Christmas Day - good with a slight hiccup!
A few tree decorations - you can play spot Archbishop Sentamu; a ninjabread man; Christmas greetings in Manx; a penguin made by kazzy_cee; and Askasleikir (Bowl Licker) who is one of the Icelandic 12 lads of Christmas.
We had a good Christmas Day all things considered. S2C is still upset about the death of his mother - as is our daughter of course. She knew her grandmother better than he did over the past few years as she has been out to visit in Australia a couple of times. But there was much merriment and good food at her house where we all gathered - D-d and her NYM, the children, his parents and us.
However we had a bit of a hiccup on the way...
I drove to church as usual, it was a lovely joyful service, then home to open our presents to each other and head off to D-d's. About half way there one of our back tyres deflated, rapidly. One minute it was fine, the next it was totally flat. We were in the middle of a main road and I slowly limped the car to the nearest turn off. By this point the tyre is looking a bit shredded. As is the way with so many modern cars it has no spare wheel at all - just the 'rescue' canister of air and sealant.
I ring D-d, who is in the middle of cooking dinner, and explain. Her husband comes to rescue us. He agrees with me that it is unlikely the contents of the rescue canister would work with the amount of damage. We leave the car with a note on it, on double yellow lines but not blocking the driveways of either of the houses near it. There is not much that can be done over Christmas about it - had I rung the RAC (I am still a member) we would probably have had to stay with the car for quite a while, and there would have been nothing the repair man could have done apart from, possibly, towing the car home for us - whilst Christmas Dinner would be badly disrupted.
Dinner was a success - everyone ate their favourite parts of it and we played the Festive Bingo game that came in the Christmas crackers - this allowed our main course to settle down enough to allow for pudding,
Most of us decided we might actually have room for proper Christmas pudding; one of D-d's clients had sent her an enormous Fortnum and Mason's hamper as a gift and we can confirm the pudding was excellent, served with a choice of brandy sauce, brandy cream or plain cream. There were profiteroles for those who didn't want any of the proper pudding!
Then we opened presents. Everything was very well received - NYK2 was especially pleased to get D&D related things from us, and a voucher that will cover quite a few hot drinks for her and her friends at their favourite place to hang out - The Adventurers' Tavern - a board games cafe. S2C went to get the vouchers and had trouble finding it - we rather love the fact that it is a bit like a shop in a D&D campaign - it has left the previous shop front in place and so, at first sight, seems to be a Fancy Dress Shop! (For those of a certain generation of Brits, including D-d, Mr Benn springs to mind.)
Her ultimate present, though, was a joint one from D-d and the NYM, and his parents - it is a large, state of the art, telescope. Set up in her bedroom beside her current one it looks like an adult beside a very small infant. She is thrilled with it.
NYK1 got mainly money - and a Lego Concorde, the build of which is already well under way. However one of his gifts kept him, his dad and even his granddad, fascinated for a good hour; his grandma had include a pack of sports socks in his gift, and the shop had left the security tag on... She said she had no idea where the receipt was, but she would take them back and see if they believed she had got them there and remove it. We all thought that if he had taken them in himself he might have been accused of shop-lifting.
However - the NYM and his dad decided it must be possible to remove it... they applied strong magnets, the drill, looked up on line how to do it... by this point Chris (the NYM's Mum) and I were suggesting treating it as a pack of 2 pairs of socks and a spare! Eventually they did remove it - leaving only a smallish hole in the sock!
Chris and I were amused to find we had both bought D-d and the NYM vouchers to spend time at The Willow Spa which is less than a mile from their house and so they can walk it, allowing themselves a glass of wine whilst there. (It has only been open for a couple of months and is already one of their favourite places to chill out.)
My favourite present is a bright red Kitchen Aid hand-blender from S2C - my old (somewhat cheaper) one having broken beyond repair about a month ago.
The NYM's parents gave us a lift home.
This morning I checked, and all the tyre repair places are shut as it is Boxing Day - I will ring 1st thing in the morning and see if one of them can retrieve the car and put a new tyre on for us.
I did ring the number on my RAC membership card this morning, too, only to get a message saying it is no longer in use, these days you need to contact them on-line!! I did, then, go to the online site; as I am at home on my laptop this was fairly easy - and then realised that as there is no chat option it would be difficult, within the parameters given, to explain the problem and the fact that I am no longer with the car. I gave up on that. And I found myself wondering how many of their older members would actually have a smart phone with them, which they felt confident to use online, and could cope with typing in all the information they used to give to a person. I really must cancel my membership sometime.
