of the immigrants when they came to Ellis Island - medical tests, legal questions, mental tests etc.

After leaving the ferry back in Battery Park we walked in the rain up to the World Trade Centre and to ground zero. From seeing the view of the skyline you can see where the twin towers are missing from the picture and it's amazing seeing the space on the ground that two huge towers stood there, there doesn't seem to be enough room somehow. We walked through alongside ground zero to the Winter Garden at the World Financial Centre, and after a bit of shopping stopped for a bit of chinese for a late lunch. My learning point for the day was always go for what you want off the menu, I thought it was a shame to all order the same main course so I went for angel hair pasta and veg which was a bit bland and then had to steal some Lemon sweet and sour pork from both Mum and Sal's plates.

We got the subway back uptown for a bit of shopping in Bloomingdales, take Sal's ring into Tiffany's for a clean, and a quick look at St Patrick's Cathedral and Grand Central Station and then back to the hotel for a rest. By 9pm Sal and I were very settled in the room and ready for staying in for the night but Mum persuaded us to get up as planned and we walked over to Rockefeller Centre to go to the Top of the Rock. We'd decided to see the city from here at night so that we could see the Empire State lit up, this was only half successful as the fog covered the top of the Empire State so we could only see as far as the band of lights. The view of the city was great though and we were pleased that Mum had insisted that we get out of bed!

New York, New York...Part 2

Saturday was another early start. I blame Sally for saying that she always wakes up at 5am the first morning in America, and so we did. Kept awake early by the marching band that made it's way down Broadway at 7am and set up camp in Times Square just outside the hotel so we eventually got up and made our way over towards Planet Hollywood to collect our New York Passes. This was made slightly more difficult by the 40,000 people gathering to take part in the Revlon 5k Run/Walk for Women that was setting off from Times Square at 9am. We found a very cheap little cafe for breakfast with pancakes and french toast that we went back to all weekend and by the time we got back to Broadway all the runners had set off but the roads were still closed to traffic so we took advantage of being able to walk down the middle of the road and take lots of pictures.

We then made our way to the Empire State Building, the weather forecast suggested that it wouldn't be quite as wet on Saturday as it would be all the other days that we were there, so we planned a trip to the top to see the sights. The rain didn't quite hold off so we did have to shelter inside for a little bit but we still saw the view from all sides while listening to Tony's Audio Tour. The weather started to brighten as we got back to ground floor so we went over to Pier 83 for the Circle Line Tours, rather than waiting over an hour to get the 2 hour cruise we decided if we were going to wait an hour we might as well be seeing more of the views so we had a shorter wait and got on the 3 hours cruise for a round trip of Manhattan Island. The sun finally came out for a while so the pictures look great for that afternoon and we got to see all the main sights so it was worth spending the extra hour on the boat.

We got back to Times Square and went straight for dinner and then to our second show - The Little Mermaid. Completely different to 9to5 but still another great performance. I never thought there would ever be a good use of 'wheelie' shoes but it turns out it gives a good swimming effect for all the mermaids! It was just a shame that Mum and I were both so tired by then that we were really struggling to stay awake throughout. It was absolutely no reflection on the performance at all, but we had to spend the second half nudging each other throughout to keep awake. Next time we come I think we'll need to factor in a bit more sleeping time for the second day....

New York, New York...Part 1

Friday started a little earlier than usual as Mum & I set off to Manchester Airport to meet Sal for our flight. We both panicked a bit about making sure that we got there on time, having to travel round Manchester during morning rush hour traffic. Turns out there was no need to be so over cautious and after 1.5 hours we were parked and ready to get on the bus to the terminal. In fact we were in the queue to check our bags in while Sal was still at Nikki's house where she'd stayed over night. Sal arrived and we'd moved about 4 places in the queue as the Continental crew checked all the passports of people in the line, asked all the security questions and then still took ages to actually check bags in and give us boarding passes. Having checked in online on Thursday night most of the process seemed quite pointless as we'd had to put all the passport details, accommodation etc in online already so why they needed to ask for it again I have no idea.

Anyway after that the flight was fairly smooth, a bit of turbulence but nothing too worrying. I watched Benjamin Button, about 1 minute before Sal so if I'd missed anything on screen I could just look across to hers and catch up on it! I didn't want to watch another film so I went for a couple of episodes of House instead and fell asleep for a while.

We knew that the weather wasn't going to be so good for the weekend and the drive to the hotel started off a little grey but by the time we pulled up at the hotel it was pouring down so it was a quick jump out of the car, pull the bags from the boot and run instead - and we still got soaked. After finding our way all the way up to the 50th Floor we found our room and the fantastic views from being so high. It had been a fairly long day already so we lay down and closed our eyes for a bit before braving the rain again for some dinner and out to the Marquis Theatre to see 9 to 5. It was a great show, being very new (just a month of preview performances and the opening night) we didn't know what to expect but it was really good. The songs, cast and set were all fantastic. Sadly one of the most exciting things (I thought) was that I forgot in America that the programmes -Playbill - and they are free!

