Winter tightens its grip!

This morning the sky looked very ominous and when I went out into the car park to pick up the litter it was very sleety and extremely cold. The Tesco delivery man arrived, grumbling about the weather, and said there was a warning of a big snowfall on the way. He didn't say whether it was meant for today or later in the week, but I won't hold my breath!

We had another busy day at work, made even more hectic as we were manning Reception in Polly's absence. I picked Sophie up from school, went to Booker with her and then escaped home as I'm going to be at work late for the next two nights. It was sheer bliss to get home, light some candles and relax in my lovely cosy home!

A little deaf!

Mum and I went down to Kent today to see Nan and take her to Specsavers for a hearing test. She's 92 now and is more than a little deaf which makes having a conversation with her a bit difficult! I'm quite softly spoken and don't really like shouting so we'd been urging her to go and sort out her hearing for a long time.

We took Dad's Mondeo as the forecast was saying we might have some snow and I wanted a nice big, heavy car to feel safe in! I took it very easily on the M1, though, but didn't see any safety cameras lurking on the bridges, just lots and lots of roadworks!

We had an excellent journey down with no snow at all, which was a touch disappointing. For a while now I've been having a secret fantasy of some really bad weather, hopefully happening on a Sunday night/Monday morning so it doesn't disrupt us at work too much. Some really deep snow to bring the country to a halt and give us all a "Snow Day" to remember! You know what they say...be careful what you wish for!

We took Nan into Dartford - always such a pleasure (NOT!) -  and had lunch before heading off for her hearing test. The result was as we expected - she definitely needs a hearing aid in both ears, but the question is, what type? They range from the bog standard NHS type to the super deluxe ones that cost over £1000! Ohhh! I don't want to get old!

After taking her shopping to Sainsbury's we drove back to her flat, had a well-earned cup of tea and then turned the nose for home, hoping that we'd have a good journey home in the rush hour traffic.

It wasn't too bad and we did get the odd flurry of snow near Luton which made me a bit excited. I drove to the pub to pick up my car, had a quick drink with Keith and Dave and went home to put the dinner on before heading back out to pick Keith up! Phew! The time is flying again!

A shopping spree!

I have been very naughty today (and could have been even naughtier) and I've bought a few things for the house which I fell in love with.

Mum, Sophie and me went off to BHS and Homesense in the afternoon as I needed a new lampshade for the living room to replace the one that was old and torn. I saw lots of lovely things in BHS but not really what I wanted - a creamy shade with purples and greens to tie in with the curtains. We trekked next door to Laura Ashley and I immediately saw what I was looking for - a lovely classic, pleated shade with exactly the right shade of purple. It will go against the wall so I needed it to stand out slightly. Ignoring the beautiful bedspreads, curtains and mirrors, we went next door to Homesense and bought a new picture for the living room and a beautiful rug for the bedroom in shades of teal and brown which matches the curtains and the throw exactly. It was then that I spotted a gorgeous chair in the same shade of blue as the wallpaper and I knew I had to have it.

However, I knew I'd be hard pushed getting my purchases into my little A1 already so I asked if I could put the chair aside and pick it up later in the week when I could borrow Dad's car. To my amazement, they said no! Maybe it was a good idea...I can go and think about the chair and decide whether I really want it...or need it!

Granted a reprieve!

I woke up this morning with the awful feeling I get when I know I have to go into work. It meant that I couldn't really settle to anything although I did manage to give my filthy little Audi a good scrub!

Half way through the morning I learnt that our weekend cook hadn't turned up for work. This turn of events meant that Polly had to come in, which I felt extremely bad about. She was already down to work on Sunday so she had to give up her whole weekend, poor thing.

When I took Sophie in the place was busy but nicely busy and Polly assured me that she could manage as they had enough staff despite the assistant cook also calling in sick! I stayed for about an hour and brought out some more chairs from our storage unit so that customers could find somewhere to sit. The weather today has been bright and sunny but a little chilly so as I drove away I thought it couldn't be as busy as last week...

How wrong I was! At 4pm when I went to pick Soph up the car park was full! Polly told me that it wasn't as bad as it looked as one large party was just about to leave, so I escaped home but I still felt guilty! The good thing is that Polly will at least have two days off as the three of us will cover Reception when we re-open on Tuesday.