We had a good Christmas Day all things considered. S2C is still upset about the death of his mother - as is our daughter of course. She knew her grandmother better than he did over the past few years as she has been out to visit in Australia a couple of times. But there was much merriment and good food at her house where we all gathered - D-d and her NYM, the children, his parents and us.
However we had a bit of a hiccup on the way...
I drove to church as usual, it was a lovely joyful service, then home to open our presents to each other and head off to D-d's. About half way there one of our back tyres deflated, rapidly. One minute it was fine, the next it was totally flat. We were in the middle of a main road and I slowly limped the car to the nearest turn off. By this point the tyre is looking a bit shredded. As is the way with so many modern cars it has no spare wheel at all - just the 'rescue' canister of air and sealant.
I ring D-d, who is in the middle of cooking dinner, and explain. Her husband comes to rescue us. He agrees with me that it is unlikely the contents of the rescue canister would work with the amount of damage. We leave the car with a note on it, on double yellow lines but not blocking the driveways of either of the houses near it. There is not much that can be done over Christmas about it - had I rung the RAC (I am still a member) we would probably have had to stay with the car for quite a while, and there would have been nothing the repair man could have done apart from, possibly, towing the car home for us - whilst Christmas Dinner would be badly disrupted.
Dinner was a success - everyone ate their favourite parts of it and we played the Festive Bingo game that came in the Christmas crackers - this allowed our main course to settle down enough to allow for pudding,
Most of us decided we might actually have room for proper Christmas pudding; one of D-d's clients had sent her an enormous Fortnum and Mason's hamper as a gift and we can confirm the pudding was excellent, served with a choice of brandy sauce, brandy cream or plain cream. There were profiteroles for those who didn't want any of the proper pudding!
Then we opened presents. Everything was very well received - NYK2 was especially pleased to get D&D related things from us, and a voucher that will cover quite a few hot drinks for her and her friends at their favourite place to hang out - The Adventurers' Tavern - a board games cafe. S2C went to get the vouchers and had trouble finding it - we rather love the fact that it is a bit like a shop in a D&D campaign - it has left the previous shop front in place and so, at first sight, seems to be a Fancy Dress Shop! (For those of a certain generation of Brits, including D-d, Mr Benn springs to mind.)
Her ultimate present, though, was a joint one from D-d and the NYM, and his parents - it is a large, state of the art, telescope. Set up in her bedroom beside her current one it looks like an adult beside a very small infant. She is thrilled with it.
NYK1 got mainly money - and a Lego Concorde, the build of which is already well under way. However one of his gifts kept him, his dad and even his granddad, fascinated for a good hour; his grandma had include a pack of sports socks in his gift, and the shop had left the security tag on... She said she had no idea where the receipt was, but she would take them back and see if they believed she had got them there and remove it. We all thought that if he had taken them in himself he might have been accused of shop-lifting.
However - the NYM and his dad decided it must be possible to remove it... they applied strong magnets, the drill, looked up on line how to do it... by this point Chris (the NYM's Mum) and I were suggesting treating it as a pack of 2 pairs of socks and a spare! Eventually they did remove it - leaving only a smallish hole in the sock!
Chris and I were amused to find we had both bought D-d and the NYM vouchers to spend time at The Willow Spa which is less than a mile from their house and so they can walk it, allowing themselves a glass of wine whilst there. (It has only been open for a couple of months and is already one of their favourite places to chill out.)
My favourite present is a bright red Kitchen Aid hand-blender from S2C - my old (somewhat cheaper) one having broken beyond repair about a month ago.
The NYM's parents gave us a lift home.
This morning I checked, and all the tyre repair places are shut as it is Boxing Day - I will ring 1st thing in the morning and see if one of them can retrieve the car and put a new tyre on for us.
I did ring the number on my RAC membership card this morning, too, only to get a message saying it is no longer in use, these days you need to contact them on-line!! I did, then, go to the online site; as I am at home on my laptop this was fairly easy - and then realised that as there is no chat option it would be difficult, within the parameters given, to explain the problem and the fact that I am no longer with the car. I gave up on that. And I found myself wondering how many of their older members would actually have a smart phone with them, which they felt confident to use online, and could cope with typing in all the information they used to give to a person. I really must cancel my membership sometime.