Holiday best bits- Part 1

A very Happy New Year to you all!

I hope you had a good one and 2015 brings you good health and much happiness.

Well the holidays are over and later today I will be off to work, quite nice to have yesterday to finish all the clearing up. We got all the decorations back in the loft and it is now back to it's tidy state up there. I can't see the point of getting decoration boxes down, unpacking them and then putting them back up tidily when you have to get them down again a couple of weeks later. Plus there is always something else I need out of them at some point. So they get left right in the middle of our walking space till Christmas is over which in turn has the knock on effect that anyone who needs anything from up there leaves a mess too. However it is now a pleasure to go up there.

We have had a lovely time during the last weeks with all the children here (although briefly). We wanted to cook a special meal for the five of us and I decided I should overcome my fears and cook beef wellington. Having bought the fillet steak which cost me more than our turkey this year I scoured the internet for tips on cooking it and combined several recipes to produce this

 It was (even though I say it myself) gorgeous. I was so proud of getting it just right, Jonathan declared it was the best meal he had ever eaten. It was easy to do and I'll not be worried about doing it again. We had Terry's chocolate cheesecake for desert (you can find it here) which was again easy to do. Washed down with a rather nice bottle of Roija and the meal was a success.

Unfortunately Charlotte departed for Devon the next day (Xmas eve) and although planned to come back up  on the 27th caught that tummy bug and never made it. We continued our celebrations with Becky and Tom joining us for Christmas dinner

the highlight of the meal being when the holly on top of the Xmas pudding went up in flames and set the smoke alarm off

by the end of the dinner the kitchen ended up looking like a disaster area 

You can't believe how much clearing up there is after one meal, but with the departure of Becky and Tom (who were having a party that night) and Jonathan who was going to it we set to and got it done.

Boxing day was quieter and of course as you know from my previous post we had the snow. We got chance to go out walking in it on the 27th, meeting Joanthan's girlfriend Fran on the way. It was a welcome few hours of fresh air.

We had a get together with David's brother and his family up in Leeds on the 28th which everyone looks forward to. The children are all similar ages, add to that excellent food and company all makes for a memorable day which it certainly was.
There was catching up of news and present opening

a walk in Roundhay Park with a drink after

quiz games which come up via the internet on the television whilst you use your iphone or ipad to answer the questions - how does that work? can't get my head round it at all.

We had conducted whistle blowing which if done right produces a rendition of jingle bells

and my favourite - piano playing and singing.

 I feel so lucky to be part of all this, watching and listening to all the banter and interaction between these lovely young adults - what a shame they have to grow up, but then every time they have got together from being little has brought its own memories. 

The second part of the holidays we were away and I'll continue that in part 2

'Do you want to build a snowman?'

Well how appropriate! I was enjoying a quiet late afternoon as David and Jonathan had gone up to Elland Road to watch Leeds play, catching up on some TV that I hadn't seen on Christmas day and noticed a documentary about 'Frozen' which I thought would be interesting. Having no contact with young ladies on a regular basis since I left teaching I really have no idea what the film is about. I didn't even know there were two sisters till I had watched this program ( note to self - get hold of DVD and watch film). However I digress, when I started watching the program it was raining, lots of it, as I walked into the kitchen at the end of the program I was aware that it seemed rather light and discovered that the rain had turned to snow, lots and lots of it. (Luckily David and Jonathan had arrived back having driven through the rain). We were due to go out for the evening, up to Wickersley where I work. When I say up I mean up as it lies higher than we do, so if it snows with us it will be worse there. By the time we were due to go it wasn't looking good, as we very carefully drove to the main road and looked at it totally covered in snow the decision was made to return home whilst we could, definitely the right one as you'll see from the pictures.

I do love that silent late at night when snow has fallen and no-one is around, it's all so still and calm.

By the morning a lot of the snow had fallen from the trees and this was our sunrise

We hadn't realised the extent of the snow till we were listening to the local news later yesterday. We had a slight flurry last night which looks as though it has turned to ice on the cars. I have to say that looking through the window now at 8-30am it looks very cold out there. 

The final countdown

Well I'm on my final countdown here @ number 6. Another early start saw me at the supermarket just after 7am to get the final bits of shopping so my list is now looks like this

Turkey - bought
Christmas pudding - bought (although not impressed with the total lack of choice so might make one)
Brandy butter - bought
Stuffing - made
Bread sauce - made
Pigs in blankets - made
Cranberry sauce - made
Vegetables - bought
Wine - bought
Baking - almost done, just Nigella's rocky road to make
Tree - decorated

Trimming up - done

Table - sanded, varnished and decorated

 Presents - bought but not wrapped
Christmas stockings for Charlotte's future niece and nephew - almost finished, just need features and sparkles adding

Even got a fairly clean house!! Don't ever remember being at this point on the 22nd before so what have I forgotten? Maybe after all these years I've finally 'cracked it' So all that remains is for me to wish you all 

and 

Love Anne xxx

Unpacking decorations

I love unpacking all our decorations (don't really like putting them away) and this year is no exception, probably even more so as I had a massive re-organising of boxes when they were put away so it was easier to find what I wanted. Over the years we like everyone else collect decorations from all over the place, so I would like to share just a few of my favourites.

