What a wonderful Christmas it was

Hello there, I am back again and looking to get this update done and published this morning. It has been a really wonderful couple of weeks since you last heard from me and I have loads of photographs and videos to get through. I've just spent an hour or so editing the videos and the final couple are uploading now so let's get stuck in to the pictures.

SNOW!

It has been a remarkably mild winter so far, as I sit here at 8am on a Saturday morning I have not yet had to light the fire even (though A is still snoozing and we'll probably get the fire lit when she comes downstairs).

Suddenly it was snowing, and hard

The next morning, Sassy's cage is caked

Rambo looking out at the snow

Thelma digging up a snow ball

It's SNOW joke getting your SNOWse cold

Louise all wrapped up for the walk

Excited puppies waiting at the gate

The scarecrow, buried

The snow falls

Our home, pretty in the snow

That being said we were hoping for some snow and the night of the last update the rain turned to snow and it kept falling for about 24 hours or so, steadily and heavily until we had a good 10cm at least. Once again Thelma proved herself to be a very strange puppy who loves the snow very much - she spent a lot of time outside on her own digging and running around while Louise took the sensible path and hid under the fire. Rambo also loves the snow but then so do we. We took a walk up the village, to the bin, with the girls wearing their coats and that also blew our cobwebs away. It was a magical scene with such a deep soft snowfall and the puppies were also very excited to be out and about. The snow had caked the fence and we took some speed-shots of A knocking it down; snow is for playing in!

Rambo and A playing in the snow

Thelma hiding in plain sight

Contemplating my own madness

The chickens are none too impressed either

Ming decided to stay up there for ages

A found a little icicle

An arty shot of the sun set

Rambo loves chasing snow, catching it in his mouth, and he particularly enjoys it when you kick snow at him; he is a bizarre creature. Thelma just likes digging in the snow and she took great pleasure in playing with Rambo's big red kong, throwing the snow behind her as she pushed it around. I had to go onto the balcony to clear out Sassy and I chose to do so bare foot. This proves that while Rambo is stupid, he isn't the most stupid creature in this house. It was cold! The chickens were less than impressed with the weather and when they finally made their way out of their enclosure, actually the next day, Ming flew across the patio and landed on the edge of the humanure collection point and then stayed there for half an hour until A went out with the food for them. It really was a magical world to look at, and I did get to see it a few times during breaks in my work. The sunset that night was stunning and I caught it just in time to light up this little icicle hanging from the chimney on the Roof Terrace. Just beautiful.

Amazing ice shapes on Sassy's cage

They were so delicate, just touching the metal made them fall

Foggy in the valley

A wonderful gift from Bart

The gaming table is done

Golden sunrise on the Greenhouse smoke

A really stunning morning

The next morning it was cold and the snow had frozen into amazing shapes on the metal of Sassy's cage. She was doing OK with the weather, being covered in lovely thick fur, but I did bulk up her hay in her bedroom. That day I received some paperwork that I needed to get witnessed by our solicitor so I headed out to see him and get it posted. He was delayed by some drama at the council and so I had to wait quite a while but then I was off to the post office with my important documents and received a surprise of some Whisky Cake from my very good friend Bart - I didn't even know he was sending us any so that was amazing! I'd been working really hard, looking forward to a few days off over Christmas, but had managed to finish off my gaming board which was a major aim to use over Christmas. It was looking really good and we have had a number of excellent games on it since then. The morning of the 23rd dawned bright and clear and bode well for the holiday. I did some work in the morning, planning on working the whole day, but after a couple of hours I ground to a halt and just downed tools and did a load of hobbying and that was a Very Good Idea; it set us up for the evening very well...

Friends and Olden Beat

On Christmas eve eve we had arranged to meet up with Lee and Melly for a meal and fortuitously that night was also a gig with Venko and his band, Olden Beat.

Another selfie attempt, as we enjoy our evening

Venko in mid flow

Ivan takes his turn

Taken by one of the guys we sat with

We headed out in plenty of time but after turning back twice (the first time for A's coat, the second time, having actually got up to the village, for my wallet) we only reached our meeting point in time to go straight to the restaurant and there was no time for pre eating drinks. The place that they had found was really lovely, with good food and a nice ambience and it proves again just how lucky we are with our eating establishments around here. We did not rush and once we were ready to stroll on we made our way over to the venue and were welcomed in the usual awesome way by Venko, Ivan and band. They told us to "wait here" and then went and negotiated some seats at a table in the middle. The people we were sitting with were lovely and the music was great and we had a wonderful time; it is good to get out. We didn't stay til the very end as I was tired and we were aware the puppies had been on their own for a long time. Christmas was getting off to a very good start indeed.

Christmas Eve

Having had most of Christmas Eve Eve off work I had the whole of Christmas Eve and I only turned the laptop on to print out some army sheets for us to play with.

Christmas Eve dawns with a threatening sky

The final shafts of sunlight burst through

A game gets going on the new board

First of my festive beers

Louise gets involved

Bruce arrives for Christmas

Another astounding beer by Steve

The weather was very overcast and threatening first thing, it looked like maybe more snow but if there was any it was a mere dusting. After this amazing show the sun disappeared for the whole day. We had a lovely relaxing day with scrambled eggs for breakfast and some hobby time and then after that a game on the new table which was such fun - it really makes a difference to be playing on something that looks like grass. After that beers were opened, special ones shipped to me from Islay by Steve from Islay Ales. Go buy some, they are AMAZING! Louise certainly thinks so as she licks my moustache for drops whenever she can. After dinner we settled down to our traditional Christmas Eve viewing of Die Hard and Die Hard 2. We were too tired to continue and watch all of them but it was lovely to actually get to spend a whole day without me working.