Holiday!

I've had a lovely long weekend at Sal's. After a very long drive straight after work on Wednesday night, it was lovely to wake up on Thursday knowing that I had 4 full days before I had to be back in work. We had a lot of wedding discussions, trying to figure out what shoes I will wear, and going through the long list of questions that I had pulled together from being with Mum the weekend before. After hearing and reading so much about Jill it was also good to meet her at last!

Friday evening we drove over to Shepton Mallet to see Alicia in her theatre school performance of Old School Musical which was a selection of songs from the musicals - a perfect evening for Sal and I. The show was really great and Alicia did really well, she looked like she was really enjoying herself the whole way through.

Saturday we went to Winchester with Jill to The Pottery Cafe. Although after the last time Sal and I did this we said that we would have to plan our patterns before we went again, we didn't. But we didn't take as long as last time deciding what it was that we were all going to do. Again I did finish much faster - my attention to detail obviously not as good as Sal's, or maybe I just pick simpler designs to do.... Pictures to follow when we pick up the final glazed pots.

It was another lovely weekend to get to spend some time with Sal, next time let's go to New York!

Sports Injury

I forgot to tell you about my sports injury that happened over the holidays, but as my last two posts are linked by the title this one will have to be out of sync as I can't break them up!

So while Sal & Rob were visiting being the sporty people that they are now, there was a suggestion that we play Badminton one day.  Not being known as the sporty one of the family I had no sports gear with me at all so on Sunday during a quick trip to the shops I bought some new trainers (which I needed to do anyway) and some sweat pants.  Most of the places that we could think of where we could play either seemed to be closed between Christmas and New Year or incapable of answering the phone so eventually we went for the Dolphin Centre in Darlington and booked 2 hours on the Monday afternoon.

I haven't played badminton since I think I was about 14 and other than a short after school club I've not played all that much.  I think I did ok though, we played a couple of games of Sal and I against Rob, which of course he won.  We couldn't quite coordinate who was covering the front of the court and who was the back, but we cracked it later into the second game against Rob but it was just too late by then.  Sal and I were quite evenly matched so the games that we played against each other were both quite close scores and we won one game each.  Both our individual games against Rob had predictable scorelines of 15 to nothing more than about 3.

About 20 mins into playing I realised that my right wrist was hurting me.  I have a tendency to smash my shots rather than playing front or back hand and I found that I had been holding the racket too high on the handle so that each time I hit the shuttle the end of the racket would push straight into my wrist.  I didn't realise early enough though and after about an hour I was already showing a slight bruise and it was swollen.  The bump disappeared after that day but the bruise is still there 5 days later and it a very dark shade of purple now.  

The other minor injury was a bruise to the left hand when I swung at the shuttle a little too eagerly, missed it and hit my thumb instead.  That had a nice little purple bruise for a while but has gone now.  In spite of the injuries I did really enjoy playing, I think I'll have to find someone in York that I can play against, either that or move to Winchester / Southampton so that I can go with Sal.  That would be my preferred option but unfortunately a bit more expensive!

Merry Christmas...

Christmas Day!  It's a bit strange going to a different house for Christmas because at home I know the whole routine of the day but being somewhere else you're never quite sure what will come next.  In the morning we went to the service at Scapegoat Hill Baptist Church just up the road from the house (although we still took the car).  It was a nice Christmas morning service with lots of carols and little talk.  Then it was straight back to the house to get the dinner ready.  With  7 of us already there we were just waiting for the other 4 to arrive - Ian, Sheena, Elliot and Lyndon.  Laraine couldn't remember what time she had told them to come so we were working on 1pm but by half past we rang them and they were working on 2pm so we delayed putting on the gravy!

Sally phoned at about 5pm while we were still finishing off dinner with cheese and crackers and they had opened presents, eaten dinner and were both sitting in their new pajamas already.  The rest of our day was then spent playing lots of silly games.  The highlights of the games were that I am now the champion of the 'find the dolly mixture' game, Robert is the champion of the 'throw the card into the pudding bowl' game and Laraine is the champion of the 'move the dried peas from the plate to the cup using only a straw' game.

We had our second Christmas Day in Stockton on the 27th when Rob and Sally arrived from their hotel in the lakes.  Again it was a lovely turkey dinner but this time with more presents in the afternoon as we had only taken a couple over to Huddersfield for the three of us so this was the main present opening Christmas for us.  I was given the task of distributing the presents from under the tree and managed to spoil the surprise for Mum's present by handing her the book for 'Learn to Play the Cornet' before she had opened the actual present of the Cornet.  Still I don't think she minded and she got straight into practising, having never had much practice at playing a brass instrument I can't say that the first attempt sounded very musical but more like a strangled cat but I know she will become an expert in no time!