 These two were bought whilst on a company paid trip to Las Vegas. I love the colours and the way the rabbit and mice are looking up at the snowman, waiting for his nose to drop off maybe? They add decoration to my plain welcoming lights

These stars were bought when we went to stay with Charlotte's Godparents in Dubai for Christmas

They hang perfectly on our light fitting, which reminds me I must replace the bulb that has gone.

When Charlotte was doing ski seasons in Les Gets we took Becky and Jonathan out for New Year so this next decoration is from there. In fact that whole garland in the kitchen is hung with wooden hearts bought out there and is labelled up as 'French garland'

The next few were bought for me by Charlotte when she and a friend went to Russia just before Christmas

My next is the 'Padstow reindeer', fairly obvious where he's from (actually he's from Stein's shop) He sits on the piece of wood covering the gas pipe where one day a fire will be.

This young lady was bought by Charlotte again,this time from the Christmas market in Winchester.She's got a new home this year- on the mantle piece, usually she's on the kitchen windowsill.

The angel chimes go back to when Charlotte was little and she always looks for them when she comes home, unfortunately I've no candles as yet for them, must put them on the shopping list as she's arriving tomorrow for a few days.

This year I bought myself a very appropriate decoration whilst in Lisbon

It's actually hanging in my sewing/crafting room but it photographed better hanging from a cup hook in the kitchen. 

I'm sure you all have tales to tell about your decorations, I certainly have enjoyed reading about Christmas preparations on the blogs I follow. I think my task this weekend is to sit with a good cup of coffee (when the coffee machine is mended) and take stock of where I am and what still needs doing. I did get up at 6-30am today to make mince pies, bread sauce and I now have a large pot of soup bubbling on the stove as maybe I'm getting there. Till the next time, have a great weekend Love Anne xx

60 year old lights

Along time ago, 60 years to be precise a young father (he was only 29) went down to the local electrical shop and spent the equivalent of a WHOLE WEEKS wages on a set of Christmas lights. They cost him
£1 10s 6p, that's £1-50 in today's money, and going on to some special money conversion site which takes in to account inflation they equated to about £500, which would be a good week's wage today.
Here is the actual box, just in the yellow bit on the right hand side the price is on.

He bought them to celebrate his daughter's first Christmas and as you'll have guessed that was me! 

Inside the box looked like this

As a child these lights were always on the tree and had to mended several times by my dad who could turn his hand to anything. I remember moving the shades around so the green one had the red bulb in and the blue had a yellow one in - it drove my Mother mad! 

One Christmas, despite all my Father's efforts they just would not work and it was impossible to get any bulbs to fit (no internet to find whatever you want in those days) so the lights were put up in the loft and left there until the Christmas after my Father died when I decided that there must be a away to rescue them.

I took them down to a nearby Homebase where one of their more 'elderly' assistants found me a set of lights which had the same shaped bulbs which the shades would fit on - BRILLIANT. The box was duly wrapped and put under the tree and given to my Mum on Christmas Day, who as you might imagine just burst in to tears. The following year they were back on her tree and for several after. 10 years ago I had a very familiar shaped present for Christmas and on opening it I found the lights. Each year since then they have been put up, not on our tree but on the stair banister where they were admired by many and young children could see the pictures on the shades. 

You might think that that is the happy end to the story but unfortunately not, as last year half the bulbs were out. The saving grace was that the set from Homebase were a 20 set and we only had 11 shades (one had got broken years ago) so we were able to put the shades on all the bulbs that worked and used them like that. I started to look for more bulbs after Christmas last year but didn't get very far so left the search till a few weeks ago. Amazingly I found what I needed and they arrived. Now I had had the lights on and knew exactly which bulbs needed replacing. I did that, switched them on and the total reverse happened. All the bulbs with shades were off and the un-shaded bulbs were on. What had happened there? David, bless him spent a couple of hours trying to sort them out but failed. We tried putting the shades on the lighted bulbs but some wouldn't fit properly - nothing seemed to be working. I was really disappointed but couldn't help thinking that there must be a way to get them going. It was then that I had the idea of trying to fit the shades somehow onto some other lights. By careful wriggling I was able to push two bulbs through the hole in the top of the shades and IT WORKED. Not ideal but it doesn't matter they work and here they are on the banister