In the evening we all walked up to Mum and Dad's house for dinner which was lovely. It was very cold and the sky was sprinked with stars but because of the half moon, not as dark as we imagined it would be. We had a lovely beefy stew for dinner and some very good Italian wine and looked at lots of old photos!

The end of another week...

This week has, quite literally, passed in a blur! I can't believe that another weekend is looming but it's tinged with a bit of worry as I'm planning to come in on Saturday to help out. Last Saturday was absolutely manic and if Sophie's in anyway it makes sense for me to stay for a couple of hours.

Sophie and I were supposed to be having our hair cut this evening but Polly couldn't get anyone to work so my poor little daughter had to go in. I went home and then returned to work to pick her up at 6.30pm. I was met by Sophie saying they had a "situation" and I discovered that a couple had "lost" an ipod belonging to their son and could I check our CCTV cameras?

The ipod was in the son's jacket pocket and had disappeared. We looked back on the CCTV but I couldn't see anything, and certainly not someone taking the ipod out of the pocket. I explained that I'd have another look on Monday and took the couple's phone number but I don't hold out a lot of hope, to be honest. Why they couldn't have left the gadget in the car (in the glove compartment) or hired one of our lockers to keep it safe I do not know!

After I finished with the couple I gave Polly a lift home, so all in all I was home far later than I anticipated!

Birthday Boy!

Today Mikey is 12 years old! I can hardly believe it! Where have all the years gone?

We celebrated in the evening by going to his favourite restaurant, The Mandarin Buffet, in Northampton which is a large restaurant serving a variety of Chinese dishes. I imagined, as it was a very cold January evening, (it was sleeting as we drove in) that it would be quiet, but no! The place was absolutely heaving!! We found it very difficult to get parked and the awful weather conditions certainly didn't help matters!!

We met Mikey's friend Mitchell inside the restaurant and then we were shown to a large round table. The place was chaotic and very noisy, not my choice of place to have a meal, but it was Mikey's birthday so it was his decision. The two boys amused themselves by trying a variety of foods, but mainly concentrated on seeing how many Fortune cookies they could open and spread all over the table!

When we left the weather had dried up but it was still very cold. Will we get some snow after all?

Wednesday 25 January

We had another busy day at work with the arrival of a Nursery group first thing. We certainly seem to be the flavour of the month at the moment and long may it continue!

Keith and I managed to escape in the afternoon to go and get a Birthday present for Mikey who will be 12 tomorrow, a fact I find hard to believe! Where have all the years gone?

Tuesday 24 January

We have had unrelenting rain today which meant we were super busy at work. Keith and I had to go off to Booker to do an urgent shop after the hectic weekend and when we arrived back the place was in chaos. Luckily, our new Weekend Receptionist, Laura, was in learning the ropes so she was able to cover Reception while Polly and I helped clear tables, wash up and serve. Even Keith helped out!

In the evening, Sophie and I went off to pick mum and dad up from Heathrow, at the new Terminal 5 building. I was really glad they'd phoned me to tell me they were arriving there as they'd left from Terminal 3! They were delayed by two hours so we left at 9pm and timed it exactly right for once, getting to Arrivals ten minutes before they appeared.

Terminal 5 is a beautiful building, all shiny and new and very easy to get to from the M25. We had a good journey home, despite two lanes being closed for roadworks on the M1 and arrived home just after midnight! Yawn!

Monday 23 January

I seem to have fallen behind with this blog again, mainly because I've been so busy this week, both at home and at work.

Keith and I didn't have any time to do any cleaning on Monday as I was so busy catching up with emails and phonecalls at work. I have never known a day go so fast - it's almost like it's been speeded up even more than usual! I had plans to wash my car at work but that just didn't happen which was maybe a good thing as today was the only dry day of the week so any effort would have been wasted!

Yet more curtains!

This morning Keith and I drove down to his old place of work which is sadly being demolished after only being in existence for 25 years. We'd called in on Friday to have a look and spoke to one of the demolition men, explaining that Keith used to work there, almost from the first day it was built back in 1987. We took some photographs, planning to send them to his old work colleagues.