Christmas day!!!

A would not allow me to treat five past midnight as "Christmas Day Morning" sadly so we had to go to sleep  and then wake up again. Half past midnight was still not satisfactory either so back to sleep I went and finally we woke to Christmas Morning.

Very excited puppies, and it wasn't even their present

Two awesome books that I cannot wait to get read

Bacon frying, and bubbly in hand

Goat leg ready for roasting

When we woke on Christmas Morning I was feeling quite tired and it took half an hour or so for us to get going. I did the washing up while I was still sleeping which was a great idea as after that my blood was flowing and we got into the day. The first order was "first presents" for each; I'm not sure who was more excited out of us and the puppies but they surely were very excited indeed. A had a silly pressie from me for her first one, a hood to go with her Santa Dress from last year, and I had two books that I had really wanted very much! Such an awesome start to the day. We then got the Christmas Music going and A opened a bottle of Cheap Christmas Plonk as is our tradition. It was not very nice, but it isn't supposed to be nice. She got the huge goat leg, brought to us a few days before by Bekir who is a star as always, while I fried up bacon and egg butties to go with our bubbly. The goat leg was nearly 5kg of meat and looked amazing.

Heading off for our Christmas walk

A beautiful panoramic view back down the hill

Frozen stream next to the track

Beautiful frozen lake

Happy Chirstmas faces

The valley, shrouded in wood smoke

Thelma found a stick

The hunting dog goes past

Louise got cold

They both got filthy

Unhappy in the shower

After breakfast we finished up our wine, which was a struggle for both of us, and then wrapped up warm to head out on a walk to walk it off. It wasn't cold at all, we didn't even need coats, and I had to take my scarf off half way up as the sun was so lovely. We decided to head to the top pond above our village as we hadn't been up there since this time last year, with SandS. It was a beautiful day, clear and fresh, and the hunters were out as well as we saw their hounds bounding through the woods after so prey. Both the puppies had such an awesome time, running and bouncing around, and Rambo also loved being out though he wasn't very impressed by the lake being frozen. We walked back down the hill with two very dirty puppies that went straight into the shower for a rinse when we got home. On the way through the village we saw A's Lady who we give lifts to into town, who was also on her way out for a walk. A lovely way to clear ones head after horrible cheap fizz.

A pot of lovely Christmas Tea

Some of my presents

A most lovely message for me!

The aftermath

With the walk done we made a cup of Christmas Tea, courtesy the generosity of SandS, and then settled down to open the rest of our presents. What a lucky man I am, I got so many awesome presents I really cannot sit here and think "that was my favourite". I loved them all. A also loved her presents as was over the moon with the hightops with the lights in the soles. Indeed she is heading out to see Emma shortly and is looking forward to wearing them into town. The puppies had all the fun also; at one point we looked up and Louise had gone and raided the present pile, found one that was actually hers, and was running around with it in her mouth! Such funny puppies, and didn't they make a mess of the wrapping paper.

We get another game in

Just about to carve the goat

It was even tastier than it looks

All set for a lovely meal

Plum and Blackberry Crumble

While this was happening our dinner was cooking and we had time to bring the table down to the kitchen and play another game of SBG. I was tired after that and had a lovely nap on the sofa while A finished off the final bits for dinner and then it was time to carve that amazing joint and eat it. The dining table was set really nicely and we left the music on while we ate and it was so good I didn't even get to take a picture for you. The roasties had been done in the oven section of the petchka and the sprouts had not been forgotten about this year. After dinner we had time for a chat with my parents which was really lovely as well, they had had a nice walk earlier also. I persuaded A to cook the crumble she had made later that evening and we munched it while watching An Unexpected Journey cuddled on the sofa.

What an epic day, from beginning to end. Just wonderful.

Ever since

What a day indeed.

Bubble and Squeak for breakfast

Chilling in the sun waiting for A

Another battle, this one did not go my way

Thelma sulking because Rambo was inside

Amazing goat curry

The red sky in the morning

A beautiful view

Boxing day began with our traditional Bubble and Squeak which was a welcome breakfast and tasted good. We then set up the lounge as Boxing Day is our lounge day. I chilled out on the sofa with the puppies while A had a shower and got ready and then we played a super fun game of Monopoly which neither of us won but was a perfect way to spend a few hours. Afterwards we had another game of SBG, taking advantage of my not working, and this time A absolutely hammered me. IT was fun. Dinner was a wonderful goat curry which we only finished the last of yesterday and then the evening was more Hobbit films. Since then I've pretty much been working hard again through the week, though we've got away to watch films every night. We are up to The Twin Towers though I don't think we'll watch that tonight as A is heading out shortly.

It has been a lovely couple of weeks, and as we head into 2018 it's a fitting way to end what has been an up and down year but ended very much on a happy note. A has been making SUCH amazing progress on her artwork, she's even had a couple bought off her! Who knows where that could go by this time next year. For me my work is busy but it's really positive; it would be nice to have calmed down by this time next year, but for the success we have seen so far to have continued.

Thanks for reading - see you next year.