Christmas Spirit

The compost bins at St. George's,  Wolverton

Well this is Christmas, and I send my greetings to the four corners of our round Earth. My Christmas spirit extends to a few egg nogs and a couple of Baileys – why not? Despite the uncertain weather, this is my favourite time of year. I just love the one BIG meal that is Christmas dinner with all its trimmings. Second to the cooking, it is the wall-to-wall games that I just love. This year I am planning on feeding 16. There are two babies and two small children included in this number so that makes my turkey size calculations down to 12 – no probs! That is the maximum size turkey I can fit in my oven.

I am cheating on the cooking as my kitchen is small so I have asked Amira and Danielle to add a couple of dishes to make my life a bit easier. The living room isn’t much bigger: I’ll be squeezing two temporary tables alongside my dining table. I’ve made a list and I’m checking it twice. There is so much to do between now and the BIG day – I want everything to be near perfect.

Sammi has organised a Secret Santa. He’s staying for a few days so I am presenting him with a long list of things that need fixing in and around my house. He can’t say I never give him anything!!! The toilet seat wobbles, a tap downstairs is skewiff and there are few heavy lifting jobs I know he’ll be up to. This is the one useful thing about having a strapping son.

On the lead up to Christmas there have been a few fun  gatherings to round off the year. There was the tennis club dinner, a village table tennis party and the end of year awards at the swimming pool. 

The Royal Albert Hall

Ill wind and all that – Diane is still a bit immobile, so Jeremy took me to see Sandy Toksvig’s Santa show at the Royal Albert Hall. The music by the BBC Symphony Orchestra was marvellous but the LGBTQ story thread that ran through the evening was tenuous. It was well worth an evening out though as it was THE Royal Albert Hall  We even had a meal in pub that had been the set of the 2004 film, Layer Cake with Daniel Craig.  

The Queen`s Arms

Christmas spirit inside the Royal Albert Hall

I even managed a couple of hours in the V&A before the show. I started off in the religious icons pre-Renaissance Rooms, then the Renaissance area followed by the Middle East - then on to British bits from the 1500- 1600s. How easy it is to wander around such a wonderful place! Just as I feel when I go into churches, temples and mosques; the museum made me wonder how dedicated those people must have been to create art for their gods. Man has had such talents for millennia.

Getting home was a trial and definitely a dampener on my trip. The train was packed. The rain was torrential. It was still pouring down when I got off the crowded train in Wolverton well past midnight. I walked from the station to Danielle’s to pick up my car avoiding deep puddles and the swollen streams running down the gutters. So this is Christmas – if only it would snow!