It was so sad seeing the place like that, after all it was where Keith and I met! We'll leave it a month and then go back and take more photos, just so we have something to remember it by.

In the afternoon, Sophie and I went in search of new curtains for my bedroom, to replace the ones that now don't go with the new blind! We found a pair of teal curtains in BHS  that were reduced from £130 to £39 so they did very nicely! I bought a new pair of tiebacks and we've put the old bedroom curtains on the front door which should stop the draughts! Now all I need to do is re-paint the hallway to match them! I will get there in the end!

Another busy Saturday!

Saturdays are no longer as relaxing as they once were, as we have to get Sophie up and out for 12pm for when she starts work and then I can't really relax and settle to anything until I go to pick her up at 4pm again. This morning, to add to my driving chores, I dropped Keith off at Tesco before going back to collect the children and drive Sophie to work.

Back at home at last, I had a quick shower and then went to a local framers to see about getting a photo I took in Lanzarote framed. I'd had it blown up to poster size by Snapfish and I wanted it professionally framed to hang in the hallway.

This is the one!

 Whilst there, I also booked a hair appointment for me and Sophie as a cut is way overdue! We both look like shaggy monsters! Sophie phoned me from work to say that as we were so busy, she had to stay on an extra half hour...gawd!!!

A trip to the airport.

Mum and Dad were flying off to New York today, the lucky things, so it meant a trip to the Airport at a very early hour. They weren't flying until 12pm but with the traffic, the roadworks on the M1 and the dreaded M25 we left at 6am to be doubly sure of getting there in time to check in.

As always when you allow plenty of time, we had a good journey down and I was back at home at 10am. I would have been back even sooner if I hadn't given into temptation and stopped at Toddington Services for a cup of coffee and a pastry!

Keith met me at home after he'd been in to open up for us and we headed back to a very busy workplace. The weather today has been very depressing - wet, cold and grey so we were inundated with tots and their parents. I helped out in the kitchen and then in the late afternoon, Keith and I were able to escape and go to Booker.

It was wonderful to finally get home and relax in the evening and then have an early night!

Back to the classroom...

My afternoon was spent in the local football stadium being "educated" about the dangers of speeding after my brush with the law back in November! When I say football stadium, I don't mean that there were so many of us that they could only accommodate us in a stadium (although we were the second of two classes today and there were about 30 of us attending!), but we were in a function room where the Northampton Cobblers have their home.

I was expecting footage of accidents and grisly scenes as a way of showing us the consequences of our actions, but there was only one video, that of a pedestrian in Australia who was killed by a car, and even that was censored and a dummy used, which was a relief. Most of the people there had been caught speeding in a 30mph zone and my misdemeanour, at 81mph on the M1, was the fastest of all. Not sure if I'm proud of that or not! Because most people there had been speeding in an urban area, the afternoon was geared towards that and I still don't think I can bring myself to keep to 70mph on the motorway which had the least percentage overall of deaths or serious injuries. The worst roads to travel on are country roads, journeys I do every day.

I had planned to speak my mind about the consequences of speeding near schools, through villages and in residential areas but the two people conducting the course were trainers, not the police, so my grievances about the speed limit where I live and the impact of fast cars near Sophie and Mikey's school would have fallen on deaf ears. I have asked the Parish Council to have the limit lowered on the country road outside our estate (from 60mph to 40mph) but was told it was "too expensive" to reduce it even though both children have to cross the road to catch the school bus and the fact there is a path running to both villages. That, I think, is far more dangerous than my driving at 80mph on a motorway on a dry day with very little traffic on the road!

Anyway...rant over. I drove home very carefully (and slowly) through the horrendous rush hour traffic, thanking my lucky stars I don't have to do that journey every evening!

Girlie night out!

I was long overdue to see my friend Lynda, who is also Godmother to Sophie and Mike, as she had Christmas presents for the children and a Birthday present for me. I, in turn, had a special bottle of wine for her so we arranged to go out for a meal with another friend, Claire, at a seafood restaurant in town.

