and so this is christmas....

Xmas eve

What a lovely Christmas day,  tears flowed, laughter abounded and we had lots of lovely long chats with people we love. The exchanging of gifts was a little unusual but much enjoyed. The box of 12 xmas crackers will, by our calculations, last us (at a rate of 2 per year) another five years… oh yess, that’s kept the xmas costs down. The gifts were of an interesting mix which ill leave to you to guess who’s is which… a bread maker… thick socks… an umbrella that you can see through…tickets to the City VS Man City FA cup match… and many more, also gifts from our much loved and much missed family.

Freedom on the phone  :)

After the phone calls and the present opening we eventually sat down to xmas lunch. What festive fair awaited us  I hear you ask…well…. Lunch consisted of… toasted rolls with fake meat and tomato and lettuce (teehhee, the same thing I have for lunch every day) and a mince pie and custard… let me mention at this point the Instant Custard… this stuff is just brilliant… open sachet, boil kettle, pour contents of sachet into bowl, pour boiling water into bowl… job done yummy custard in 2 minutes.. and … NO LUMPS!  

After allowing the “massive” lunch to settle we headed out in the back garden to enjoy the white Christmas that we had been so lucky to have delivered to us as requested . Unfortunately the snow wasn’t quite as “deep and crisp and even” as we had hoped, which put paid to our xmas day snowlady making plans… or did it?

Of course it did not… Nic was never going to let this “perfect” opportunity pass her by, so we set about making a snow lady.. It is of course a snow lady because, when we came back in 1994 we were in Scotland at Ben Nevis and began to build a snow man…whereupon our quiet and shy daughter informed us, we would not build a snow man.. It would be a snow lady!!  And snow ladies they have been ever since. Now…as mentioned previously, the snow.. was not deep… cold..yes… deep..no. So we began scraping the back garden with our hands… not enough snow and very cold hands are the result.  Nic is not deterred, inside she goes, “I have the answer" says she and hands me a….. Dust pan. Ahhh, superb thinks I, this will obviously solve our lack of snow and cold hand problems…and conceivably become a new boom market for the ailing dust pan manufacturers. (I shall name it the “iSnow “tool). Sadly.. this is all crap… the iSnow is useless, it neither collects snow, nor makes my hands warm, yet another stroke of genius lost due to the fact that it wasn’t.

Unfazed, Nic’s intention to see a snow lady on xmas day continued. The launching of the iSnow toward the back door shows its future as a Frisbee is also quite limited. And we move on to snowlady building Mk 3 and this one is sure to succeed, Nic begins dragging her foot through the snow, “Brilliant!” says I, this has eliminated the cold hands instantly and the snow is beginning to mound… not very much I might add.. but mounding is certainly taking place. I rush to join the spectacular excitement that is foot dragging snow lady building. In no time (read 20 minutes) we have created a mound of snow the likes of which the world has NEVER seen… yes this snow mound was at least 30… no 35…. No, this mound had to be FORTY centimeters high! We stood back and looked on in awe… had we created this? Oh how the world would look to our backyard for inspiration in the future.

Well of course at this point our mound incredible snow lady, needed to be finished off with all of the snow lady accoutrements one would expect.. Top hat,…coal for eyes, …..carrot for nose, …..smiley mouth and pipe,… and a scarf. Now sadly… our planning had not stretched its self to getting these items in readiness…. BUT… do you think this would deter us…US, the designers and builders of the patented scraped together snow mound? Of course not… improvisation is our middle first and surnames now, so… I searched high and low to find the appropriate materials for his eyes… and what do you know, in just moments I had the answer….right there beneath my feet, who ever other than a genius such as myself could have come up with such an ingenious answer… DIRT….ahh the self satisfied glow spread across my face as I gently pressed two lumps of frozen dirt into the snow mounds ladies upper part (that being the top 9 centimetres) to form the most perfect snow mound  lady eyes ever created.

The day concluded at Keith and Gill's and yet again a wonderful night was had, we are so lucky to be able to have fun with such lovely people who we are lucky to call not just relatives.. but friends.

This has taken close to an hour to write (yes i know... seems like it wouldve taken 2 minutes but there you go) and has been written in our little cabin on our way back from Brugge, which will feature in the next exciting episode... once i have recovered from all the walking and climbing.

To everyone …we send our love, we miss you all and thank you for everything you have done that has allowed us to be who we are and where we are.

All our love Glenn and Nic xx

merrry christmas, war is over (if you want it)