A family gathering

As expected, Jo was off sick today, and I dreaded Sara asking me to answer phones, but Denise got the job instead. To be honest, I would have struggled with the number of emails that needed answering, the Christmas holiday activities to put onto the system, and the moan report to start! I want to get this done before I finish on the 19th of December, so Sara doesn't have to do it.

We had a quick meeting before the phone lines opened, and then it was back to work. I steadily tackled the emails and managed to get them down to zero before I left. Thankfully, there was no repeat of the issues we experienced yesterday!

Our office was busy and noisy today, with staff down again from our Derbyshire leisure centre and other managers wandering in and out. It was great to leave at 4pm and I asked Keith why he'd been in a foul mood this morning. He eventually said it was because I'd asked to leave doing his pre-op questionnaire until tomorrow when I'm off. He had asked me to do it on Monday night at 6pm, after a stressful day at work, so not the best of times! He knows that I leave lots of chores to Wednesday when we have plenty of time to sort out paperwork and other issues!

We returned home to freshen up and change for our evening out with Mike and Sophie. We had booked a table at The Rose and Crown in Yardley Hastings for 7.30pm and we were looking forward to catching up with Mike. We hadn't told him where we were going and he was under the impression we'd booked something in town, but Sophie had promised Keith a pint of Abbot!

The restaurant was looking suitably festive, and we took our table in the middle of the pub. They were offering a Christmas menu and we all chose different starters - paté for Mike, black pudding Scotch egg for Keith, smoked salmon for Sophie and prawn cocktail for me. Sophie and I both chose turkey for our main course (we're trying to have as many turkey meals as we can, seeing as we won't be having it on Christmas Day this year!) and the men chose roast beef.

Sophie and I enjoyed a bottle of Chenin Blanc and the men worked their way through several pints of Abbot, thank goodness! The food was good and we had thick slabs of turkey with roast potatoes, red cabbage, Brussels sprouts and mini sausages. We managed to find room for puds - three of us enjoyed marmalade and whisky bread and butter pudding, while Keith chose the gingernut sticky toffee pudding.

We had a great time and a lot of laughs and it was lovely and relaxed. I do think we all get on better as a family when we're not living on top of each other! Mike told us about his job but said he was going for an interview later in the week for a groundskeeper job at a golf course in town. 

We left at about 9.30pm, dropped Mike off and drove home to see the cats, who had been in all night, and were sleepy when we arrived back. We'd left the heating on as tonight was chilly so the house was lovely and warm!