I know I've blogged about this eaterie before so the last time we went was about a year ago. It's called The Seafood Cafe and is right in the middle of town, but this time, instead of parking a fair distance away, I managed to find a space for the car almost opposite. We sat and waited for Claire and perused the menu over a glass of South African Chenin Blanc which was delicious. When Claire arrived we munched on homemade bread and butter and made our decisions - prawn cocktail to start for Lynda and me and then haddock and chips for the girls to follow while I went for a delicious sounding King Prawn and mussel linguini.

The restaurant was very quiet which was a shame as the food was exceptional. Our prawn cocktails were very good, with plump juicy prawns dressed with a creamy Marie Rose sauce and served with lettuce leaves and crusty bread. The haddock portions were large and crispy and both Claire and Lynda said the fish was succulent and tasty. My pasta dish was sublime and very filling! We all left a little room for dessert, though! Summer fruit pannacotta for Lynda and me and Eton Mess for Claire. With the wine and coffees afterwards the bill came to a shade under £80, which I thought was good value.

We splashed our way home (the weather has turned) and when I arrived home I was ambushed by the children who were desperate to get their hands on their presents!

More decisions...

We need to make a decision about our new member of staff this week but it's very hard taking someone on and making sure they're right for the job! We'll get there in the end, though, I'm sure of it.

The sparkling blue and white weather came to an end this afternoon when cloud rolled in and the lovely clear sky disappeared. It's forecast to get milder over the next couple of days and then we're in for a blast of winter again. No snow is predicted for here, though. Will we escape it this winter, I wonder?

Sophie had an important History exam today, which she'd been revising for all last week and over the weekend. Her head was full of dates and facts and I really felt for her as I used to hate exams with a vengeance!

Getting rid of junk!

Today has been another beautiful, but very cold, day. I wish winter was like this all the time!

There's not much to report today - lots of cleaning at work and getting rid of stuff we accumulate and keep for no reason! We always think we'll find a use for it and then never do! And we're not really into selling stuff, either, so it just hangs around until we're totally fed up with it and then we throw it out!

Sophie phoned me after school and said she'd missed the bus with her friend Elise so like a good mum I went to pick them up from school and took them home. It meant I was home early as well, so that was fine with me!

All the fours, 44!!!

Today has been a lovely day and it's been great having my Birthday on a Sunday!

I spent a lovely lazy morning doing very little (I did wash my car) and then in the afternoon went off to Woburn with Mum and Sophie for afternoon tea. However, the little town was packed with people and the hotel we went to had no seats at all (and a very ignorant member of staff). We trooped off to a pub on the High Street which was also packed to the rafters, so tried a little Braserie further down the road, but when we said we only wanted sandwiches, they said there was a 30 minute wait!

A little cheesed off by now, we tried one last pub/hotel called Longs Inn which had a table free and was very pleasant and friendly. Mum and I had sandwiches while Sophie went for fish and chips! There was a lovely cosy atmosphere in the Inn and the food was very good indeed. Definitely one to go back to!

www.longsinn.co.uk

After lunch we had a look around the Antiques Centre and Mum bought two beautiful pieces of Mason china, which she collects. She didn't spot the ginger jar (I did!) so she was thrilled with that and then Sophie noticed a lovely little jug to add to her collection.

We had a little meander through the Bedfordshire countryside before heading back onto the M1 and then we called into Mum's for a drink before going home. Dinner was lovely - a Tesco £10 meal deal which was delicious! It was great not to have to get all dressed up and go out as it was a very cold night!

Working hard!

Today has been an extremely full day, a bit different to last weekend! Before taking Sophie to work, I helped Keith put up the new blind in our bedroom. It's a lovely blind, but when it was up I realised it didn't really go with the curtains! Oops!

Trying not to think about it, I drove Sophie off to work and then Keith, Mikey and I went off to Tesco to buy a special meal for tomorrow night. It's my birthday on Sunday and I opted for one of the Tesco meals for £10 (well, two actually!) instead of going out. We'd been looking at pubs and a lot of them weren't doing food on Sunday night so I was quite happy at the thought of staying at home with a nice meal and a bottle of wine and then snuggling up on the sofa afterwards!

