What is the true meaning of Christmas? Crowded supermarkets? Vomity dogs? Lovely quiet moments at home? It’s certainly not snow. We’re in for a bit of a heatwave. According to the subtitles on the BBC weather yesterday it could reach 50.5 degrees Celsius…that is not worth thinking about.
Yesterday, caught up as I was in Bill’s last hurrah, I forgot to mention that Nolan finally came around to give us a quote for improving the front garden. Nolan is Kate’s husband. Kate cuts the puppies’ hair. Fortunately Mirinda was here to give instructions and demands.
And then, just to continue the sort of year it’s been, another legend goes and dies. Rick Parfitt of status Quo. Aged 68. I guess there’s still a few days left of the year. Sadly not so many rock legends. It makes me wonder what Keith Richard’s secret is.
But enough of that…today is marked in our house by a number of things. First up was poor Emma who obviously ate something which completely disagreed with her but refused to leave her tummy no matter how much she tried to remove it via her mouth. She hacked and heaved and hung around looking decidedly morose.
By the end of the day when Mirinda asked if anyone wanted to go for a walk she was back to normal. I guess whatever it was was expelled somehow and somewhere.
While Mirinda was gallivanting off around a surprisingly crowded Farnham Heath, I knocked up a batch of mince pies. I used the fruit mince from 2014 which is still fine. Delia swears she’s used a three year old fruit mince that she kept in a jar in the back of her cupboard. Considering the fact that I use her recipe every time, it seemed reasonable to assume it would keep. And it did. I reckon I’ll be able to use it next Christmas as well.
Late in the afternoon we started a new tradition called “Reading Back the Years” where I read the entries for Christmas Eve every year for which I have an entry in the blog. Some of them are hilarious: all of them are a delight to remember. We’ll do the same tomorrow with the Christmas entries.
It was then time to pop over the road for Christmas drinks.
About a week ago, Fiona or Bruce had dropped a Christmas card through our door, with an invitation to drinks tonight. We grabbed a bottle and went over at 6:30.
And what a great evening we had. Quite a few of the neighbours were there (the woman from the Dead House and her mother from across the road, an American woman and her son, Mr Sandals, his wife Anna and their kids, Dave, Gail and Gail’s mum, the Crazies, the woman and her husband who own Caster the Alsatian, an old bloke I didn’t recognise) and we all had a lovely chat getting to know each other.
Bruce explained that they used to always go to Devon to spend Christmas with Fiona’s family but her mum died earlier this year so they decided to just have a family Christmas at home. It’s the first for a very long time. They were really looking forward to it.
I told them this is the first time I can remember for us having a Christmas at home with just the two of us (and the girls, of course). I know there’s been others but I can’t for the life of me remember any.
One bit of sad news though. Gail’s mum’s dog Topol died this week. He’d recently had surgery for liquid around his lungs and while he managed to come through that really well, it returned and he had to be put to sleep. Terribly sad. We then spent a goodly while convincing her to buy a cock poo who would sit in her lap. Gail said she’d train it.
We had a lovely (almost) three hours then staggered all the way home.
I never thought I’d see myself type this but I really like being part of a community.
Yes and so you should, and by the way just heard George Micheles died fancy that only in his 50s. must have been a heart attack. Poor Emma .
love mum xxxx