By the time many of you read this blog post, 2025 will be with us so forgive me, all of you very loyal lot, for wishing you all a happy New Year a day early! I have just checked back and have seen that I started writing this blog in 2006 …so we are almost up to 20 years of some of you reading all about our adventures. Thank you all for following for so long. Sometimes I wonder if I should continue, but I am not quite ready to give up yet. I will review again next year! But back to the present day and here is all of last month’s exciting activities in the lead up to Christmas.
It was a very busy month for us and at times we began to feel our age big time! I kicked off a host of church related activities by representing the Methodist Church of Carlisle by doing a reading in the cathedral at the Advent service. It was a nice service…and it was not as cold as last year thank goodness…however I am not a huge fan of all the choir anthems which did go on a bit! I did enjoy though, looking at all the Christmas trees which had been decorated by various city community groups and which lined the walkways in the cathedral. They were lovely. Our next church related adventure, was to go carol singing in the streets around our church with a small group of people form our church, including Gordon with his “trombone” – in joke that as it was not a trombone but a lovely instrument which kept us all on track and made a good bit of noise! We were well received by all those who came to answer their doorbells and we all enjoyed the experience. Unfortunately, our second planned outdoor carol singing outing had to be cancelled due to the arrival of Storm Darragh, but we did manage to sing in a local care home and a sheltered housing complex the week afterwards which we, and the residents, all appreciated. And these two sessions were inside…in the warm! Bonus!! Geoff and I were a little perturbed by the care home visit as we suddenly realised that we could well be the same age or perhaps even older than some of the residents. Scary thought! The other church related things we have done this month include a great café church session where everyone made Christingles whilst drinking their coffees or teas and eating their mince pies and shortbread. These sessions are really great…but very hard work! We served 80 people on this morning…and we were exhausted afterwards! A church coffee morning (at which we do nothing but drink the coffee and supply mince pies!) and then the candlelit carol service, at which we both read, which got us very much in the mood for the big event on Christmas Day where Geoff took one of his “stocking” gifts to show the congregation…a pink turtle which swims in the bath! It was part of a theme for his presents. More about that later!! Last Sunday we decided to give ourselves a day off and had a lie in on Sunday morning instead!!
Geoff was asked to repeat his role as a red and white clad rotund person at a local playgroup and I went along as his elf this time. We really enjoy doing this…it is great to watch the children’s reactions to Santa! Mind you,
some of the names on the gifts were a bit of a challenge at times! Whatever happened to names like Susan and Peter???
We wrote and posted our Christmas cards…and had a lie down afterwards to recover from the cost of the postage! However, as I still love getting cards and catching up with people from times long ago in some cases, I refuse to go down the “I’m not sending but will donate to charity instead“ route, and so I have to forget how much it all costs. I also enjoyed making my usual door wreaths, thanks to a kind friend who gave us free range to cut holly and other greenery from his garden, I was able to make a couple of extras to give away to friends. I really miss our lovely garden in France with all its holly trees and other greenery. Geoff also made me some lovely homemade non-alcoholic ginger wine, a throwback to my mother and family traditions. I am still drinking this as, because it is full of forbidden sugar, it has to be imbibed in very small quantities! It is delicious though and fills me full of happy memories…and forbidden sugar!
We have continued with our usual Wednesday lunch out trips but have stayed fairly local this month. We visited a few of our favourite places in Dalston (Bridge End), Carlisle (Sage and Vine) and Hidden River…where we had lunch with our friends Linda and Mike after their return from an elongated trip to Australia to help out their daughter and son in law. Unfortunately, my swimming sessions with Linda will have to wait a little longer to be resumed, as they now have another grandchild due soon and will be on helping out duties yet again! I have been swimming with Hazel and the little one though a couple of times…including one session where we got shut in the changing room when the door jammed…not a great event when you have an eager excited little girl who wants to go swimming! We did get out eventually but it was a long wait for help to arrive!
Hazel and I had a little pre-Christmas treat by going to watch the Nutcracker ballet at our local cinema one evening. It was brilliant and we both really enjoyed it. I have two more dates in my diary for next year now to repeat the experience with Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet. We also made our annual family trip across to Newcastle to look at Fenwicks window. It was great this time (The Twelve Days of Christmas) and the little one appreciated it much more this year. She also appreciated the very expensive cake experience in Fenwicks café afterwards…demolishing the said cake before I had even sat down after paying for it! Hazel and Phil spent the weekend before Christmas at a wedding they were invited to in Leicester, so Geoff was on dog sitting duties, staying at Hazel’s overnight. We (and they) were a bit amused (well we were anyway!) to see, as we collected the dog after they had set off, that they had left all their wedding outfits hanging on the sitting room door! Several unplanned visits to shops had to be made to make sure they were all suitably dressed for the do! We have also done a bit of baby sitting to allow H and P to have a couple of nights out and to go out with the Rotary Santas sleigh. Are you beginning to see why we are a bit in need of some RandR just now??
And so, we now arrive at Christmas Day itself. We had a lovely day starting with Geoff and I opening our silly presents which has become our habit these days, as we choose instead to go away somewhere rather than spend a lot of money on presents for each other. Geoff has become very interested in turtles since the discovery a couple of years ago that turtles are now choosing to lay their eggs on beaches around the area of our French flat. So quite a few of his “silly” gifts were very turtley! I must admit that working in a charity shop as I do, helps with these kinds of things immensely! My gifts have become a bit more difficult for Geoff, as I don’t really get to eat much chocolate these days and that was always great for filling out my bag! We went to church and then on to Hazel and Phil’s house where we had a splendid day along with my brother, Alan, eating, opening gifts, watching the little one playing with all her presents (how can someone that small get so many gifts???), and just enjoying spending family time together. We got some lovely gifts ourselves and felt very grateful for having such a lovely family and being able to enjoy the day with them. We had met up with Matthew, Ethan and Hadley on Christmas Eve and also enjoyed a great video call with them all to see what Santa had left at their house too.
The time between Christmas and New Year has dragged a bit for all of us. We have all been afflicted with some bug or another, and for us not being able to do all our routine stuff gets to be a bit boring. I miss the shop and Geoff misses his pickleball sessions big time. We did get our flights to France sorted out for April and I have looked into having a night away somewhere as a post-Christmas treat, but more about that next month. We have ventured out for a walk occasionally, but the weather has not been good, and we went to the cinema yesterday…but the less said about the choice of going to see “Wicked” the better…except perhaps don’t bother! Today we are going swimming to see the progress our little one has made recently…and I suspect Geoff will be a bit anxious about that! She is fearless! Tonight will be spent in front of some dire TV, trying to stay awake until midnight when I will throw Geoff out to first foot as usual. Whatever you choose to do tonight, my friends, stay safe and have a great time
Happy New Year everyone.
A bientot mes amis…