Back home Keith put the other two blinds up in the kitchen while I got on with cleaning the house as Mum and Dad are coming around for a meal tonight. The kitchen looked great with the new blinds but the paint I'd originally chosen won't match so I need a much creamier colour. It's a good job I put them up first!

We had a lovely meal in the evening and a really good laugh so it was a great way to spend a Saturday night!

We manage a walk!

It's been an absolutely beautiful day today - cold and sunny with gorgeous blue skies which is just how I like winter to be!

After a busy day at work I managed to get home at just after 4pm so Sophie and I set out for the village for a short walk. It was very cold by now as the sun was sinking lower in the sky and as we entered the village I could smell the log fires. Bliss!

We walked into the village, up to the pub and then had a wander through the churchyard before returning the way we'd come. The sky turned a deep sapphire blue, cut through with pink vapour trails which Sophie managed to catch very successfully on her camera.

As usual I didn't have my camera with me, just my phone, but I don't think the photos are too bad!

Decisions, decisions!

Although I'm still very busy at work I had to take the afternoon off to go to a college interview with Sophie. She has applied to do a BTEC in Beauty Therapy at college, in preparation for becoming a make-up artist, but still wasn't 100% sure it was the right decision for her.

Although I wasn't looking forward to spending two hours at the college, the afternoon turned out to be very pleasant with an interesting talk on the various courses on offer and what they could lead to afterwards. Sophie pricked her ears up at a course designed only for make-up and nails, and afterwards, speaking to one of the lecturers, she asked if she could change to that. However, the lecturer said with her expected grades at school, it would be unadvisable and that she should stick with the BTEC as it was an equivalent to an A level and would enable her to progress to University after the course finished. They offered Sophie a conditional place and we went off home to get ready for the 6th Form Open Evening which was also scheduled for today!

We went off at 5.30pm and sat through a short presentation in the school hall before having the opportunity to walk around the 6th Form block and speaking to the various teachers. I envied Sophie very much as there seems to be so many choices she can take at A level including Psychology and Photography, both of which she's interested in. I wish I could have taken them when I was at school!

On the way home she told me she wants to stay on at school to do four A levels which both Keith and I are very, very pleased about!

Wednesday 11 January

Keith came to work with me today, as usual, and with Ian (our handyman) put some new signs up on the outside of the building. We've been without a sign showing entrance times and prices so it was great to get it back up so customers can look at it before coming in.

While they were doing that I swept the car park and picked up all the litter, something I haven't done since the beginning of December. It was a beautiful day - really sunny and very mild, just like Spring! It was so warm I didn't need my fleece on, but I'm not being lulled into a false sense of security...two years ago there was thick snow on the ground!

Tuesday 10 January

At the moment the days are plassing in a blur of busyness! I still have loads to catch up with at work - mainly writing to people who have applied for Jenny's job and asking for references. It's a lot of paperwork and at one point my desk was buried underneath letters and folders, and lists of things I had to do! I don't think I set foot outside the office all day!

Back home I had a very relaxed evening as today was the only day we don't have anything on after work. The rest of the week is set to be just as busy!

Busy, busy!

They say that to get something done, give the task to a busy person, and that was certainly true today! I didn't have a minute to spare as there's been so much to do at work at the moment. We had two interviews to conduct, plus most of the Christmas decorations had to be taken down and put away. Of course, this meant that the areas where we'd put them needed a good clean (including the slides) as they were covered in dust!

Keith and Ian, our electrician/handyman, were equally busy replacing dead light bulbs so they were both working at height on a very precarious scissor lift. At one point I heard a commotion and went rushing outside to find that the thing had nearly toppled over with both of them on board. Not a good thought!

I intended using it myself later in the day, to try and clean some of the overhead girders, but by the time they'd finished and I'd spent a couple of hours hoovering and getting rid of dust and heaving Christmas trees into the storeroom, I was pretty tired. I did go up on it, though, with hands firmly clenching the steel sides as I'm really not a fan of heights. All I managed to do was displace an awful lot of thick dust which covered me from head to foot...good thing the interviews were over!

Back home I took my own hoover out and vacuumed as much as I could of downstairs before diving into the bath. Sophie helped out, bless her, then I took all of our own Christmas decorations (which had been languishing in the conservatory for the last week) upstairs to put away before Sue came around for a drink! It was lovely to finally sit and relax!

