Well it’s that time of year, when we tend to spend all our time going from house to house to eat and drink and generally just catch up with people. Yesterday for example, we were out from early afternoon, spending time in 4 peoples houses, eating well and just relaxing into Christmas. Saturday evening was spent with Bob and Karen, as they invited a few friends round for mulled wine and mince pies. It was quite amusing to see the increasing anxious looks on Karen’s face, as the assembled young children got more and more boisterous! On Friday evening we went round to see my nephew Craig, as it was his 16th birthday this weekend. To celebrate, he has sold most of his CD collection and spent the money on an electric guitar and amp. Craig and his older brother Carl have made a couple of amusing tapes in the past, using a two string guitar and the bedroom floorboards as a percussion instrument. The 1st one was a Nirvana inspired noise complete with crowd sound effects. The last one was a tape of songs that they had heard of, but never actually heard! An inspired idea. So who knows what Craig will be able to come up with now?

We are smack bang in the middle of the birthday season here. In addition to Craigs, on Thursday it was Orynthia’s uncle’s birthday, today it’s Steve Dew, tomorrow it’s mine and then on Boxing Day it’s Brucene’s. The week before saw birthdays for Teresa and Gus, so it’s another reason why this time of year is such a busy time of year for us.

We just received a Christmas card from our friends John and Jill, they moved to France in September and was amused to hear that posting the Christmas cards, involves a 2 mile cycle ride to the nearest post box for Jill. Worse still the ride back is all uphill!

Yesterday we finally got round to buying a Christmas tree, it’s only about 3 feet high, but it looks great and it just provides that glorious Christmas smell, that only a real tree can give you. We have a couple more things to sort out today and then Christmas will be with us.