When I was wondering what to write about this month, I realised that a lot of our activities had started with the letter C …hence the odd title of this post! Firstly of course was the big day…Christmas of course! I hope you all had a wonderful day. We certainly did, spending the day itself with Hazel and Phil where we were well fed, had fun playing, watching Layla open her multitude of presents (and many of her sister’s presents too!), and talking to my brother, Alan. It was a lovely family day and Geoff and I loved every minute. Spending time with the family is what Christmas is all about after all, as far as we are concerned.
We have of course done quite a lot in the run up to Christmas of course. Church activities have once again taken up a lot of our time…there is that pesky letter C again. We have sung so many Carols this year…more than I have done for many years. We went out carol singing around the streets near our church on two evenings, which was good fun but a bit hard work as there were not many of us. Thankfully our friend Gordon was with us and his playing of his baritone helped us to make a bit of noise! The people who did answer their doorbells appreciated our efforts, so we were happy. Once again though I was sad that none of the children who came to the door, could name a favourite carol…except Jingle Bells or Rudolf the Red nosed reindeer. Carols it seems, are not sung in schools any more and not many of those kids come to church, so I shouldn’t really be surprised. But it is a bit sad though. We had a nice session singing in a care home too where the residents and staff appreciated our efforts, and we all appreciated being in the warm that day! We also sang carols at Layla’s school, when we went to see her being a splendid Camel in her nativity play. Her baby sister went one better in the playgroup’s Christmas nativity, as she was chosen to be baby Jesus and was laid in a manger where she gazed around and loved all the attention! And, of course, we sang again at our church’s candlelight carol service, which was lovely. Our monthly Café Church session was also fun as we all made an Incredible Edible Crib out of Matchmakers and icing, complete with Shredded Wheat hay and a Jelly baby Jesus! I am proud to say that ours is still complete today… although I suspect it will not last for much longer. I am a little reticent about biting Jesus’ head off I have to say!
Other pre-Christmas activities this month have included buying and decorating our Christmas tree and buying and writing lots of Christmas cards. I still love receiving cards and so despite the astronomical cost of postage these days, I am not going down the “giving to charity“ route any time soon. I have also thoroughly enjoyed assembling my rather ancient Advent Calendar (it is now over 50 years old) once again. For the first time ever, two people responded to my posting photos of this calendar on Twitter, to say they had the same one and asking for photos of their missing pieces. I was very happy to oblige with that and was very happy to know that this old calendar crib scene is also loved by others.
One of the not so nice things that happened this month was water coming through our ceiling on a couple of occasions, which got us a bit worried. We live in a ground floor flat and tracing the source of this leak was not so easy. The guy who lives directly above us was very helpful, but it soon became evident the leak was not from his flat. Eventually our site manager traced it to a leaky bath/shower and helped to renew the seals around it. We are hoping that this will solve the problem …so it is fingers crossed time. We have also had a problem this month of sourcing an electrician to do a small job in our flat…I want a heated towel rain put into our bathroom …and frankly trying to get people to actually do the work is proving to be impossible. They come, measure up, talk the talk and then vanish! It is very annoying!
Not all of our activities this month have had the letter C in them! I helped Hazel one Saturday morning with an Amnesty “Write for Rights” event, where we asked people to sign cards which will be sent to prisoners of conscience in various countries. Geoff has continued to play pickleball regularly and thoroughly enjoyed handing out his “Golden Ball” awards at the last session. Its amazing what I can do with a bit of gold tinsel I can tell you! I have been kept very busy in Op shop in the build up to Christmas too. There have been some afternoons when I did not sit down once! I did enjoy the volunteer’s Christmas party though, one evening at Cornerstone. It was good fun. We haven’t really done much eating out this month…we haven’t been able to fit it in!
Boxing Day here was a lovely day. We started off the day by reviving an old tradition of ours, of doing an “open house” event where we invited a few of our neighbours round for coffee and mince pies. Before we left the UK to live in France, we had done this wherever we lived and although this gathering was a lot smaller than the ones we used to do, it is still a good thing to do. Living in this flat complex here means that not many people ever get to know each other and so we invited some of the neighbours from this building who had never met, to come and chat. It was really nice and we think they at least now know each other’s names! I then went on to share the rest of the day with my daughter at Armathwaite Hall Hotel, where we had a fabulous spa experience afternoon. We ate a fantastic afternoon tea – which was so copious I brought some home with me! Then we had a massage, swam and sat in the outdoor hot tub watching the sun set over Bassenthwaite Lake. Hazel had a sauna, and I relaxed on a lounger reading until she was done. It was a great relaxing afternoon for us both and it was wonderful to have some real “Mother and Daughter” time, just chatting and putting the world to rights. It was a great treat 
We also made a trip down to Manchester last weekend. One of the not so good things which does include the letter `c` that has happened to us this month was the news that our daughter-in-law, Susie, was diagnosed with colon cancer a few weeks ago. It has all come as a great unpleasant shock as Susie is one of those people who runs 10kms for fun and is very fit. She is due to have a big operation in January and so we went down to their house to look after our grandchildren, so that Matthew and Susie could have a night away in Chester. We had a nice time with the kids, went out for pizza and then took them to a pantomime on the Saturday night. M and S also had a nice relaxing night away and enjoyed doing a bit of shopping too. We are now just waiting for this operation to go ahead and then we will be on call to go back if they need us for anything else.
Well on that “not so great” note, it only remains to bid farewell to 2025 and head into the New Year with hope and faith. A quote from Julian of Norwich which became the “go to” phrase for our family a while ago, when the college the kids went to used it as their daily motto, keeps going through my head at the moment. “All will be well, all will be well, and all manner of things will be well” I am intending to make a couple of NY resolutions and hope that I manage to keep them this year! Last years lasted 3 days! Whatever you all have planned for 2026, I hope that everything you wish for will come true. Have a Happy, Safe and Healthy New Year my friends.
A bientot mes amis…
We never did qualify for the old folks meal either!