Success!

It was a good thing I didn't get my blinds yesterday as I found them in John Lewis today! They're not up yet so I'm not going to get too excited, but I found two matching ones for the kitchen and a lovely Roman blind for the bedroom which mum bought me as an early Birthday present. The two kitchen blinds were in the sale so I was really pleased!

Sophie had wanted to go shopping with Susie so Mum and I had a few hours to look around ourselves without being dragged into New Look and H&M. We had lunch in John Lewis and a good browse in M&S where I treated Mikey to some new pyjamas and bought some socks for myself! I know how to live!!

The sales were still on but the frenzied shopping was long gone and I was really glad I was still able to make use of some bargains, including a purple throw for the sofa in our living room. Mum and Dad have just taken delivery of a new three piece suite so they'd given us theirs, which was almost brand new. However it's a lovely cream colour and I could see the cats making it dirty when they sleep on it so I bought a chenille throw in BHS for them to lie on...the things we have to do!

Wasting time...

I had a lovely early start this morning and sat and caught up with some recorded television programmes with a cup of coffee and a peaceful house. Keith went off to do the food shopping so I watched a film called "Hereafter" starring Matt Damon and directed by Clint Eastwood. It was a very good, thought-provoking film and dealt with death and the afterlife...a bit heavy for first thing on a Saturday morning!

I dropped Sophie off at work and then went off to try and get a couple of blinds for the kitchen - one for the door and one for the window. I soon came to realise that our windows are not a standard size and the blinds in Homebase were either too small or too big. Undeterred I drove off to B&Q where there was even less choice and the sizes were the same. I was longing for lunch when I came out of the store so I gave up the search and went home for a sandwich, resigned to the fact that we may have to have them specially made!

All the things I intended to do today didn't get done. It was lovely to just laze about and do very little and did I feel guilty? Not at all!

It arrived!!!

The fax machine! I ordered it in the middle of November through our Nectar points and as I wrote in the blog a few weeks ago, we've had a major battle to actually get it from Viking Direct so persistence does pay off in the end. I think my threat to start legal proceedings did the trick as that seemed to galvanise Nectar who sent me an email to apologise and gave us 1,000 points to make amends for all our trouble (and phonecalls!).

It's still in the box and I'll sort it all out next week when we're not so busy as this week has been very hectic. We've been interviewing for Jenny's job at work which has been fairly intense as the person we take on needs to be the right one. I'm still behind with a lot of officework as well and we haven't taken down all the Christmas decorations, either! That will have to wait until Monday! At the moment there really aren't enough hours in the day so I can see this year speeding past just like last year!

Same old, same old...

The last two days have been back to normal, both work-wise and at home. Keith came into work with me on Wednesday and then we picked Sophie up from school and took her to the dentist. He seems to think she needs a brace but he also mentioned jaw surgery which was a bit extreme! I definitely said no to that option! She will need to have four teeth out within the next few weeks and then the brace fitted after that. Is it just me or is there a trend to have braces fitted these days, no matter what? It was never an option when I was growing up!

Sophie stayed with us for the rest of the day and when we left work at 3.30 I knew we were cutting it fine to get home in time for Mikey so I asked Sophie to text him. Unbeknown to us, his phone wasn't charged (or even with him) so when we arrived home at 3.50pm, the time the bus normally deposits him outside the estate, he was just about to go into a neighbour's house, poor thing! I felt so guilty, but at least he did the right thing which I was very pleased about. No doubt he'll keep reminding me about how he was locked out of his own home for a long time to come!

The weather has been a bit mad the last couple of days with squally hail showers and some ferocious winds. It's certainly been a shock to the system after the warmth of Lanzarote!

Back to work...

It was a bit of a shock today, getting up at 7am and getting straight into the shower to get ready for my first day back at work after almost three weeks. The weather was absolutely terrible - very strong winds and lashing rain which meant that we would be busy as the children don't go back until tomorrow.

I picked mum up and we at least had a quiet hour until the doors opened at 10am. At one point, just after we opened, we had a tremendous hailstorm and the noise of the wind was really quite frightening.

As expected we were very busy and as well as Sophie, we had another couple of girls in to help so it wasn't too bad. I helped out in the kitchen in between sorting out the wages and the VAT...oh what a welcome back to work!

Sophie and I managed to escape by 5pm and when I went to put some diesel in the car it was freezing cold. Has it waited to snow until we came back from our holiday?!

Turkey sandwiches and Vouvray

Today dawned beautiful and sunny, but a touch on the cold side. I didn't take this into account when we went off to Broadway in the Cotswolds for lunch and a mooch about the shops.

The temperature gauge in the car said it was about 7 degrees outside and I only had a shirt on over a pair of jeans, so when we parked the car and walked into the village I was a bit chilly! Spotting an Edinburgh Woollen Mill shop I went in and picked out a lovely purple woollen coat, reduced by half price! My old winter coat had died last year so I bought the new one, along with a lilac scarf to go with it. Keith had given me some money for Christmas so it was the ideal thing to spend the money on!

As it was lunchtime and we only had three hours in the car park, we headed to the Horse and Hound pub and managed to bag a table before the place was invaded by hordes of people. The pub was very welcoming and cosy and it was lovely to sit back and have lunch out. Mikey and I went for a steak and ale pie, Keith had battered cod while Sophie went for a chicken burger and the food was well-cooked and delicious. I even had a half pint of a Bateman's "Rosey Nosey" which was a perfect winter warmer.

We all had dessert (well, Keith had cheese and biscuits) so when we got up to walk back through the village we felt very replete! There were lots of people about, enjoying the winter sunshine and meandering past the shops. Some very posh cars were parked outside The Lygon Arms and I hope one day to stay there...one day!

We took a bit of a roundabout way to get home, ending up in a traffic jam in Stratford upon Avon and then rapidly backtracking, it was so busy. We eventually got home at almost 5pm and then it was a mad dash to tidy up the house as Sue was coming around for a glass of wine and a gossip.

We had a good natter, shared a bottle of Chilean Pinot Grigio and some nibbles and then I gave her a glass of our 11 year old Vouvray, which she loved. After she went I finished it off with a round of delicious turkey sandwiches!

Horse and Hound pub

New year, new start.

We've had a lovely quiet start to the year, which after two weeks of going out every night, was most welcome!

Mum and Dad came over to see us in the afternoon on New Year's Eve to distribute more presents and we had a good chat about what's been happening at work and what we did in Lanzarote. I must admit I'm not looking forward to starting back at work on Tuesday as we have a few niggles to sort out, but I can't prolong it for ever! I've had a long time off!

Susie and Elise arrived for their sleepover and Keith and I went out to check that the Chinese take-away van was in the village...which it wasn't! Revert to Plan B then! We had to drive all the way to Kettering and we were really glad that the restaurant there was open. Phew! We took a menu, drove back home and asked the girls to choose their meals before calling and ordering for 8pm.

Whether it was because we ordered a fair amount of food (there were six of us after all) but when we arrived to collect our order, it wasn't ready and in fact I don't even think they'd cooked it! We had to wait a further 20 minutes which made me extremely cross! That'll be the last time I bother to ring up and give them an hour's notice of an order! Huh!

The rest of the evening was great - Keith and I watched the film "Paul" while the girls amused themselves in the conservatory and Mikey stayed out of their way by watching television in our bedroom. We all gathered in the living room just before midnight, though, to drink a glass of Cava and wish each other a Happy New Year! The fireworks in London were magnificent and it must have been fabulous to actually be there.

New Year's Day was spent very quietly and it was lovely to not have a hangover, like last year! Keith and I managed an hour in the pub at lunchtime which was busy with people eating and drinking and there was a great atmosphere.

We had our Christmas dinner in the evening and very good it was too! A lovely roast turkey with all the trimmings (except Keith used all the bacon to put on top of the bird which left none to wrap around the chipolatas!) and an eleven year old bottle of Vouvray to accompany the meal. We'd bought the wine in the village two years ago and it was delicious, the only sign of ageing a beautiful golden hue.

So. that's another New Year come and gone and I really hope 2012 will be a great one!

Here's to 2012!

May I wish everyone who reads this health, wealth and happiness in 2012!